Recent protests by delivery couriers have focused public interest on precarity and labour rights in Ukraine. With unbearable and sometimes dangerous conditions, working as a courier is one of the poorest paid jobs out there today. Earlier this year, a Yandex.Eats courier in St Petersburg, Russia died from overwork, and several months later, a courier for the Glovo delivery service died in a traffic accident in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Indeed, much like other precarious workers around the world, couriers at Glovo, a market leader in Ukraine, are now coming out for their rights, including forming a union. Yet the company still refuses to categorise its relationship with its couriers as employment, instead calling them independent subcontractors.
This isn’t unusual for Ukraine’s gig economy, but this worker mobilisation is a sign that things might be changing for the better. Lawyer Georgy Sandul, who works for the Labour Initiatives NGO, speaks here about legalising precarious workers, changing Ukraine’s labour legislation and union campaigns for workers’ rights.
