This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/18/life-as-a-hermes-driver-they-offload-all-the-risk-on-to-the-courier
The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 3 | Version 4 |
|---|---|
| Life as a Hermes driver: 'They offload all the risk on to the courier' | Life as a Hermes driver: 'They offload all the risk on to the courier' |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Three days after I applied online to be a Hermes “lifestyle courier” I was sitting in a working men’s club near Halifax with 18 other recruits to find out what the job involved. There were young mothers, young men like me, and a couple more middle-class guys. It sounded very promising. The manager explained how we would be independent couriers. We could take time out to get our hair cut, pick up our kids from school. They said that if we did one roughly two-hour round of about 50 parcels each day, we could expect between £400 and £700 a month, but it was not clear if that was before or after we’d paid expenses. None of the detail about having to pay for your own fuel and running costs was explained, though she did say there was a 55p-a-day opt-in car insurance and there was no sick pay and no holiday pay. | Three days after I applied online to be a Hermes “lifestyle courier” I was sitting in a working men’s club near Halifax with 18 other recruits to find out what the job involved. There were young mothers, young men like me, and a couple more middle-class guys. It sounded very promising. The manager explained how we would be independent couriers. We could take time out to get our hair cut, pick up our kids from school. They said that if we did one roughly two-hour round of about 50 parcels each day, we could expect between £400 and £700 a month, but it was not clear if that was before or after we’d paid expenses. None of the detail about having to pay for your own fuel and running costs was explained, though she did say there was a 55p-a-day opt-in car insurance and there was no sick pay and no holiday pay. |
| They seemed keen for couriers as the local field manager called that night and asked me to shadow a round in Huddersfield the next day. I went along and realised I was already clocking up the miles at my own expense and with no pay. I know the streets of Huddersfield, but not like this courier did. The speed he worked showed me that if you are not working at absolutely optimum efficiency, you are losing money. He knew where safe places were to put packages in individual houses, and what the collection days for the recycling bins were because they are good places to stash parcels. | They seemed keen for couriers as the local field manager called that night and asked me to shadow a round in Huddersfield the next day. I went along and realised I was already clocking up the miles at my own expense and with no pay. I know the streets of Huddersfield, but not like this courier did. The speed he worked showed me that if you are not working at absolutely optimum efficiency, you are losing money. He knew where safe places were to put packages in individual houses, and what the collection days for the recycling bins were because they are good places to stash parcels. |
| Like lots of so-called unskilled labour, it’s actually a very skilled job. The next day I shadowed a round again, so by now I’d clocked up about 60 miles over three days and still not earned a penny. | Like lots of so-called unskilled labour, it’s actually a very skilled job. The next day I shadowed a round again, so by now I’d clocked up about 60 miles over three days and still not earned a penny. |
| Now I went solo. I was up at 6am and at the subdepot by 7.15am. The handheld device they’d given me didn’t work, so I had to write out the route with pen and paper, which wasted 90 minutes. One woman had a Nissan Micra – the boot, the back seat, the passenger seat was rammed. When my car was full with about 60 packages from high street brands I could only see out of the windscreen and barely see from the passenger side window. Some packages were huge – the size of a coffee table, some tiny. | Now I went solo. I was up at 6am and at the subdepot by 7.15am. The handheld device they’d given me didn’t work, so I had to write out the route with pen and paper, which wasted 90 minutes. One woman had a Nissan Micra – the boot, the back seat, the passenger seat was rammed. When my car was full with about 60 packages from high street brands I could only see out of the windscreen and barely see from the passenger side window. Some packages were huge – the size of a coffee table, some tiny. |
| Over the coming days I learned how buying stuff online has become fundamental to the nation. Everyone does it, from the wealthy to council estates. People now rely on couriers for everything from supermarket shopping to a new dress for the weekend. While some were keen to chat, others were very rude and left me with the sense that I was as disposable as the plastic bag the parcel was in. | Over the coming days I learned how buying stuff online has become fundamental to the nation. Everyone does it, from the wealthy to council estates. People now rely on couriers for everything from supermarket shopping to a new dress for the weekend. While some were keen to chat, others were very rude and left me with the sense that I was as disposable as the plastic bag the parcel was in. |
| On my first day I worked from 7.30am until 5pm with no breakfast and no lunch. I was earning between 50p and 80p a parcel, which, owing to the time it took me to deliver them, works out at less than £4 an hour even before expenses. But as the days went by I learned my routes and did speed up, although the longest it took me to deliver one parcel was 45 minutes. I was exhausted finding all the addresses, stopping and starting, and the handheld device stopped working again on my second day – another 40 minutes of my time gone. | On my first day I worked from 7.30am until 5pm with no breakfast and no lunch. I was earning between 50p and 80p a parcel, which, owing to the time it took me to deliver them, works out at less than £4 an hour even before expenses. But as the days went by I learned my routes and did speed up, although the longest it took me to deliver one parcel was 45 minutes. I was exhausted finding all the addresses, stopping and starting, and the handheld device stopped working again on my second day – another 40 minutes of my time gone. |
| The Hermes model offloads all the risk on to the “independent” courier, but the potential reward is absolutely limited. You are responsible for the packages, any problems with the system, your car, paying for your holiday time, covering any sickness. | The Hermes model offloads all the risk on to the “independent” courier, but the potential reward is absolutely limited. You are responsible for the packages, any problems with the system, your car, paying for your holiday time, covering any sickness. |
| I learned that the postman in one of the villages had recently had an operation on his hand as a result of an injury at work. His job was pretty much the same as mine, but he was a Royal Mail employee and had just had five weeks off on sick pay. Hermes couriers don’t get any sick pay. The postmen often help out the couriers because they feel sorry for them. They know the Hermes guys get a raw deal. | I learned that the postman in one of the villages had recently had an operation on his hand as a result of an injury at work. His job was pretty much the same as mine, but he was a Royal Mail employee and had just had five weeks off on sick pay. Hermes couriers don’t get any sick pay. The postmen often help out the couriers because they feel sorry for them. They know the Hermes guys get a raw deal. |