The Community of Madrid is committed to the continuity of its alliance with Glovo. The Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso announced an agreement with the multinational in 2023, despite the fact that at that time the company was facing a penalty from the Labor Inspection that was close to 57 million euros for fraud in the hiring of more 7,800 distributors in Madrid.
The objective of the agreement that the Ministry of Family, Youth and Social Affairs is going to renew in 2025 is to deliver food at home to vulnerable people who cannot collect that food for reasons of health or reduced mobility. Between May 2023 and October 2024, Glovo has made 3,941 shipments covered by this agreement, according to the data accessed by elDiario.es through the transparency portal.
According to the information collected, the Elíptica dining room, located in the Usera neighborhood, is the social center with the most activity, registering a total of 935 shipments between May and December 2023, of which 42 suffered incidents and were canceled.
Already in 2024, and until the month of October, 3,006 deliveries have been registered, with 147 orders that did not reach their destination. The reported incidents are mainly due to two reasons: errors in the recipient’s data and the absence of the user at home at the time of delivery.
147 incidents in 2024
The Community of Madrid signed this agreement, despite the multinational’s refusal to abide by the so-called ‘rider law’, which established that it was necessary to hire delivery workers on digital platforms. Failure to comply with the rule led to million-dollar fines for false self-employment and for employing undocumented ‘riders’.
This agreement has been sneaked into the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly on several occasions. Former Podemos deputy Alejandra Jacinto took out a Glovo backpack to criticize the Ayuso Government’s alliance with the sanctioned multinational. The objective of this agreement was, for Jacinto, that “poor workers bring food to people in social exclusion.”
Before the multinational announced at the beginning of this month that it would change its rider model, the Family Minister, Ana Dávila-Ponce de León, confirmed in the plenary session of the Assembly that her department would expand the agreement “in view of the cold and heat wave, to all those users of soup kitchens over 65 years of age who request it and also to homes where there are dependent minors or people with disabilities and support measures.
In this way, the agreement has been renewed until the end of the year 2025 and it establishes that the soup kitchens of the Community will have an account on the Glovo website with which “they will be able to order and schedule shipments and deliveries that correspond”. The signed agreement is free for the CAM. For this reason, the company gives these social centers “promotional codes” so that the canteen managers can manage the deliveries. This document also establishes that the multinational is not authorized to promote its services to users who receive packages dependent on the Community of Madrid.
“The best assessment that can be made is the one made by the users themselves of the service that Glovo provides with us: 99 percent of the users are very satisfied,” explained the counselor when asked by Más Madrid deputy Jimena González. , which replied to the regional government that “the Community of Madrid cannot consent to a service that is its own, even if it outsources the service through a company, being provided by workers in an irregular, precarious and highly insecure situation.” .
In conversation with this editorial team, Jiménez maintains that he finds it “scandalous that a public administration, like the Community of Madrid,” has failed to comply with “something as basic as ILO Convention 94.” [Organización Internacional del Trabajo]which requires public administrations to ensure that the companies with which they collaborate have their workers, at a minimum, in a situation of legality and dignity.”
With the multinational’s announcement to hire delivery drivers, and its commitment to a change in the business model, in line with what the Rider Law stipulates, Jiménez maintains that his party “greatly celebrates” the company’s decision. Glovo’s change of direction occurred one day before its founder Óscar Pierre testified before the court accused of a crime against workers’ rights.
Currently, deliveries are made from three soup kitchens: Elíptica (Usera), Canarias (Arganzuela) and Santa Isabel (Chamberí). These shipments are limited to the areas enabled by Glovo and are made at stipulated times: Monday to Friday, in the mornings until one o’clock, and in the afternoons, between four and seven thirty.
#Ayusos #alliance #Glovo #deliver #food #vulnerable #people #reaches #shipments #year
