Rider, how the corporal's racket works: up to 50 per cent of earnings removed
Irregular migrants in check: some take on debts of 15,000 euro to get to Italy. Fake profiles for 1,500 euro on Telegram, violence and pressure
by Ivan Cimmarusti and Sara Monaci
A job paid between two and four euros per ride. And often half of it slips away, into the wrong hands. In the folds of food delivery, a parallel system with a precise name has taken root: digital porter. You don't need squares or vans as in the traditional model: all you need is a rented account, a support account, an electric bike and sometimes a bed in a shared flat. The corporal provides the package. In return he demands up to 50% of the daily takings.
The mechanism is widespread throughout Italy, with a particular incidence among the 30,000 riders of Glovo and Deliveroo (unrelated to the offences): formally self-employed workers, but precisely for this reason more vulnerable to the dynamics of caporalato. A reality that does not involve Just Eat, where the delivery boys were employed under subordinate employment contracts.
The Digital Corporal
.The Carabinieri for Labour Protection are filling reports with the statements of the riders (in particular Pakistani and Bengali), so much so that multiple proceedings are being opened in several Italian prosecutors' offices, including Milan. But increasingly the forerunner is the trade union, the CGIL Nidil, which through its territorial structures is mapping an alarming scenario.
The perfect prey? Irregulars without residence permits and those who have no resources to begin with. There are those who, in order to arrive in Italy, have charged 15,000 euro in debt, becoming de facto servants of the organisation that brought them. Often the networks of digital corporals are of the same ethnic group, but it is difficult for anything to happen without the hand of Italians. Thus, unaware of the platforms, criminal temporary agencies grow. Not only 'job packages': everything is for sale. Fake licences, software capable of manipulating apps to obtain priority in orders, accounts already registered on the platforms that can be bought on Telegram channels for 1,500 euros to increase delivery capacity. The corporal provides, directs, monetises.
Infinite Shifts and Violence
.A little less than five years after the big legal scandals - such as the Uber Italia case - exploitation seems to have returned through the back door. Different actors, identical script. The riders describe exhausting shifts to cover the daily fee to be paid to the corporal.
