Consumer convenience and lower prices are often touted as reasons why the gig economy is becoming so popular, especially in the hard times we’re experiencing ever since the breakout of a global pandemic. However, what we are not told by the proponents of the gig market is that these advantages come at the expense of workers who are taken for granted and rarely seen, by the consumers, the platforms they work through, and the law.

Far from providing flexibility and a steady income, gig workers who are third country nationals (TCNs) are finding themselves trapped in a vulnerable position on multiple levels. The truth is that they are exploited from the get-go, firstly by the temporary employment agencies who are illegally profiting from gig work. It has emerged that a number of food couriers are paying well-above the expenses incurred just to secure a job; thousands of euros simply to obtain a one-year permit to work in Malta.

Secondly, these temporary employment agencies – which simply send their employees to work as couriers with companies like Bolt – are taking 50% of the workers’ income, meaning that most of them have to work up to 80 hours a week just to be able to survive. Apart from that, unlike with regular recruitment agencies, these temporary agencies employ the workers with themselves. They hold control over the workers’ lives and future since as third country nationals, their residence permits are tied to their employment status. They also enjoy no security or peace of mind since the agency can decide to terminate their residency at will by terminating their job.

In effect, these temporary agencies are only intermediaries to actual employment, so one solution to better protect the rights and dignity of these workers would be to completely cut out the middle man. This would mean updating the law to make these types of agencies illegal, with JobsPlus becoming the only legal entity for recruitment, even for temporary work, and with workers employed directly with the company where they are working.

But since the exploitation is rife, stopping there is not enough. Companies like Bolt and Wolt that are part of the platform economy are also problematic. Hearing their spokespersons speak, you would think that these companies are benevolent charities existing only to improve the lives of their customers and the workers. Seb Ripard, CEO of TFX Tech and Bolt partners, tried to paint a picture in which the gig economy model benefits all parties involved. What he failed to say was that in this kind of economy where the employer-employee relationship disintegrates, the onus is no longer on the employer. The brunt is borne solely by the worker. So while these companies continue to get richer without having to take any responsibility for the TCN workers’ wellbeing, the workers have to deal with making enough money to live off, and hoping that they don’t get into any accidents or suffer any injuries on the job.

This is also discriminatory since Maltese and European nationals working with companies like Bolt are considered as self-employed, while TCN workers, although technically considered as full-time workers employed by the temporary employment agencies, are left with no protection since their employment contract with these agencies is not being respected at all. TCN workers get no leave, sick leave, bonuses and to top it all off, have to work with their tongues out only to get 50% of the income they generate, since the other half is taken by the temporary employment agencies.

As has happened before, if a TCN worker tries to fight for what is rightfully theirs, the employment agency will simply terminate their contract. As a result, TCN workers are further pushed into vulnerability by having to choose between protecting their health or facing a loss of income. As if that is not enough, Bolt has also recalculated their distance rates and slashed earnings for all their food-couriers, meaning that workers are making less and having to work more.

Seb Ripard justified this as a measure brought on by economic hardships caused by COVID-19. He must be living in a separate realm in which people aren’t choosing to stay inside and the demand for food deliveries hasn’t increased substantially. In a tale as old as time, the fat cat just wants to keep getting fatter and so, interventions must be made to make sure that the workers are not getting short-changed.

One suggestion is to make sure that workers are paid an adequate hourly wage, irrespective of how many deliveries they make. This would also go some way into protecting the workers’ employment status and earnings when the demand for food deliveries decreases.

If we really don’t want ‘flexibility’ to mean ‘job insecurity’, Malta’s employment and residency laws really need to be amended to include TCN workers and treat them as equal to Maltese and EU workers. What this does NOT mean is to blame foreign workers for stagnating salaries and low wages, as Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has recently done. The downward pressure on wages did happen, but this was a direct result of an institutionally-sponsored framework, created by none other than Clyde Caruana himself, that engendered the exploitation of foreign workers

As with most workers providing Bolt with labour, these TCN workers were made totally dependent on their employers and routinely mistreated by Identity Malta. Clyde Caruana, in his vest as head of JobsPlus, was the architect of a disposable labour force that can never demand respect of existing employment rights, let alone ask for better pay or better rights. It was this structural exploitation that brought wages down, and not the mere presence of foreign workers.

Now, the minister seems to be using the old tactic of creating horizontal conflicts within the same class, when the real conflict exists between the oppressors (the exploitative employment agencies and the platforms using these agencies) and the oppressed (the TCNs who have no job security or protection). Reading the list of quotas he suggested imposing on migrant workers left me wondering whether he was talking about human beings or cattle. TCNs appear to have made a convenient scapegoat for the same person who just a few years ago was saying that we need thousands of workers for our growing economy.

It is high time that we recognize all workers, be they Maltese, European or TCNs, as not only the backbone of the economy, but above all else, as human beings with rights and dignity. Appreciation for workers is not shown by a few token statements and applause, but by removing health and income precarity.