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Children working as riders for food delivery apps – BBC investigation

bbc.co.uk

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

#41

Post by Symbiote »

benj111 wrote: post #6
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.

Yes it's weird that a 17 year old now isn't allowed to work. Have they not been to any restaurants lately? The major problem is the same issue with things like prostitution or drugs. If you ban it, you lose oversight and make it less safe. I'd rather them allow kids to work, but put proper controls in place.

There are some regulations [1], though I note one of the restrictions is against working after 7pm.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/restrictions-on-child-em...

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

#42

Post by altairTF »

atlanticaccent wrote: post #35
Jenk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

These are all highly regulated industries/professions. They also include legally required training. Apprenticeships are also not exclusively work - that's the entire point - a significant portion of an apprenticeship is spent in training and education. Do you seriously think it's acceptable to just hand a child tools that can easily get them hurt or killed, with zero supervision or training, and expect them to be fin…

dont they have for a lot of time before, what changed now?

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

#43

Post by hurryer »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #34
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.

As if non-working teenagers don't also ride bikes on roads Sure they do, but we all know that you drive differently and in different places when you aren't doing it for payment and dealing with those sorts of constraints (if I'm not fast enough, I'll get bad ratings/tips, for example). It also used to be normal to not finish high school, not allow women to get a bank account without a man's signature, and to beat you…

> I'm not sure why teenagers need to do anything other than learning about the world and going to school

Some teenagers don't have what to eat.

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

#44

Post by [deleted] »

lol768 wrote: post #25

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 s…

[deleted]

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

#45

Post by mathgeek »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #34
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.

As if non-working teenagers don't also ride bikes on roads Sure they do, but we all know that you drive differently and in different places when you aren't doing it for payment and dealing with those sorts of constraints (if I'm not fast enough, I'll get bad ratings/tips, for example). It also used to be normal to not finish high school, not allow women to get a bank account without a man's signature, and to beat you…

> I'm not sure why teenagers need to do anything other than learning about the world and going to school.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Working is a way to learn about the world in a low risk way (losing a job as a teenager is often more a lesson than a set back, for example). It’s also a way to earn your own income, which is obviously useful.

2. Not every teenager has the luxury of living in a stable home with one or both parents/guardians. Even then, some teens are better off spending more time away from those people beyond time spent in school.

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

#46

Post by sixthDot »

lol768 wrote: post #25

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 s…

> The BBC seems to be up in arms about substitution

They are not. They inform the reader that this system exists. Then little cherry on the cake, this system eventually leads to child labor. Plus chocolate toping, eventually someone died.

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

#47

Post by rolandog »

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.

Whether we like it or not, delivery is a profession. It requires endurance, alertness and planning ahead (think travelling salesman problem); they also need people skills to deal with entitled customers and bosses.

However, there are incentives in place to not regard it as such: we don't want to pay extra; businesses don't want to pay a grown-ass adult with responsibilities; and adults don't want to make children's live's easier if they had it rough when they were growing up.

Disregarding other's rights of existence and rights of having a labor-free infancy will always come to bite us in the end: it's "fine" until you're replaced by an easily-exploitable teenager that can be underpaid because they're not aware of their labor rights.

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

#48

Post by richliss »

I’d never have been able to buy my Amiga A500 which really got me into coding with a paper round in my early teens.

It also spurred me on to study harder in school because I realised delivery jobs were not a great career.

I think if we had more kids with menial jobs they might end up less entitled.

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

#49

Post by nunez »

There are so many children working under the table everywhere. Here in the US, I've been to a bunch of hole in the wall restaurants where kids were taking or running orders. Usually they are family, but not always.

If the children are going to school and have decent social lives, I'm not sure what the harm is, especially if they _want_ to work so that they can buy their own things.

FWIW I started (legally) working after-school shifts when I turned 13. One manager tried to convince me to skip a final exam so I could provide shift coverage. That manager was an idiot.

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

#50

Post by lol768 »

sixthDot wrote: post #46
lol768 wrote: post #25

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 s…

> The BBC seems to be up in arms about substitution They are not. They inform the reader that this system exists. Then little cherry on the cake, this system eventually leads to child labor. Plus chocolate toping, eventually someone died.

> Then little cherry on the cake, this system eventually leads to child labor

Given that you've spelt it as "labor", I'm going to explain how this works in the UK:

Deliveroo's discretionary policies aside, you are allowed to work when you reach school-leaving age in the country you live in (subject to some common-sense restrictions) within the United Kingdom. There is nothing illegal about this whatsoever. Someone aged 17 is not a child and is considered entitled to work (either as an employee or as someone self-employed) just as they are entitled to join the army, start a family or drink alcohol in a restaurant.

In England, the intention is for this to happen alongside training or further part-time education but there is no criminal offence committed by a young person who decides they would prefer to occupy their time in full-time work and e.g. save money. That's their choice to make.

> Plus chocolate toping, eventually someone died.

The article has no information about how this happened. If they got into an accident because of another reckless driver on the road, then the article should've been about improving road safety. If the accident was their fault, then we should probably have a conversation about the mandatory CBT training in the UK that riders will have gone through and how it approaches safety topics.

The problem is not that substitution works the way it does.

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