Heroic labors of delivery workers
What is guaranteed to work at any temperature from minus 5 to 46 Celsius (23 to 115 Fahrenheit)? «Thermometers and couriers,» say the Caballeros, a group that is organizing a demonstration by motorcyclists who do deliveries, run errands and act as couriers. «We are the guys with the motorbikes, the invisible workers of a factory that reach every corner of the city,» they write in their flyer. The Association of Motorcyle Delivery Workers, formed a year ago, has several hundred members, but there are more than 20,000 such workers in Attica alone. A Labor Inspectorate study shows that one in four motorcyclists delivering food has had at least one accident while on the job, and one in five has suffered musculoskeletal problems and serious colds. Only one in four companies supplies helmets, while very few train their delivery people or provide proper safety equipment as required by law. Basic workers’ rights are frequently ignored as the majority of delivery people work uninsured. «It’s really bad. Nobody gets extra benefits for doing heavy and unhealthy work. And the only ones with insurance are those who work for large companies,» Stelios Erotokritos, a member of the ACS Courier workers’ union, who has been in the field for the past five years. With a basic wage of 670 euros a month, many people work two jobs. «In the morning I work at a hardware store and in the evening at a fast-food place. Otherwise I can’t make ends meet,» K.H. told Kathimerini. Long hours, traffic jams, sneaking down one-way streets in the wrong direction, and driving on sidewalks are part of their everyday working conditions. «The boss knows how long it takes to do a delivery, but when there’s a lot of work, most of the guys speed and they often break the law,» said Angelos Hatziantoniou, who has been doing deliveries for five years while studying tourism management in Crete. Companies often pay parking fines. «Of course they won’t force me to go though a red light but there’s often huge pressure from employers to go fast,» said Erotokritou. Tips are the positive side of the job. «Most customers tip from 50 cents to 2 euros. In exceptional cases we get 5 to 10 euros. But lately, more people pay solely for the delivery and give no tip,» said K.H. Many couriers and delivery people are students and foreigners, and most give up the job by the age of 35. Medical school student by day, dispatcher by night If you consider that a doctor doing a specialization gets paid 60 euros for doing what is usually a 16-hour shift, then you can see why Alexis Hatziantoniou, 30, never thought he was being ripped off when he worked as a delivery boy for -3.50 an hour. Resisting temptation During the day he studied pathology, anatomy and difficult medical cases. From Friday to Sunday he did deliveries for about seven hours a day. «We had to work very fast, but I never gave in to the temptation to break the law on the motorbike. It was my choice. Most people do, though. I decided to give up the job when I realized that I wasn’t going to finish my degree in time,» said Hatziantoniou, who is specializing in orthopedic surgery. He didn’t regret it and is proud to have supplemented his pocket money by working for a year at a souvlaki shop near where he lives in Peristeri. «Of course I had the advantage that I wasn’t doing the job to make a living, so I never felt the anxiety and pressure that others did. If I were a student now I’d do it again, and maybe for more years,» he told Kathimerini.
