by Alan Bass
Our Times, December 1988
With low pay, high risks, and a lack of security, you might think the wheel of history was rolling workers back to the last century. But a new trend in employment practices, featuring self-employment, brokers, and entrepreneurs, really foreshadows the future.
I had always looked at bicycle couriers with awe and envy. Gazing out the window at work I'd spy a dishevelled half naked courier racing down the street wearing the ecstatic grin of a speed demon possessed and think: "I wish that were me."
Working outdoors tough and independent, strong and fit, no office politics, no interfering bosses, just the wind and the sun and the thrill of zipping effortlessly through gridlocked traffic. What a great life.
Then I'd sigh loosen my tie and focus once again on my computer screen. I was a reporter in my sixth year of covering national politics in Ottawa. Some days the lies and hypocrisy piled up so thick I was sure I'd gag to death. No wonder I yearned to be purified by the wind and the sun.
Finally, after spending a year covering the Canada-US. free trade talks, I decided I'd had my fill of deceit. It was time to refresh my spirit. I quit my job and returned to school in Toronto.
Like most students, I was soon looking for summer work, That was when I realized I had the opportunity of a life-time. I could realize my fantasy! I'd spend my summer revelling in the sun and the wind! I'd become a bicycle courier!
Quickly I turned to the classifieds. Bicycle couriers were needed! What a coincidence! What a great omen! And off I rode to meet my destiny.
When I arrived (by bicycle, of course) at the courier company's office, I was feeling much less confident. After all, I was 32 years old, an ex-smoker, an active drinker, out of breath and in rather rough shape. I was told to fill in an application. It was tossed onto a pile, unread. I was asked if I could start tomorrow, I said yes. I was told to come in at 8 a.m. to work. "That's it'?" I asked. On no, I was told. First I'd be interviewed by the boss. Then I'd work.
A strange way to do business I thought, yet charmingly informal. I rode my bike home. I was happy, I was only slightly worried that my legs already hurt.
The next morning I had my interview, a mass affair with half a dozen other new employees. Our applications were plucked from the pile where they had been stuffed the day before. Each was put into a file folder, still unread. Then the boss described the job. We were, he said, not employed by his company. We were independent agents and would be paid a 60 per cent commission per delivery. We had to pay a weekly dispatch fee of $30, but would get some back as a "bonus" if we worked every day for a month. We were urged to buy a map book ($8), a clipboard (55) and a personalized, pre-printed "run sheet" with carbon paper ($10) to list our pick-ups and deliveries. These were ail provided on the spot, no cash needed, just sign here, we'll be happy to deduct it from your first check.
We were also instructed to sign "agreements" stating we were not employees and in no way any responsibility of the company. I thought this odd but shrugged it off. Finally. we were sent off to work, our applications still unread, some of us having already assessed a $53 debt to the company before earning a cent.
Did I say work? Well that's not quite right. Actually, we were sent to an intersection and told to call the dispatcher from there. However that didn't mean you'd get something to do. There were, it seemed, an awful lot of people calling in for a small amount of work. During my first day, I made just seven deliveries (including an exhausting 10 kilometre trek accross town (and earned $17.25). I figured the dispatcher was doing me a favour by breaking me in, slowly. Since I hurt all over, I didn't really mind.
Within a few days I was feeling much healthier and started pestering the dispatcher for some work. However, I continued to spend hours doing nothing. Since this was a commission job, no work meant no pay. I began to wonder what was going on, especially when I noticed that despite the evident shortage of work the company kept hiring new people Soon I realized that anybody walking through the door got hired. I have long been familiar with the principle of surplus labour (lots of people vying for the same job makes workers insecure and prevents them from demanding more money or better working conditions), but this was the first time I had seen it practised so brazenly. Complainers were told that if they didn't like it they should quit. There were lots of people to take their place.
I stayed for almost two weeks, but things never got better. Finally I got my first paycheck, which covered my first three days of work. It came to a grand total after deductions, which did not include unemployment insurance or Canada Pension Plan or income tax but did include radio rental - $60. I quit on the spot, I think the dispatcher was a little sad to see me go. After less than two weeks I was the bicyclist with the most seniority.
Maybe I'm stubborn, or possibly crazy but I wasn't ready to give up my little dream of being a bicycle courier. Other companies were hiring. I figured I'd give it one more chance. Eventually I found a company that assured me it hired only as many people as it needed. Off I went for an interview.
I had no trouble getting hired. Again. the interview was brief. In fact, It ended as soon as I told them I had experience ( I didn't get a chance to go into detail) Nevertheless, I was not asked to sign any "agreements" and I got lots of work. I figured I had it made. I was wrong.
It took a while before I realized all was not well mainly because it was a month before I got my first full paycheck. My weekly earnings were not large (during the course of the summer they fluctuated dramatically from about $225 to $375 a week), but that was okay. I did not expect to make a fortune as a bicycle messenger. As long as I could pay my rent, I was happy to enjoy the experience and the exercise. What disturbed me was that once again there were no deductions for UI or CPP and the pay stub stated I was"self- employed." Was I missing some-thing here?
A few days later the boss and owner of the company called me into his office and stuck a piece of paper in my hand. It turned out to be a form for registering a business. I was told to fill it out and file it with the government (paying the fee out of my own pocket. of course). Seeing my confusion the boss finally explained the situation. Contrary to what I thought, I was not an employee of his company. My bike and I were an independent business or, as he preferred to put it, a "broker."
