After UFCW-Uber Deal, the Gig Worker Struggle Continues

By Ivan Byard, YCLer in Toronto (Fred Rose club)

On January 26, at the last minute, United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW) pulled out of a joint panel discussion with the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), and Gig Workers United (GWU) on the Ford government and Uber’s plan to “gigify” the economy. The following day, Uber Canada and UFCW announced that they had signed a partnership. 

This deal came as a surprise to many, including employees of Uber, with the leading representative of the 300-member Uber Black/SUV UFCW organizing drive in Toronto, Ejaz Butt, making a social media post asking UFCW to publicly release the details of the mysterious deal. President Jennifer Scott and Vice President Brice Sopher of Gig Workers United, a Toronto-based community union supported by CUPW that includes Uber Eats workers, said that GWU members were unaware of the negotiations and expressed frustration on behalf of workers who were not given a seat at the table for the Uber-UFCW deal. This deal does not unionize the approximately 100,000 Uber drivers and couriers with UFCW, the largest private sector union in the Canadian Labour Congress. 

UFCW’s press release announcing the deal with Uber states:

“Through this agreement, UFCW Canada can provide representation if requested by drivers and delivery people facing an account deactivation or other account dispute issues, including representation throughout the existing third-party dispute resolution process. […]

Uber Canada and UFCW Canada have also agreed to press provincial governments to enact reforms that provide new benefits and preserve worker choice on when, where, and if to work. Uber Canada and UFCW Canada will jointly advocate for these industry-wide legislative standards – like minimum earnings standard, a benefits fund, and access to workers’ rights – across the country.”

The language used in the press release is clear: it shows that UFCW is ready to strike alliances with transnational, multi-million dollar corporations. This was not an organizing drive with workers and a union, but an undemocratic partnership between the union and the boss. The type of language used in the announcement specifically does not refer to workers as employees, nor does it make reference to the provincial labour relations boards. This deal frames unions as service providers, rather than organizing bodies for the working class and vehicles for class struggle. This kind of deal has one name: tripartism.

In a Globe and Mail article released the day of the UFCW-Uber deal, UFCW President Paul Meinema was quoted as saying, “UFCW is fully committed to the idea that all app workers should have better rights, but a classification of the status of workers should not be a determining factor in negotiating with Uber.” 

This is a reversal from Meinema’s earlier position, as stated in a March 2021 UFCW press release:

“‘Uber is really just flexing and dodging the fact that they are the employer, and its workers are employees who are entitled to the full protection and rights under current labour laws, including the right to unionize […] This cynical ploy about so-called benefits shows how desperate Uber is to maintain control over its employees and avoid any meaningful conversations in regard to their employees’ rights to collective bargaining,’ says Brother Meinema.”

One week after the UFCW-Uber announcement, the Conservative government of Ontario brought forward a plan (with no details) to provide healthcare benefits for workers in the gig economy. This is a move to normalize the gig economy as it currently exists. A benefits plan was one of 21 recommendations from the December 2021 Ontario Workforce Recovery Advisory Committee report, which suggested that a “dependent contractor” category be created for app-based gig workers, thus creating a third category of employment. This third category is the ruling class’ answer to losing the fight to determine if app-based workers are employees rather than “contractors”, and a desperate attempt to “prop up” the economy through unstable employment.

In August 2019, GWU, then called Foodsters United, undertook a unionization vote for Foodora workers. Foodora, an app with a similar model to Uber Eats, argued that its workers were “independent contractors” rather than employees. In February 2020, the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) ruled that Foodora workers were in fact employees and not independent contractors. Two months later, Foodora declared bankruptcy and abandoned their workers in the height of the lockdown and economic crisis. The eventually unsealed ballot revealed an 88.8% “yes” vote in favour of unionization. CUPW represented the Foodora workers in bankruptcy proceedings and was fundamental in helping workers across the country access funds from the settlement. After Foodora pulled out of Canada, Foodsters United was renamed Gig Workers United and started campaigning to organize delivery workers across all apps. 

In November 2019, UFCW, in a fight for workers to be recognized as employees instead of contractors, filed a complaint with the BC Labour Relations Board against Uber and Lyft. In January 2020, UFCW filed a unionization application with the OLRB after months of organizing Uber Black and SUV drivers in the Greater Toronto Area. 

In 2017, Uber Eats worker David Heller tried to start a class action lawsuit against Uber to force the company to recognize workers as employees rather than contractors. In June 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld an Ontario Superior Court ruling by an 8-1 majority in favour of Heller and Uber workers. The Supreme Court ruled that Uber workers had the right to have labour disputes heard by the OLRB rather than Uber’s arbitrator of choice. UFCW intervened with Heller in the Supreme Court case. 

As Young Communists, we understand that the problem with this deal is that it shifts gig workers into a third category outside of “employee” or “contractor.” While it’s easy to criticize UFCW for signing this deal – as Unifor President Jerry Dias has done – we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Throughout the pandemic, UFCW has organized several union drives for retail workers, particularly in the marijuana industry and in Indigo bookstores. Likewise, we cannot dismiss Unifor’s organizing work, even though Unifor signed the 2007 prototype for the UFCW-Uber deal, the “Framework of Fairness,” which gave up the right to strike in exchange for management approval for unionization of its auto parts plants. We believe that workers’ power comes from organizing on the ground, not from striking backroom deals with the boss. We will support the ongoing organizing drives of app-based workers as well as their political demands for a “Gig Workers Bill of Rights.” However, we also have a role to play in advancing their demands. 

Gig work is a growing part of the economy. The majority of college instructors in Ontario are part-time contract workers who undertook a decade-long fight to win union recognition. We want to fight for more than just improved working conditions for gig workers; we need to advance the fight for good jobs, and put forward the idea that no one should have to work two or more jobs just to make ends meet.

As Young Communists, we must take up the fight for good unionized public-sector jobs. Rather than advocating the foundation of a workers’ cooperative app to compete with corporations already trending towards monopolization, as some on the left are suggesting, we should advocate nationalization of these industries. We must increase public transportation and expand Canada Post. Looking beyond a “Gig Workers’ Bill of Rights,” we take up the long-standing demand of the Communist Party for a wider Labour Bill of Rights that would enshrine the right to unionize, the right to strike, and many other important democratic reforms.

We stand in solidarity with all gig and app-based workers as they continue their struggle and their fight for broad working-class interests. Our fight as Young Communists is ultimately not for vaguely “better conditions” for gig workers, but to be the generation that rids ourselves of unstable gig work and brings in decent jobs and respect for all.