Bio
After striking in ‘Deliveroo’ and building the ‘RidersXDerechos’ (‘Riders4Rights’) union network and then being fired for their activism together with his colleagues, Oriol Alfambra founded ‘Mensakas Co-op’. Their continuous struggle led the Spanish Supreme Court to state that the company must hire them back, and compensate them for fundamental rights violation. Furthermore the state-wide union networking has led to pressuring the Spanish Government to approve a pioneering but improvable law regulating tech delivery transnationals, stating that all couriers must be hired as employees.
‘Mensakas’ is a Co-op for online ordering and urban logistics belonging to the Coopcycle network. All workers and members have been hired as employees since it was founded (2018). Therefore taxes and social security contributions are paid, unlike the delivery transnationals. It offers the option to consume in a socially responsible way using the smartphone. The cooperative helps strengthen couriers’ self-organization and empower their struggles against precarious jobs. It provides real experiences of collectivization and economic sovereignty such as the development of a workers-owned digital platform and its deployment.