Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#21

Post by thfuran »

michaelt wrote: post #20
thfuran wrote: post #2

>It is the duty of the original account holder - not the app they work for - to check that their "substitute" meets the legal criteria to work. >The system appears open to abuse. No, the system appears designed for abuse.

A friend of mine worked for a high quality delivery company in my country. None of this pay-per-delivery, bring-your-own-car stuff; they have hourly paid drivers on stable predictable shifts, driving company vans with company insurance, overtime pay if a route ran long - and a biometric clocking-in system. It turns out a driver can pick up their delivery van, drive around the corner and hand it over to their buddy (a…

>It is extremely difficult for a delivery company to stop drivers from doing this.

But it's extremely easy to not build in features explicitly to facilitate it.

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#22

Post by JCharante »

lhnz wrote: post #19

Why don't they just allow children to work legitimately through the application, but add some safe-guarding controls and potentially notification to or authorisation by parents? This seems like a much better idea than to have a level of uncontrollable fraud that allows it through the backdoor and enriches rent-seekers.

An app that delivers children to your doorstep? Oh my

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#23

Post by bambax »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #14

Ridiculous editorializing with the "This teenager was allowed to work and now he's dead" part. As if non-working teenagers don't also ride bikes on roads. Should just be made legal, at least they're trying to do something legal when drug dealing is always an option. Used to be completely normal for teenagers to work these sort of jobs.

Agreed.

> Children working as riders for food delivery apps

> The family of a 17-year-old who died while working as a Deliveroo rider...

A 17-year-old is not a child. He's a minor, yes, and it's possibly illegal to have him work some jobs (although not all jobs, not everywhere), but calling them "children" is disgraceful.

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#24

Post by dazc »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #15

Children used to work in coal mines. They can handle delivering curry to an apartment building by bicycle. Children were the original riders back when they delivered newspapers to homes, on bikes.

Get in touch with your local school and ask if they can send a boy round, like they did in the good old days. See how you get on?

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#25

Post by lol768 »

The BBC seems to be up in arms about substitution. But the workers are self-employed, independent contractors and they have every right to use a substitute to do their work for them in the UK. If they did not have this right, they'd be classed as workers and eligible for minimum wage, a pension and SSP.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22548504/deliveroo-self-e...

Whoever owned the account and decided to engage a substitute worker without checking their right-to-work or complying with additional requirements that they agreed to when signing up for Deliveroo is at fault here.

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#27

Post by Jenk »

bambax wrote: post #23
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #14

Ridiculous editorializing with the "This teenager was allowed to work and now he's dead" part. As if non-working teenagers don't also ride bikes on roads. Should just be made legal, at least they're trying to do something legal when drug dealing is always an option. Used to be completely normal for teenagers to work these sort of jobs.

Agreed. > Children working as riders for food delivery apps > The family of a 17-year-old who died while working as a Deliveroo rider... A 17-year-old is not a child. He's a minor, yes, and it's possibly illegal to have him work some jobs (although not all jobs, not everywhere), but calling them "children" is disgraceful.

Apprenticeships are open to 16 year-olds - in much more dangerous professions. Metalworking, construction, mining, etc.

And of course if it is deemed too dangerous for them to join any of these professions, your local military recruitment center, acceptong applicants aged 16 and above, is right this way...

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#28

Post by black_13 »

dazc wrote: post #24
say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #15

Children used to work in coal mines. They can handle delivering curry to an apartment building by bicycle. Children were the original riders back when they delivered newspapers to homes, on bikes.

Get in touch with your local school and ask if they can send a boy round, like they did in the good old days. See how you get on?

[dead]

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#29

Post by watwut »

petesergeant wrote: post #5

... so? I was working at Pizza Hut when I was 14, kids in the UK have paper-rounds, does it really matter if a 17-year-old is doing this? The account-lending scheme is weird though.

17 years old are allowed to work, however there are different regulations about it the the ones for adults.

Re: Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

#30

Post by atlanticaccent »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #15

Children used to work in coal mines. They can handle delivering curry to an apartment building by bicycle. Children were the original riders back when they delivered newspapers to homes, on bikes.

Are you aware of why we stopped letting the children work in the mines? Like, where do you draw the line on the expendability of a child's life?
Post reply on HN