Gip validates commissioner of Glovo: 'Regularise 40,000 riders'

The gip of Milan, Roberto Crepaldi, has validated the decree of urgent judicial control against Glovo-Foodinho and ordered, with regard to the Spanish food delivery giant investigated for caporalato on 2,000 riders in Milan and 40,000 throughout Italy by the Public Prosecutor Paolo Storari with the Carabinieri of the Nucleo Ispettorato Lavoro, that the judicial administrator, the accountant Andrea Adriano Romanò, provide for the 'regularisation of the workers' who, at the time of the start of the investigation 'were working' also to prevent the 'violations from being repeated'.

The judicial administrator is also entrusted with the task of carrying out 'controls' with respect to the 'rules and working conditions' that, if violated, represent an 'index of exploitation' and to 'adopt appropriate measures' also different from those 'proposed' by the company to prevent the phenomena of 'caporalato' on the cycle delivery workers from recurring. In the investigation, the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office contests salaries up to 76.95 per cent lower than the poverty threshold and 81.62 per cent lower than the sector's collective agreement.

Glovo-Foodinho must "introduce an algorithm" that is "capable of guaranteeing" riders "an income compatible with constitutional dictates" and "recalculate" the salaries "up to now" paid because even the vat holders are entitled to "a minimum hourly remuneration" benchmarked to the "minimums" established by "national collective agreements". This was written by the gip of Milan, Roberto Crepaldi, in the judicial control decree on the multinational food delivery company under investigation for caporalato.

The investigations and testimonies collected from the 'individual riders' - 41 were heard in the first phase of the investigation by the Carabinieri of the Nucleo Ispettorato Lavoro (Labour Inspectorate Unit) with the Public Prosecutor Paolo Storari - whose stories were confirmed by forensic analysis on the devices with which they connected to Glovo's app, would have shown that 'wages' below the 'poverty line' were paid to those who worked an 'average of 9/10 hours a day' for 'at least six days' a week for a total of '54/60 hours' per week. A working time 'well beyond' the 'normal' working time of employees or subordinates of '40 hours' per week.

The 'way of determining the riders' remuneration' is 'certainly the result' of a precise 'political choice of the company', reads the 23-page order in the passages in which the judge for preliminary investigations argues the precautionary requirements and the charges against the company as well as the Spanish manager, Miquel Oscar Pierre. 'Maximising profit', summarises the gip, 'through the exploitation of subjects who, due to personal conditions, origin and needs' individual 'are not able to escape those conditions'.