‘It’s a nightmare’: couriers mystified by the algorithms that control their jobs | Gig economy

Most days a thicket of couriers can be seen around the McDonald’s in Northern Ireland’s Ballymena, waiting for orders and discussing the mysteries of the systems that rule their working lives.

This week gig workers, trade unions and human rights groups launched a campaign for greater openness from Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo about the logic underpinning opaque algorithms that determine what work they do and what they are paid.

The couriers wonder why someone who has only just logged on gets a gig while others waiting longer are overlooked. Why, when the restaurant is busy and crying out for couriers, does the app say there are none available?

“We can never work out the algorithm,” one of the drivers says, requesting anonymity for fear of losing work. They wonder if the app ignores them if they’ve done a few jobs already that hour, and experiment with standing inside the restaurant, on the pavement or in the car park to see if subtle shifts in geolocation matter.

“It’s an absolute nightmare,” says the driver, adding that they permanently lost access to one of the platforms over a matter of a “max five minutes” wait in getting to a restaurant while he finished another job for a different app. Sometimes he gets logged out for a couple of hours because his beard has grown, confusing the facial recognition software.

“It’s not at all like being an employee,” he says He is regularly frustrated by having to challenge what appeared to be shortfall in pay per job – sometimes just 10p, but at other times a few pounds. “There’s nobody you can talk to. Everything is automated.”

The app companies say they do have rider support staffed by people and some information about the algorithms is available on their websites and when drivers are initially “onboarded”.

But similar frustrations simmer in Lincoln, where at 9pm one evening, Lucas Myron was delivering burgers, fried chicken and groceries when without warning a chunk of his work stopped. One of the two takeaway apps he used suddenly ceased to function. Without warning, half of the father-of-one’s gig economy income vanished.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “What happened?”

It wasn’t easy to find out. “A human boss would try to speak to you and say what has happened,” he said. “But [on this app] you can’t really connect with them.”

A few hours later he received an email explaining that the app company had “taken the decision to revoke access” to his account because he had been elongating his journey to the pickup point, taking longer than reasonable. It didn’t add up, but there was no straightforward way to find out more.

It wasn’t until weeks later, when he exercised his legal right to request data held about himself, that he was told something completely different: the app company believed he had tried to manipulate the system to undeservedly earn extra fees for waiting at restaurants to pick up orders.

This had been spotted by team members, the app company claimed. An apparent algorithmic intervention was now being described as a human one. But when Myron looked back at his pay records, he could see none of the fees he was accused of taking. It was discombobulating.

“I am not the only driver,” he says. “A lot of people lose their accounts for no reason.”

Into the information vacuum left by the disembodied algorithm, he speculates: was he pushed off for also using a rival app? There is no evidence that is the case, but none of the evidence presented to him about why he was deactivated added up either. So trust crumbles. Now relying on only one app, he struggles to make £10 an hour, less than the statutory national minimum wage.

James Farrar has long experience with work on algorithm-driven platforms. When he worked as a minicab driver on the Uber app he joined forces with fellow driver Yaseen Aslam to bring a legal case against Uber. It ended in a UK supreme court verdict that Uber drivers should be granted greater employment rights – including a minimum wage and holiday pay. Now a campaigner for precarious workers, he maintains a Deliveroo account.

One quiet afternoon in his area of Surrey he seemed to be the only courier logged on to the app, so he was able to watch as the algorithm asked him to pick up a delivery from a BP garage. Every six or seven minutes the app asked him again, each time quoting him a different fee: from £14.74 it fell to £12.30 and rose to £16.08 in the space of less than half an hour and kept swinging – in all a 45% margin in the wage on offer.

“Every worker should understand the basis on which they are paid,” Farrar said. “But you’re being gamed into deciding whether to accept a job or not. Will I get a better offer? It’s like gambling and it’s very distressing and stressful for people.

“You are completely in a vacuum about how best to do the job and because people often don’t understand how decisions are being made about their work, it encourages conspiracies.”