The International Transport Federation warned that the firm was denounced on several occasions for fraud. Evasion and precariousness, among the causes
For Alejandro DiBiasi
12/27/2022 – 9:12 p.m.
After the complaint made by the Association of Motorcycle Messengers and Services (ASiMM), the International Federation of Transport Workers (ITF) harshly criticized the international delivery company Rappi for the accusations by the alleged Commission of Crimes of Asset Laundering that They appeared before the Argentine Justice. The ITF assured that “it is essential that Justice investigate an act of such seriousness” and pointed out that “in the region, Rappi is a company denounced in several countries for different frauds that include job insecurity and tax evasion”.
The ITF Americas Regional held: “We hope that the competent bodies will act.” The Federation brings together 732 transport union organizations in the world, from 153 countries, representing around 6,619,354 declared workers.
From its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro (it has another in Panama), the ITF Americas released a hard document in response to Rappi’s press release, where it detailed business management based on the creation of thousands of jobs. In this regard, he remarked that “Rappi enriches himself at the expense of the worker and the workers. It is not enough for them to become precarious, now they are also denounced for money laundering.”
Rappi is justified with the fact that “they reject innovation”
With the purpose of improving its image before public opinion, the delivery company recalled that it arrived in Argentina in “2018 and, since then, we have generated economic opportunities for more than 400,000 peoplecontributing to the digitization of more than 15,000 local SMEs that use their technology every day to grow their businesses.”
assured that “It is nothing new that sectors that reject innovation promote complaints and attacks against the industry of new technologies and applications, trying to affect the reputation of the companies that integrate it and harming the activity of the entire ecosystem”.
The firm added: “We are aware that we live in a challenging economic context, reason that did not stop us and will not stop us when it comes to betting on growth and development of our country, even in the face of attacks from some specific actors who prefer to postpone the technological progress of society”.
The Rappi company is known for not having a physical headquarters and for not providing work support to its employees.
For the Federation, Rappi wins by exploiting the worker
The ITF Regional Secretary, Edgar Díaz, came out to respond to Rappi, making it clear that “It is totally violent to see how a company that has such strong anti-union policies and that does not dialogue with the union sectors of the entire Latin American regioncome to be considered as a generator of legal employment, when in reality what they do is precarious workers and obtain profits at the expense of pedaling or driving motorcycles, an effort that these employees are forced to make by absolute necessity in the face of the harsh economic situation that lives in most countries”.
The Panamanian leader stated: “We strongly repudiate Rappi’s expressions, because these digital unicorns, who work from marketing the benefits of the system, calling their workers collaborators or entrepreneurs; what they really do is hide the superhuman work with days of more than 12 hours so that these people can have a decent income from the commissions received”.
In this way, ITF supported complaint number 2551/DGPDH/07, file number 6402, filed at the offices of the Early Intervention Unit (UFE) on December 15 of this year, made by Gonzalo Gabriel Ottaviano, a worker in the delivery sector. and member of the Board of Directors of the union known as “motoqueros” (ASiMM), a union affiliated with the ITF. In it, it was requested that investigate “everyone who is responsible, participates or conceals”for “using the workers registered on their platform for maneuvers that have a scope on the Commission of the Crime of Asset Laundering.”
The Federation demands commitment of political power
From the Federation they stated that they are working, together with other unions, “the issue of digital platforms where they find many pitfalls in the region due to the strong lobby that multinationals apply to legislators with political power to not regulate said activity.”
In turn, they indicated that the highest profits of the digital delivery company in the Southern Cone region. “Surely they come from the evasion of employer contributions and social security”; which means a reduction in Rappi’s labor costs.
Díaz repudiated “the justification and public outing that the company made to defend its role. We are going to work hard with our legal teams for the case presented in Argentina” and added that from the organization “we will present our international complaints and we will make public various solidarity campaigns against these types of policies.
Delivery companies grew rapidly, although the regulations that regulate this type of employment did not do the same.
Finally, they urged politicians to in this 2023 “collaborate with the massive regional requests of our unions to establish effective regulations for the activity that is surrounded by a dark legal security framework where the only ones that are lining the pockets of the employers are the workers” and demanded a framework agreement that “regulate the activity and articulate unions, employers and workers to put an end to this policy. The only reality is that digital platforms are taking work back to the 18th century under a premise of modernity that hides job insecurity and that they seek to sweeten with marketing strategies”.
