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

11–20 of 65 posts

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

#11

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

Yeah, I don't have an issue with teenagers having a job like that. I think it's a bigger issue that they don't work directly under contract, but instead use someone else's account; all the checks and balances that are in place to stop child labor and ensure their safety etc are out the window then.

On the other hand, minors are often underpaid, minimum wage laws (at least in my country) are different for underage people, which in essence is age discrimination if they do the same job.

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

#12

Post by bell-cot »

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.

> ...14...17...

And what's the minimum age for a kid working on his family's farm?

It's no secret that young people are at high risk for accidents in real-world jobs, and need serious training and tight supervision.

My Reaction: This story is about delivery-app workers because that is one of the few real-world jobs which is still visible from inside the well-gentrified little world-bubbles of the BBC's readers.

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

#13

Post by InCityDreams »

bell-cot wrote: post #12
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.

> ...14...17... And what's the minimum age for a kid working on his family's farm? It's no secret that young people are at high risk for accidents in real-world jobs, and need serious training and tight supervision. My Reaction: This story is about delivery-app workers because that is one of the few real-world jobs which is still visible from inside the well-gentrified little world-bubbles of the BBC's readers.

>the well-gentrified little world-bubbles of the BBC's readers.

I'm not convinced by this sweeping statement (which would have more impact on non-uk readers). Grauniad readers, perhaps.

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

#14

Post by whywhywhywhy »

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.

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

#16

Post by throwaw33333434 »

kasperni wrote: post #4

I don't think this is a major problem (currently). I've had > 500 deliveries via Deliveroo. And I haven't noticed one who looked underaged.

my anecdata is that about 1% of the Uber drivers/delivery are different people that show up in the app.

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

#17

Post by bell-cot »

InCityDreams wrote: post #13
bell-cot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...14...17... And what's the minimum age for a kid working on his family's farm? It's no secret that young people are at high risk for accidents in real-world jobs, and need serious training and tight supervision. My Reaction: This story is about delivery-app workers because that is one of the few real-world jobs which is still visible from inside the well-gentrified little world-bubbles of the BBC's readers.

>the well-gentrified little world-bubbles of the BBC's readers. I'm not convinced by this sweeping statement (which would have more impact on non-uk readers). Grauniad readers, perhaps.

True - but BBS readers aspire to having world-bubbles that small and well-gentrified. And one must always be mindful of one's readers' aspirations.

/s?

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

#19

Post by lhnz »

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.

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

#20

Post by michaelt »

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 (an undocumented migrant, who can't get the job themselves), then go work another job, and meet up again at the end of the shift to return the van. Then they split the wages.

Even without the 'independent contractor' stuff, it is extremely difficult for a delivery company to stop drivers from doing this.

If there are requirements for replacement drivers that their substitute won't meet they can simply not report the substitution, instead sharing a login or sharing a phone.

Post reply on HN