Further protest with gorillas in Berlin

On Wednesday, a rider was summarily dismissed, after which colleagues of his walked off the job. Since then, demonstrators in Berlin have been blocking warehouses of gorillas, the company is surprisingly silent.

There is no peace at Gorillas: After last week's dispute over the first meeting to establish a works council, Gorillas riders have been protesting at the start-up's warehouses in Berlin since Wednesday. The trigger was the summary dismissal of an employee who, according to various reports, was dismissed by the protesters on Wednesday morning without a warning. He himself told the taz: "I was not given any reason by the management."

Colleagues of his started to lay down their work at the warehouse in Charlottenburg out of solidarity. The group Gorillas Workers Collective called for further protest at the warehouse in Prenzlauer Berg and set an ultimatum for reinstatement until midnight on Thursday. The protest continues, on Thursday the operator of a warehouse called the police. The demand is to reinstate the rider and improve working conditions, as well as abolish the six-month probationary period.

To the Tagesspiegel, Gorillas confirmed the "exclusively behavior-related dismissal of an employee during his probationary period. Gorillas is actively engaged in a factual dialogue with the employee group." The termination was for repeated tardiness, he said. On Friday, Gorillas invited its employees to a virtual meeting to discuss what happened.

The company's Riders, as the grocery delivery service's bike messengers call themselves, have been criticizing poor working conditions for months. During the winter, some of them protested because they were told to work despite icy roads and poor clothing. Last Thursday, Gorillas employees elected an election board, the first step toward forming a works council. Following discussions about a list of employees who were not allowed to participate in the event, Gorillas announced that it would review the legal validity of the election.

On social media, riders from companies such as Lieferando or other Gorillas locations showed solidarity with the protest in Berlin. Politicians like Cansel Kiziltepe from the SPD also expressed their support: "We fought hard for industrial action and workers' rights. We don't allow hire-and-fire and union-busting."