Imagine my surprise. I thought I was an employee working for an entrepreneur, but in fact the entrepreneur was me. This seemed odd. After all I had no control over the business. All my calls came through the dispatcher and all pricing and billing was done by the company. Sure, I used my own bike and had no illusions that the company would help pay for repairs. But did that make me an entrepreneur? It didn't seem right. I told the boss I'd get back to him after getting some legal advice. At this, he got a little antsy. If I refused to register my business, he said, he'd fire me.
I contacted a counsellor at the provincial Ministry of Labour. Don't fill out the form, I was told. If I did, I would give up any claim to being an employee and thus would lose any legal protection under the labour code. It was too bad I was threatened with dismissal, the counsellor added. Since I'd worked at this company for less than three months, the boss could fire me on a whim and there'd be nothing I could do about it.
Let me get this straight, I said. I should not register as a business because that would deny me the legal protection of the labour code. On the other hand, I have no legal recourse if I'm fired for refusing to register. Yes, the counsellor said, that pretty well sums it up. My head was spinning.
And so I took a closer look at the courier biz. I soon discovered that transforming employees into "entrepreneurs" is a common practice among these companies (very few are unionized). Many order their workers to state in writing that they are agents, proprietors or brokers whose relationship to the company is strictly that of a subcontractor. In some companies, this demand is made of office staff as well. In reality, none of these workers are entrepreneurs and, aside from being able to deduct employment expenses from their income taxes (not a big deal at their income level), they gain nothing by being classed as such. In-stead, they lose a great deal. Of course, the employees' loss is the companies' gain. No minimum wage. No vacation pay. No labour code. No need for just cause before dismissing a worker. Hell, there's no red tape at all! It's entrepreneur heaven! Force your employees to declare themselves entrepreneurs and POOF! you have no employees. And since you have no employees, you have no payroll. And since you have no pay-roll, you pay no payroll taxes such as Workers Compensation. (What do couriers do if they're crippled on the job? Hell, they're entrepreneurs aren't they? Let 'em sell pencils!) In terms of their legal rights as employees, for many couriers it's as if the 20th century never happened.
But in fact, the plight of the courier-entrepreneur is not a throwback to the l9th century. It's a harbinger of the future.
The entrepreneur, politicians now pro-claim, will be the salvation of our society. There isn't anything the government can do that private enterprise can't do better. We must cut red tape. We must privatize crown corporations. We must snatch the dead hand of the state from the levers of the economy and free the entrepreneurial genius of our people,
Take a look at the courier business. Is it not the entrepreneurial dream come true? Twenty years ago it didn't exist. Mail was a government monopoly. And we all know what that meant. Late mail, lost mail, uppity unions, national strikes, bloated payrolls and huge deficits. A great big mess. But along came a few savvy entrepreneurs, who said; "Hey, we can do a better job and make a pisspot full of money." So they rolled up their sleeves (entrepreneurs always roll up their sleeves; civil servants never do) and set to work.
Look down any city street today and you will see the result. The whole private courier industry now generates sales of more than $l billion a year in Canada and employs more than 50,000 people. For every letter carrier, there's a number of couriers. They drive cars and trucks. they ride bicycles and some even walk regular rounds just like a postie. Never mind that the post office still has a legal monopoly over mail. The fine print exempts "urgent" documents. Since any letter handled by courier is by definition urgent, the monopoly is meaningless. And never mind that couriers are legally required to charge more than the post office. Plenty of people are willing and able to pay a premium for speedy mail service. Thus, the courier business booms. Big multinational companies make millions in profits on their Canadian operations, while hundreds of smaller companies fight tooth and nail for what's left.
Make no mistake what we have here is the genesis of a private sector, user-paymail service that operates according to the principles of entrepreneurship and free enterprise cut- throat competition, a Darwinian struggle for survival and first-rate service for the rich. As if to drive home the point, some of the bigger courier companies in Toronto are now putting their own mail boxes on street corners and in subway stations. Take that, Canada Post. Take that. letter carriers. Take that postal workers. This is the shape of things to come the lean, mean courier-entrepreneur, not the fat cat postie.
I managed to finish my summer's work without being fired. (I refused to declare myself a business and was walking out the door when the boss called me back to discuss a "compromise,") I also managed to accomplish my personal aims. I lost 20 pounds and attained a high level of fitness. I overcame pain and got a good tan. I managed, barely, to pay my rent. (Luckily, I also stayed alive and uninjured despite a couple of nasty accidents.) But in sampling the life of a bicycle courier I also got a glimpse into the kind of world employees will face if we allow our politicians to let their entrepreneurial fantasies run amok. I realized that what I had experienced was not an isolated throwback, to an unenlightened past, but a sign of what lies ahead for working people if we let our society he re-constucted according to the trendy right-wing principles of deregulation. privatisation and dog-eat-dog entrepreneurialism.
What can working people expect if we are all forced to become little entrepreneurs? Low pay, high risk and no security, that's what. Simple, unvarnished exploitation. Perhaps we should remember this when someone attacks our unions, our public enterprises and the rules and regulations that protect ordinary people from those whose only interest is the making of money. Perhaps we should remember this when we are told that the entrepreneur is our salvation. I began my summer wearing the grin of a speed-demon possessed. I ended it wearing the grimace of the exploited.
Alan Bass was for several years a member of the Newspaper Guild in Ottawa and now studies history at York University.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com