Perceived COVID‐19 health and job risks faced by digital platform drivers and measures in place to protect them: A qualitative study

Abstract

Introduction: As they deliver food, packages, and people across cities, digital platform drivers (gig workers) are in a key position to become infected with COVID-19 and transmit it to many others. The aim of this study is to identify perceived COVID-19 exposure and job risks faced by workers and document the measures in place to protect their health, and how workers responded to these measures. Methods: In 2020-2021, in-depth interviews were conducted in Ontario, Canada, with 33 digital platform drivers and managers across nine platforms that delivered food, packages, or people. Interviews focused on perceived COVID-19 risks and mitigation strategies. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and uploaded to NVivo software for coding by varied dual pairs of researchers. A Stakeholder Advisory Committee played an instrumental role in the study. Results: As self-employed workers were without the protection of employment and occupational health standards, platform workers absorbed most of the occupational risks related to COVID-19. Despite safety measures (e.g., contactless delivery) and financial support for COVID-19 illnesses introduced by platform companies, perceived COVID-19 risks remained high because of platform-related work pressures, including rating systems. We identify five key COVID-19 related risks faced by the digital platform drivers. Conclusion: We situate platform drivers within the broad context of precarious employment and recommend organizational-and government-level interventions to prevent digital platform worker COVID-19 risks and to assist workers ill with COVID-19. Measures to protect the health of platform workers would benefit public health aims by reducing transmission by drivers to families, customers, and consequently, the greater population.

Laws, Policies, and Collective Agreements Protecting Low-wage and Digital Platform Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Protection against unsafe working conditions via occupational health and safety standards is a particularly pertinent issue for self-employed digital platform workers, as platforms can push workers to engage in risky work via algorithmic prompts and punishments, particularly during the pandemic (e.g., accepting unmasked riders to ensure good rider ratings). 95 The non-transparency of algorithms and lack of recourse for platform workers to resist unfair conditions has been a much-needed area for policy development. Protection is also needed in jurisdictions, such as New Zealand, where, despite a notable lack of control over their working conditions, laws hold self-employed platform workers responsible for the health of their customers.…”

Towards the platformisation of employment in post-pandemic Aotearoa New Zealand? Evidence from the Future Worlds of Work survey

“…Migrants from the Global South have long been recruited into low-wage work in the Global North (Bauder, 2008;Scott et al, 2022;Webster & Zhang, 2021), and the rise of gig work has extended this trend (van Doorn & Vijay, 2021). And concerningly, evidence from overseas is increasingly associating gig work with negative effects on health and wellbeing (Glavin & Schieman, 2022), particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, when workers were left without protections and, therefore, more at risk of exposure to the virus (Apouey et al, 2020;MacEachen et al, 2022;Stephany et al, 2020). Yet currently we know little about the prevalence of gig work in Aotearoa New Zealand or the sectors they work in (Riggs et al, 2019;New Zealand Productivity Commission, 2020).…”

“…Trends towards platformisation and increasing precarity, with individualised risks and decreased employment protections for workers, have been accentuated by the Covids-19 crisis (Hamilton et al, 2022;MacEachen et al, 2022;Stephany et al, 2020). As well as gig workers, there is a likelihood that those in more insecure types of work, such as fixed-term or casual contracts, and those in sectors more exposed to shifts in demand, such as hospitality and retail (which are also over-represented by Māori and women), would be more exposed to the effects of the crisis, despite the relatively generous support packages offered by the New Zealand government (O'Neil, 2021).…”