Two years ago, on a grey day in March, I was standing outside a block of flats in Shadwell, listening to a fellow delivery rider speak with passion as he addressed the crowd present at the vigil. His flat had gone up in flames, taking with it the life of his close friend, another rider, named Mizanur Rahman.
The fire had been started by an exploding lithium battery from within a modified e-bike. The pain and anger we all felt at the needless death of this father of two, was accompanied by frustration that the fire had gone largely unnoticed by the wider public. Rather than being amplified into widespread uproar, the screams that came from the flat that night seemed to have been met with muffled silence.
Since that day, e-bike fires in London have become alarmingly common — the London Fire Brigade has reported attending an e-bike fire once every 2.5 days, many caused by home modifications to e-bikes, or faulty or counterfeit parts. Earlier this month, 11 people were hospitalised after an e-bike fire spread through several flats in East London. Like many that went before it, the incident provoked little of the shock, anger or protest it should have.
It’s not hard to find an explanation as to why. There is a common thread throughout these fires: the people most affected are delivery riders, like myself. More often than not they are migrants, gig economy workers forced to survive in the margins.
When a new e-bike costs thousands, precarious workers have little choice but to look for the loopholes
The apps we work for pay such unlivable fees that riders are incentivized to take whatever risks they can in order to complete more jobs, whether running red lights, riding on pavements, or modifying their bikes with DIY conversion kits to make them go faster. It has become almost impossible to earn a living on a regular pushbike, and when a new e-bike costs thousands, precarious workers have little choice but to look for the loopholes.
After risking their lives all day on the roads, many people then sleep in dangerously overcrowded flats. Right to Rent legislation, by denying certain renters basic housing rights, has pushed workers into poor and unsafe accommodation owned by exploitative and unregulated landlords, as in Mizanur Rahman’s tragic case.
And when these conditions inevitably lead to fires, hospitalisations and deaths, London looks the other way. But unless we start paying attention to these disasters and the systemic issues causing them, they will only continue to intensify, posing an increasingly large threat to the safety of riders and the public at large.
As a priority, we must recognise that these platforms, and we all know who they are, and their failure to pay a dignified wage, are a public health risk. They are putting Londoners in danger both out on the streets and inside their own homes. Responsibility for these fires clearly falls on the apps — the most comprehensive way to prevent their spread is to increase pay and improve conditions.
Raising pay as a matter of urgency could both relieve the pressure on workers to modify their bikes, and enable them to afford a regulation e-bike. If apps will not provide safe bikes themselves, they should at the very least provide affordable bikes through subsidising retailers.
London can’t afford to maintain its current indifference to these fires. As long as the systemic issues go unaddressed and these well-know and well-used apps go unchallenged on the appalling conditions their riders work in, more and more people will be pushed into taking lethal risks, and more lives will be lost to these entirely preventable disasters. It’s time to realise that this workforce abuse is no longer just an employment issue, it has become a public health issue, with a rapidly rising number of casualties.
Shaf Hussain is IWGB Union Couriers and Logistics Branch Chair
