DPD courier who was fined for day off to see doctor dies from diabetes

&gt;MPs and unions have argued that these strict conditions mean they are bogusly self-employed and should be treated as employed workers.<p>This is why I&#x27;m happy Germany banned Uber from operating here. I&#x27;d love to have more competition in the taxi market (which is ridiculously expensive here). But not at the cost of millions of workers.<p>We need regulation against Bogus self-employment to be enforced. A person who can only work for one company is not self-employed. At the very least we need gig economy companies to compete for the labor force to ensure that market rates go up.

&gt; The company’s system of charging drivers if they cannot cover their round has been described as appalling by the chairman of the House of Commons’ work and pensions committee, Frank Field.<p>This sounds stupid. Wasn&#x27;t the whole point of gig economy to setting personal time, working and getting paid only when the work is done?

I fear that there won&#x27;t be regulation against the &quot;gig economy&quot; as politicians are way too bought out by the big companies profiting from it... and as there will always be someone desperate enough to take even the most rotten, most underpaid job, even collective action (aka strikes) won&#x27;t help.<p>The only thing that will help for sure is, I am afraid, massive amounts of riots.

DPD is wholly owned by La Poste which is 73% owned by the French government.<p>Seems ironic that a company owned by a government with strong social welfare and laws preventing long work hours would act in such a hostile way towards staff in pursuit of profits.

<i>deliver parcels to restricted time slots, must wear a uniform, hire a DPD liveried van and not work for any other courier company</i><p>If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

This is a tragic story for the delivery person.<p>Obviously, DPD could change to employees and offer sick leave.<p>But I think the bigger opportunity would be for DPD to add more requirements on their independent contractors to require that they offer sick leave or participate in health savings accounts that can cover these types of fines. The tragedy here is that the company that employed this driver wasn’t able to pay 150 pounds and instead worked the driver into a grave. I’m not sure if the company is just the driver himself as a one person company (pretty common in the US, not sure about UK).<p>A big risk in contracting is not setting enough aside to pay for benefits and taxes. In the programming space I’ve ran into people who were happy as well as stressed out based on how they structured their cash flow management and set asides for benefits. I had two peers with the same rate ($70&#x2F;hour x 40&#x2F;week). One worked out a salary, set aside IRA, healthcare, taxes, vacation. The other just paid out the gross amount and was very stressed about company holidays, vacation and even routine healthcare expenses. It was curious how they functioned like an employee and didn’t have an advisor to help them structure their company. We all sat in the same room and were all 30 year old single people.

Please look at guardian or Google holiday pay for contract workers. I&#x27;m and ej court all ruled holiday pay should be given to contract workers after test case involving double glazing salesman. It is covered by HEALTH in health and safety. All it needs is someone to take these profit driven companies to task..hiding behind so called self employment.

Building contractors are paid pro rata holiday pay for duration of a contract. Gig workers get nothing..its not the work with long hours...its the fact no one can work without holidays.

I think the dystopian future we have all been fearing has officially arrived.<p>Ugh.