Glovo supply drivers check out unionism: “It’s the first time I’m voting in Spain” | Economy | EUROtoday

“It’s the first time I’ve voted in an election in Spain,” says a Venezuelan Glovo supply driver who prefers to not reveal his title, after voting at an organization location in Madrid positioned between the Prado Museum and Retiro Park. Normally it serves as a help place for the corporate’s supply drivers, with cabinets filled with backpacks, jackets and yellow helmets, however this Saturday it was reworked right into a polling station. It is among the six places the place the corporate’s first union elections had been held in Madrid this Saturday. Glovo fought for years to keep away from being an organization that hosts elections like these, in protection of its self-employed mannequin and in opposition to the salaried mannequin supported by justice and rider legislation. In these first elections, one of many events that supported these laws, CC OO, has received decisively, with 13 of the 27 delegates within the operating.

Unai Sordo’s union is one delegate wanting an absolute majority. Fetico completed in second place with 4 representatives, the identical ones obtained by the Free Transport Union (SLT). The union related to Vox, Solidaridad, has three seats, the identical as UGT, as confirmed by sources from CC OO, UGT and SLT. By votes, CC OO has achieved 155 (48.4%); Fetico, 50 (15.6%); SLT, 40 (12.5%); Solidarity, 39 (12.2%); and UGT, 34 (10.6%). There has been one null vote and one other clean.

Only 320 of the two,890 supply staff referred to as to vote have voted, 11.1% of the Madrid workforce. It is a really low participation fee. They may vote at six factors scattered all through the area: within the capital on the central Casado del Alisal avenue; in Leganés; in Pozuelo; in Alcobendas; in Pinto; and in Torrejón de Ardoz.

Sources within the sector had been anticipating the likelihood that the Solidarity union, related to the far-right social gathering Vox, would win, a forecast that has not materialized. The firm doesn’t specify the composition of the Madrid workforce, however the unions level out {that a} good half are Venezuelan migrants. Many are very important of the Chavista regime and the Spanish coalition authorities, which they affiliate with the leaders of their nation of origin.

One of these important distributors is the Venezuelan Rafael Martín. “Tell me what benefit the ley rider. We have gone from earning more than 3,000 euros to putting me at 1,200. “I didn’t come here because I was lazy,” he says after voting in the office in the center of Madrid. “I came to this country to work, to make money. If the day has 24 hours and I want to work 25, that is the person’s problem,” he provides.

It does not seem to be the majority position of the delivery workers who have participated in the elections: between CC OO and UGT they account for 59% of the votes. Although the big winner has been abstention, since 2,570 workers out of 2,890 have not spoken out

CC OO and UGT won in other provinces

These are not the first union elections for Glovo delivery drivers. Elections have already been held riders in Pamplona (with eight delegates from CC OO and one from the Basque union ELA), A Coruña (nine delegates from CC OO), Cáceres (three delegates from UGT), Pontevedra (nine from UGT) and Alicante (nine from UGT and eight from CC OO), according to data provided by the unions. On January 27, the Almería elections will be held.

However, the Madrid elections have a special symbolic significance, as it is the region with the most delivery drivers and the most importance for the company. On this occasion, 27 delegates were elected, those in charge of defending the rights of workers in a highly questioned company, just the opposite. The processes already carried out have been challenged by the company, unlike what happened this Saturday in the capital region.

The participating unions recognize how difficult it has been to organize the elections, given the atomization of the workforce and the dispersion of employees. They also highlight the difficulties in accessing a detailed census.

Glovo has been operating in Madrid for more than a decade, but delivery drivers still did not have union representation, despite the large number of their workers who travel around the region by bicycle. Employees have achieved the right to elect their representatives thanks to employment in the company.

The structure of the Glovo committee in Madrid differs from that usual in Spanish companies. According to statistics on collective agreements from the Ministry of Labor, in 2025 6,200 union representatives participated in agreement negotiating tables. Of them, 2,047 are from CC OO (33%) and 1,999 from UGT (32%). In the remaining third, the Basque unions ELA (8%), LAB (4%) and the Galician CIG (2.3%) stand out, along with the national unions USO (3.5%) and CGT (1.9%).

What did each union propose?

Before the elections, CC OO and UGT have defended the “benefits” that laborization gives to delivery workers, compared to the self-employed system that prevailed until 2025. CC OO has also claimed that they achieved recognition of the seniority of employees in the negotiation for hiring, in a similar line to UGT, which demands “fair algorithms.” Both protest the agreement that currently applies to workers, the 2006 courier agreement, and which they intend to change.

It is a complaint that Fetico and SLT also have an impact on. This union proposed that the application agreement be the one that already governs the Uber Eats fleets and in which this union participated. Fetico protests the “numerous non-compliance” of the company despite the laborization, while at the same time questioning the virtues of the rider law. Solidaridad has been characterized by its criticism of this regulation, CC OO and UGT for supporting it and has tried to bring together the delivery drivers who opposed this law.

Battle to the rider law

Glovo is the main food delivery company in Spain, a sector completed by Uber Eats and Just Eat. The third is the only one that has respected the rider law (which had employer and union support) since it came into application in 2021, the legislative translation of what justice had already been pointing out: a food delivery person is not an entrepreneur and the relationship with the platform that employs him cannot be established on his own.

Glovo announced the employment of its staff at the end of 2024, two days before the company’s top leader, Oscar Pierre, testified in court accused of a crime against the rights of its workers. The million-dollar sanctions imposed by the Inspection did not alter its actions, but the tightening of the Penal Code did. The promise crystallized on July 1 of last year, with the hiring of around 14,000 delivery drivers.

The criminal threat was on the horizon for Uber Eats, which with the approval of the rider law He assumed the salaried scheme, but shortly after he returned to self-employment when he noted Glovo’s commitment to that organizational model. Last week he took the final step and announced his intention to “as soon as possible” transition back to a labor system. The Inspection punishment for its hybrid model (one part self-employed and the other salaried) is still pending, but a priori he avoids the penalty with which the Ministry of Labor threatened him.

subcontracts

The supply drivers taking part in these elections should not the one ones who flow into in additional than 900 Spanish cities with yellow backpacks. There are an undetermined variety of Glovo workers in fleets, subcontractors to whom the corporate entrusts a part of its operations. Uber Eats and Just Eat, the opposite two massive corporations within the sector, additionally function with them. What’s extra, Uber Eats has no intention of hiring its self-employed supply drivers straight, however quite expects them to be built-in into the subcontractors with which it operates.