Drivers delivering orders for Ocado are getting paid less than £5 an hour, which is under the UK minimum wage. 

Faizan Babar, who has been delivering Ocado groceries for more than two years, said he could not afford to take his two young daughters on holiday this year or replace their broken scooter. “I’m making on average £50 on a 10-hour shift. And we pay for our own cars, tax, fuel and insurance out of that. It works out less than £5 an hour. Ocado is treating us like dirt.”

Some workers are getting only £2.80 an hour which is not enough to survive without many struggles.

Another driver, Jakaria Rehman, 35, said he was earning around £3 an hour. “Ocado is disgraceful. They say we don’t work for Ocado but we are delivering for them. They don’t appreciate us,” he said.

The drivers have even been made to buy new smart clothes. Ryde specifies on the app that “tracksuits… are not acceptable and may result in you not being able to work the shift”. Babar, who worked throughout the lockdowns despite being classed as clinically vulnerable, said it was yet another expense the couriers were expected to bear themselves. “Jeans and shirts are more than £50, and you need to have at least two or three pairs. It is at least a couple of hundred pounds that we don’t have,” he said.

One driver has to take painkillers to get through the working day. “Every delivery is at least 30kg to 40kg. If you are making 20 or 30 trips, you are carrying more than 1,000kg every day,” said Fahim. “I have to take painkillers because my back and knees hurt.”

taken from the guardian