Fast Delivery Business Under Scrutiny, Inspectors Issue Fines

(Patria) - The fast delivery business is booming worldwide, including in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A number of food delivery apps and services have been launched, and stores have adapted their operations to the new circumstances.

It is estimated to be a business worth millions, but the question is how much benefit the state derives from it.

Due to numerous stories and suspicions that workers in this business are not registered or insured, inspections have their hands full. Patria's findings that many do not register their workers will prove to be true, as KUIP told Patria that by checking official records, they determined that the Labor, Occupational Safety, and Social Protection Inspectorate of the Cantonal Administration for Inspection Affairs of Sarajevo Canton received seven complaints this year concerning the status of workers performing deliveries for: korpa.ba, glovo, donesi.com, and cegerdostava.com.

"Labor inspectors conducted inspection controls independently and in a team with the market and tourism inspector, and the employer Korpa doo was fined for engaging workers through temporary and occasional work contracts contrary to the Labor Law, and the employer Dostava Ceger doo was fined for engaging workers without a concluded employment contract and insurance registration," stated KUIP.

Otherwise, these are predominantly jobs performed by young people who are satisfied with the fees they receive, while the owners of such services are earning more and more, so the state has clearly decided to put an end to the service owners.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is not the only country facing problems due to this market situation. The European Commission launched the first phase of consultations with European social partners at the beginning of this year on how to improve the working conditions of people working through digital labor platforms.

The start of the consultations coincided with a ruling from Milan, where Italian courts ordered large food delivery companies to hire more than 60,000 delivery workers and pay over 700 million euros in fines for failing to provide them with adequate working conditions.

Similar legal proceedings have taken place in Spain, Switzerland, and Great Britain, and there are increasingly more rulings where courts side with platform workers, mainly drivers and delivery personnel. Because, according to Patria's findings, some of the employed workers are registered for only one or two hours a week, and no one has official data; many who work occasionally or permanently in this way are mostly paid in cash, and the volume of work and the length of the working day are "in the hands" of algorithms that direct them from one location to another. Therefore, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and urgently so, will have to solve this problem by following the example of Western countries.