[lol768]

The BBC seems to be up in arms about substitution. But the workers are self-employed, independent contractors and they have every right to use a substitute to do their work for them in the UK. If they did not have this right, they'd be classed as workers and eligible for minimum wage, a pension and SSP.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22548504/deliveroo-self-e...

Whoever owned the account and decided to engage a substitute worker without checking their right-to-work or complying with additional requirements that they agreed to when signing up for Deliveroo is at fault here.

[leoedin]

This is the problem though. The delivery apps don't want employees (maybe fair enough) and so have to have self-employed contractors who have the right to substitution. Those contractors are not large corporations - there are thousands of them and they aren't very accountable. That means they can readily substitute people who don't have the right to work.

The end situation is that these delivery apps are providing a back-door route to work for vast numbers of people without that right. It's very easy to say "it's the contractor who didn't do diligence at blame" - but when there's thousands of contractors and the barrier of entry to become a "contractor" is almost nothing, you have a systemic problem.

[lol768]

> when there's thousands of contractors and the barrier of entry to become a "contractor" is almost nothing, you have a systemic problem

Yes, and it's a systemic problem that govt should be handling. It's already illegal to give/pay someone who you know has no right-to-work (or you should've reasonably known / didn't do your due diligence on) a piece of work, it needs to be investigated and enforced properly.

[sixthDot]

> The BBC seems to be up in arms about substitution

They are not. They inform the reader that this system exists. Then little cherry on the cake, this system eventually leads to child labor. Plus chocolate toping, eventually someone died.

[lol768]

> Then little cherry on the cake, this system eventually leads to child labor

Given that you've spelt it as "labor", I'm going to explain how this works in the UK:

Deliveroo's discretionary policies aside, you are allowed to work when you reach school-leaving age in the country you live in (subject to some common-sense restrictions) within the United Kingdom. There is nothing illegal about this whatsoever. Someone aged 17 is not a child and is considered entitled to work (either as an employee or as someone self-employed) just as they are entitled to join the army, start a family or drink alcohol in a restaurant.

In England, the intention is for this to happen alongside training or further part-time education but there is no criminal offence committed by a young person who decides they would prefer to occupy their time in full-time work and e.g. save money. That's their choice to make.

> Plus chocolate toping, eventually someone died.

The article has no information about how this happened. If they got into an accident because of another reckless driver on the road, then the article should've been about improving road safety. If the accident was their fault, then we should probably have a conversation about the mandatory CBT training in the UK that riders will have gone through and how it approaches safety topics.

The problem is not that substitution works the way it does.