Study shows unfair working conditions for gorillas and co.

The Fairwork initiative examined the working conditions of twelve German platforms. In the ranking, Uber, Freenow and Gorillas perform the worst.

The Fairwork Germany Rating 2021 has been published and exposes shortcomings in labor standards in the platform economy. The study was conducted by the Social Science Research Center in Berlin and the University of Oxford, among others. The researchers examined twelve online platforms for the criteria of fair pay, working conditions, contracts, management processes and co-determination.

With nine out of ten points, the staffing service provider Zenjob took first place in the fairness ranking. The delivery services Wolt and Lieferando take second place with seven points each. In the middle ranks are the companies Flink, Careship, Getir, Amazon Flex, Betreut.de and Helpling. With only two out of ten points, the delivery service Gorillas is in penultimate place. The cab apps Freenow and Uber share last place with just one point each.

The majority of platforms were unable to guarantee that employees have a living wage after deducting work-related costs. Also, only five of the twelve platforms were able to demonstrate a commitment to combating discrimination in the workplace. Gorillas stood out particularly negatively because there was apparently evidence of anti-union measures there. The company had long tried to prevent the establishment of a works council in Berlin.

The motivation for the study was to create "humane and fair working conditions in the German platform economy," according to the Fairwork Germany team. "At the same time, however, we also want to show with our research that a different platform economy is possible - and that innovation and flexibility should not necessarily be synonymous with precarity and insecurity."