“The explosion in demand for express home delivery marks a real break in our consumption patterns. New measures must be adopted to regulate this quick trade”. This Wednesday, Maud Gatel, MP for the 11th constituency of Paris, presents the conclusions of the fact-finding mission on “quick trade” to the National Assembly.
Over the past six months, the MEP has focused on dark stores and other home delivery systems for consumer products and prepared meals that abound in cities, and especially in the capital, especially since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.
72% of French dark stores are located in Paris and the inner suburbs
If two companies, Flink and Getir, currently reign over the Dark stores, the latter has just been placed in receivership by the Commercial Court of Paris, Maud Gatel also cites “delivery platforms like Just Eat , Deliveroo or Uber Eats”.
According to the report, these “dark stores” or “dark kitchens” account “for 49% of food products delivered to homes the same day” in Paris and Île-de-France, compared to 26% in the whole country. “The capital and the inner suburbs are home to most of the sector’s establishments across the country, i.e. nearly 72% of dark stores and 60% of dark kitchens at the start of 2022”.
A “spectacular boom” which is reflected in the figures with a market estimated at 10 billion euros in 2021 against 4 billion “only” in 2019. A sector to be regulated even in labor law since the report indicates that if the majority of “dark store” deliverers are employees, “platform workers are self-employed” and some estimates state that “70% of the workforce employed” do not have a residence permit.
Worker protection
This is why the first conclusions of the report relate to this point: to enforce the current right of employees. Thus Maud Gatel proposes to “work on the establishment of a single collective agreement for the home delivery of food products” for employees while ensuring “respect for the principle of Sunday rest in the organization of the activity companies “.
The self-employed are not forgotten since the report recommends consolidating a framework of representation and collective bargaining between workers and platforms, strengthening the rights of self-employed delivery people by “the use of wage portage schemes”, allowing the taking in consideration of the situation of independent deliverers in the “Valls circular”, while reinforcing the penalties for platforms that use employees in illegal situations and for people who sublet delivery accounts to them. The report also calls for minimum requirements to be established for vehicles and equipment for the safety of delivery people.
Consumer information
In addition to the workers, the Information Mission does not forget the consumers. Thus, to stop dumping on deliveries, it recommends the implementation of a communication to customers to inform them of the real cost and the repercussions of home delivery, firstly by prohibiting the mention “free delivery” and considering a minimum amount for these deliveries.
The mission also asks that transparency on the criteria for ranking establishments by algorithms be established to avoid misleading consumers and “rebalance the commercial relationship between platforms and restaurants”.
Communication with local residents
Relations that are also sometimes tense with local residents who often suffer from the nuisance caused by the very operation of these new businesses with, in particular, the incessant comings and goings of delivery men in certain streets. To manage these neighborhood relations, Maud Gatel hopes to “Require food delivery services to set up direct contact for local residents” and asks to “examine the possibility of instituting the obligation of a declaration prior to the establishment of a commercial activity within the premises of a co-ownership” and to impose the information of the syndic of co-ownership “about any change of situation in the course of this activity”.
If Maud Gatel does not yet know if this report will lead to a bill, the MP already hopes to see the “employment” aspect appear in the Labor law or the Immigration law which will soon be discussed in the Assembly.
For the other measures, let’s bet that it will receive the support of the Paris City Hall, at war for months against the “dark stores”, and which will no doubt see these proposals in a good light.