In mid-April, three gig staff fell sufferer to violent crime in Florida: a lady was kidnapped and sexually assaulted after making a Doordash supply, a pair’s automotive was shot at after turning onto the fallacious driveway trying to drop off an Instacart order, and a person was murdered after making an Uber Eats supply.
Whereas the information is unsettling, for some gig staff, feeling unsafe is an growing concern.
“The security of drivers and couriers is a high precedence, and we’ll proceed investing in essential security options like the power to talk with a reside security agent, report journey audio within the app in practically 150 U.S. cities, and share their journey with family members,” a spokesperson for Uber advised Entrepreneur.
Roberto Moreno, who previously labored for GrubHub and Postmates in San Diego County, advised the AP Monday that he stopped working for ride-sharing and supply providers altogether as a consequence of considerations for his security.
“We now have to look out for ourselves as a result of the businesses do not do it,” he advised the outlet.
Moreno additionally famous the disparity between verification wanted from drivers and riders. Drivers are required to submit a selfie, get background checks, and provides different private info, however in relation to riders, “we do not know something concerning the passengers or the individuals who we’re delivering to,” he mentioned.
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Gig Staff Rising, an activist group combating for the protection and safety of gig staff, discovered that 80 app-based staff had been killed whereas on the job between 2017 and 2022 — with 31 murdered in 2022 alone, signifying a rise in violence. The report was primarily based on press releases, police data, and court docket paperwork.
“App staff worldwide are grappling with a enterprise mannequin and office practices that go away them dealing with an unparalleled and racialized well being and security disaster,” the group wrote within the report.
In 2021, NBC Information spoke to 15 gig staff — all of which mentioned they usually “feared for his or her security,” and that it appears as if violence spiked throughout and following the pandemic.
That very same 12 months, Uber rolled out new security measures to guard drivers equivalent to thorough verification for riders who use untrackable fee choices like present playing cards. Final fall, the corporate carried out extra security options equivalent to freezing rider accounts that seem faux or offensive, the choice to video report the journey utilizing the front-facing digital camera, in addition to recording audio throughout a visit.
“We have designed these new options to offer extra peace of thoughts when driving and delivering,” the corporate wrote within the launch.
Nonetheless, amongst all of the gig-driven apps, Uber had probably the most cases of staff killed in 2022 at 39% of whole crimes, in accordance with the report from Gig Staff Rising.
In regard to the report by Gig Staff Rising, Uber famous that the dying of Milton Pillacela Ayora (which was attributed to Uber within the report) was not related to the Uber platform, and that one other recorded dying, Michael Wallace, was in 2018 however nonetheless included in the latest report.
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