by Alan Bass
Our Times, December 1988
With low pay, high risks, and a lack of security, you might thinkthe wheel of history was rolling workers back to the last century. Buta 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 outthe window at work I'd spy a dishevelled half naked courier racing downthe 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 zippingeffortlessly 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 todeath. 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 whenI 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 bicyclecourier!
Quickly I turned to the classifieds. Bicycle couriers were needed! Whata 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 toldto fill in an application. It was tossed onto a pile, unread. I was askedif 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'dbe interviewed by the boss. Then I'd work.
A strange way to do business I thought, yet charmingly informal. I rodemy bike home. I was happy, I was only slightly worried that my legs alreadyhurt.
The next morning I had my interview, a mass affair with half a dozenother new employees. Our applications were plucked from the pile wherethey 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 employedby his company. We were independent agents and would be paid a 60 per centcommission per delivery. We had to pay a weekly dispatch fee of $30, butwould get some back as a "bonus" if we worked every day for amonth. 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-upsand deliveries. These were ail provided on the spot, no cash needed, justsign here, we'll be happy to deduct it from your first check.
We were also instructed to sign "agreements" stating we werenot employees and in no way any responsibility of the company. I thoughtthis odd but shrugged it off. Finally. we were sent off to work, our applicationsstill unread, some of us having already assessed a $53 debt to the companybefore earning a cent.
Did I say work? Well that's not quite right. Actually, we were sentto an intersection and told to call the dispatcher from there. Howeverthat didn't mean you'd get something to do. There were, it seemed, an awfullot of people calling in for a small amount of work. During my first day,I made just seven deliveries (including an exhausting 10 kilometre trekaccross town (and earned $17.25). I figured the dispatcher was doing mea favour by breaking me in, slowly. Since I hurt all over, I didn't reallymind.
Within a few days I was feeling much healthier and started pesteringthe dispatcher for some work. However, I continued to spend hours doingnothing. Since this was a commission job, no work meant no pay. I beganto wonder what was going on, especially when I noticed that despite theevident shortage of work the company kept hiring new people Soon I realizedthat anybody walking through the door got hired. I have long been familiarwith the principle of surplus labour (lots of people vying for the samejob makes workers insecure and prevents them from demanding more moneyor better working conditions), but this was the first time I had seen itpractised so brazenly. Complainers were told that if they didn't like itthey should quit. There were lots of people to take their place.
I stayed for almost two weeks, but things never got better. FinallyI got my first paycheck, which covered my first three days of work. Itcame to a grand total after deductions, which did not include unemploymentinsurance 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 seeme 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 upmy 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 thatassured me it hired only as many people as it needed. Off I went for aninterview.
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 chanceto 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 itwas a month before I got my first full paycheck. My weekly earnings werenot large (during the course of the summer they fluctuated dramaticallyfrom about $225 to $375 a week), but that was okay. I did not expect tomake 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 mewas that once again there were no deductions for UI or CPP and the paystub 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 hisoffice and stuck a piece of paper in my hand. It turned out to be a formfor registering a business. I was told to fill it out and file it withthe government (paying the fee out of my own pocket. of course). Seeingmy confusion the boss finally explained the situation. Contrary to whatI thought, I was not an employee of his company. My bike and I were anindependent 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 nocontrol over the business. All my calls came through the dispatcher andall pricing and billing was done by the company. Sure, I used my own bikeand had no illusions that the company would help pay for repairs. But didthat make me an entrepreneur? It didn't seem right. I told the boss I'dget back to him after getting some legal advice. At this, he got a littleantsy. If I refused to register my business, he said, he'd fire me.
I contacted a counsellor at the provincial Ministry of Labour. Don'tfill out the form, I was told. If I did, I would give up any claim to beingan employee and thus would lose any legal protection under the labour code.It was too bad I was threatened with dismissal, the counsellor added. SinceI'd worked at this company for less than three months, the boss could fireme 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 businessbecause that would deny me the legal protection of the labour code. Onthe 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 thattransforming employees into "entrepreneurs" is a common practiceamong these companies (very few are unionized). Many order their workersto state in writing that they are agents, proprietors or brokers whoserelationship to the company is strictly that of a subcontractor. In somecompanies, this demand is made of office staff as well. In reality, noneof these workers are entrepreneurs and, aside from being able to deductemployment expenses from their income taxes (not a big deal at their incomelevel), they gain nothing by being classed as such. In-stead, they losea great deal. Of course, the employees' loss is the companies' gain. Nominimum wage. No vacation pay. No labour code. No need for just cause beforedismissing a worker. Hell, there's no red tape at all! It's entrepreneurheaven! 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 WorkersCompensation. (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 theirlegal rights as employees, for many couriers it's as if the 20th centurynever happened.
But in fact, the plight of the courier-entrepreneur is not a throwbackto the l9th century. It's a harbinger of the future.
The entrepreneur, politicians now pro-claim, will be the salvation ofour society. There isn't anything the government can do that private enterprisecan'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 economyand free the entrepreneurial genius of our people,
Take a look at the courier business. Is it not the entrepreneurial dreamcome 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, nationalstrikes, bloated payrolls and huge deficits. A great big mess. But alongcame a few savvy entrepreneurs, who said; "Hey, we can do a betterjob and make a pisspot full of money." So they rolled up their sleeves(entrepreneurs always roll up their sleeves; civil servants never do) andset to work.
Look down any city street today and you will see the result. The wholeprivate courier industry now generates sales of more than $l billion ayear 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 bicyclesand some even walk regular rounds just like a postie. Never mind that thepost office still has a legal monopoly over mail. The fine print exempts"urgent" documents. Since any letter handled by courier is bydefinition urgent, the monopoly is meaningless. And never mind that couriersare legally required to charge more than the post office. Plenty of peopleare willing and able to pay a premium for speedy mail service. Thus, thecourier business booms. Big multinational companies make millions in profitson their Canadian operations, while hundreds of smaller companies fighttooth 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 entrepreneurshipand free enterprise cut- throat competition, a Darwinian struggle for survivaland first-rate service for the rich. As if to drive home the point, someof the bigger courier companies in Toronto are now putting their own mailboxes on street corners and in subway stations. Take that, Canada Post.Take that. letter carriers. Take that postal workers. This is the shapeof things to come the lean, mean courier-entrepreneur, not the fat catpostie.
I managed to finish my summer's work without being fired. (I refusedto declare myself a business and was walking out the door when the bosscalled me back to discuss a "compromise,") I also managed toaccomplish my personal aims. I lost 20 pounds and attained a high levelof fitness. I overcame pain and got a good tan. I managed, barely, to paymy rent. (Luckily, I also stayed alive and uninjured despite a couple ofnasty accidents.) But in sampling the life of a bicycle courier I alsogot a glimpse into the kind of world employees will face if we allow ourpoliticians to let their entrepreneurial fantasies run amok. I realizedthat what I had experienced was not an isolated throwback, to an unenlightenedpast, but a sign of what lies ahead for working people if we let our societyhe 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 littleentrepreneurs? Low pay, high risk and no security, that's what. Simple,unvarnished exploitation. Perhaps we should remember this when someoneattacks our unions, our public enterprises and the rules and regulationsthat protect ordinary people from those whose only interest is the makingof money. Perhaps we should remember this when we are told that the entrepreneuris 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 inOttawa and now studies history at York University.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com