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The Graffiti Movement said “exploitative recruitment agencies” should be abolished and workers hired directly by platform workers.
“We stand in solidarity with the 345 food couriers who are striking over pitifully low wages. As we warned last December, the government’s new law to better regulate the industry is doomed to fail because it does not eliminate exploitative recruitment agencies,” the NGO said.
The move comes in response to news that 345 couriers were protesting over pay after the company scrapped weekend bonuses. Food couriers say they are struggling to make ends meet after companies slashed their wages. They say some are working 18-hour days for as little as 3 euros an hour.
In a Facebook post titled “What the government isn’t telling you about striking Bolt workers”, the NGO said the government needs to overhaul current legislation to eliminate the structural causes of this “systemic exploitation”.
“Companies like Bolt are not the actual employers of the striking workers. Bolt has agreements with parasitic recruitment agencies that employ workers under abusive conditions,” they said. “This arrangement ensures that both platform companies (such as Bolt) and employment agencies can exploit workers without legal consequences. Platform companies can change the wages they pay workers at will because technically it is the employment agencies that set the wages, not them.”
They say it is almost impossible for workers to take action against exploitation by recruitment agencies, which have the power to terminate their residence permits in Malta.
“It is not enough to require workers to join unions. The government needs to overhaul current legislation to remove the structural causes of this systemic exploitation,” they said in response to a ministerial statement earlier today.
“Exploitative recruitment agencies should be abolished and all workers in the sector should be employed directly by platform companies and receive legally regulated wages and working conditions,” the NGO said.
“Ministers have forgotten their duty” – Iván Castillo
In another Facebook post Monday evening, opposition lawmaker Ivan Castillo said ministers should not only make sure the laws are correct, but also that they are enforced, and that “anyone who exploits workers must be punished by the law, otherwise the law is worthless!”
“This afternoon I asked the Minister in Parliament what action should be taken in the face of 345 platform workers publicly claiming they were robbed! The Work Regulation Order specifically targeting these workers is not being enforced! Earlier today, Deputy Minister Andy Ellul issued a statement saying that no reports had been received!” he said on Facebook.
“The minister and deputy minister are not only supposed to make sure the laws are correct, they are also supposed to make sure the laws are enforced and those who exploit workers are brought to justice, otherwise the laws are worthless! They seem to have either forgotten or simply don’t know what the minister’s job is,” he said.
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