Wrote about Foodorabud – now portrays slave drivers

It was during the corona pandemic that the freelance cultural writer and author Anders Teglund found himself forced to become a bicycle messenger, when his own industry was in crisis. He wrote the book “Cykelbudet” about the anonymous myriads of food couriers who cater to the middle class. But there is an even more invisible professional group at the company – the “dispatcher” – the person who, like the spider in the web, digitally controls all orders.

One of them contacted Anders Teglund to tell his story.

— I thought the company deserved it, partly considering how they treated us and partly considering how we should treat the bids, and whip them, says former dispatcher Dennis Elyasi.

He and Anders Teglund thought at first that it was strange to meet, from such different positions. There were rumors that the people checking the bike bids were bots, because the responses were so automated. And the dispatcher was hated among the messengers.

— Dennis said it was dark to sit on that side, and I understand that, having to face the bud’s frustration – because where are they going to direct it? It will be against the restaurants or against the dispatcher, says Anders Teglund.

“Nobody’s Listening”

Dennis Elyasi sat at home in front of his screen and coordinated the bicycle messengers – who could, for example, ask for a break, question whether they had to cycle 15 kilometers for a single order or call when they were trapped in a gate and the customer refused to help. Again and again, Dennis Elyasi sent off the prescribed answers.

— And those answers don’t help at all. It helps them understand that you have to ride your bike and that no one is listening, he says, and explains that the messengers therefore continued to try to get answers to the same questions.

Over time, Dennis Elyasi began to feel worse and worse about his job. He also felt that he received indirect calls to be strict, while management washed their hands when bike messengers wrote negatively about him in various forums.

— So, when the bid asks for something and I make a human, sensible decision about what will be best – for the bid, for the customer, for the restaurant… Then you were mostly greeted with “do your job” and “you shouldn’t make your own decisions.”

“I think I was the best paid of all the dispatchers. And then I had 125 kroner an hour,” says Dennis Elyasi, whose role at Foodora is described by Anders Teglund in “Slavdrivaren”. Organized as slavery

Buden describes his everyday life as slave-like. Anders Teglund began to think about the analogy and found that the structures of slavery were a prerequisite for the gig economy.

— During the latter part of slavery, on the plantations in the United States, it was a kind of experimental workshop where they found out “how can we remove the violence, but still make people work hard?” And then the slave drivers got a key role.

More elements of control and other discipline than corporal punishment were introduced. Dennis Elyasi adds that the gig economy works just like that: if you turn down the bad runs where you barely even make money, you get a tick in the system. If you say no to work shifts, you can get a “strike”, and thus worse conditions.

— When slavery was banned, the former slave drivers realized that the fear of hunger drives people back to any working conditions anyway, says Anders Teglund, and points out that it is the same today: many of the bicycle messengers are migrants, others have fled violence and oppression, and live under an indirect threat of being deported.

Anders Teglund argues for how slavery and then Taylorism (theories about a more efficient work organization) make collective thinking difficult. People are pitted against people. At the same time, everyone is just trying to solve their life situation, even Dennis Elyasi.

“For him, it was important to get a permanent job so that he could get a home.” And it was the same for many slave drivers in the 19th century, that if you stepped up a notch you could get better housing, you could have children, you got a little more, says Anders Teglund.

More and more ghost workers

Dennis Elyasi claims that he has no bad conscience towards the bids. Still, he felt bad when he pushed through a treatment he actually thought was reprehensible. Finally he resigned. He thinks being called a slave driver is the price of the truth.

“Hopefully this can make people think differently.” But in general, we are moving towards times where online ordering is becoming more and more popular, he says.

Anders Teglund does not want to judge whether it is wrong or not to order from companies like Foodora. He also shows how an ever-increasing part of the economy rests on ghost workers all over the world, who perform demanding tasks out of sight.

— Do you eat chocolate? Do you have a cell phone? There is so much exploitative work. And I don’t think it’s that easy to set an exact limit. But a problem is when those who work there start to be regarded as other types of people that we don’t care about.

“Food is expensive and it’s an expensive job to be on the streets as a delivery boy, because you have to eat in town. You can’t cook oatmeal if you work on the streets,” says Anders Teglund.