Legal action against gig companies after couriers were terminated for going on strike

The head of the Equality Department of the Public Defender’s Office, Keti Shubashvili, announced that their office was considering taking legal action to force Bolt Food to sign regular employment contracts with their couriers.
Delivery companies such as Wolt, Glovo and Bolt Food, as well as the Bolt Taxi service, currently sign “partnership agreements” with their workers instead of employment contracts, which exclude them from basic labour protections, such as paid holidays, sick leave and protection from unfair dismissal.
The revelations of possible legal actions come a day after Public Defender Nino Lomjaria published a scathing report on the “discriminatory” working conditions at Bolt Food. The public defender of Georgia found that Bolt Food violated the rights of the striking couriers by terminating their contracts, and she issued a number of non-binding recommendations to the company.
Around 20 Bolt Food couriers had appealed to their office, “indicating that the company had terminated its labour relations with them due to a labour rights protest and the formation of a trade union – restricting their access to the application”. The public defender said that despite Bolt Food’s insistence to the contrary, this constituted a termination of employment.
Several protests by couriers from different companies have taken place in recent years. In March, several Bolt Food couriers said they had been locked out of the Bolt Food application following protests against changes in the way their tariffs for deliveries were calculated. Similar actions were taken against Glovo couriers after they went on strike in May.
Both companies have insisted that couriers working for them are not employees but “partners” of their companies. Both have also denied blocking couriers for taking part in protests or strikes, instead accusing the couriers in question of being disruptive.