Sherpa CEO: The Fair Work Commission must set minimum standards for the gig economy

As a major player in the gig economy, Sherpa fully supports proposed legislation to give the Fair Work Commission powers to create industry-wide standards for gig workers.

However, what is currently being proposed does not go far enough to protect workers and some of these players are very late to the party. 

So I’m calling on the Fair Work Commission to set standards intentionally designed to drive gig economy operators — especially those who are still exploiting the gig economy and the millions of Australians who work within it — to up their game. 

The Fair Work Commission needs to set enforceable standards to ensure rogue operators are blocked from entering the market, with intentions to undercut companies that are doing the right thing by gig workers.

The agreement between the Transport Workers Union and Uber is a positive development but at this stage, the parties have simply agreed to collaborate. No minimum standards for gig workers have actually been set yet and frankly, this setting of minimum standards is long overdue.

How Sherpa operates

Sherpa holds massive interest in negotiations pertaining to the regulation of platform work as Australia’s largest same-day delivery company by volume of deliveries. We have vested interests when it comes to the financial rewards, welfare and safety of our drivers and we have been taking these matters very seriously for a very long time.

Sherpas are paid fairly, at rates considered above minimum wage. We protect our drivers, with personal accident insurance coverage for every member of our fleet. Sherpas have a voice through regular feedback sessions encouraging drivers to tell us the good, the bad and the ugly of our business so we can improve. We give every driver the opportunity to dispute any action taken against them.

Our customers — including Woolworths, Chemist Warehouse, Dan Murphy’s, Roses Only and thousands more — have expressed endorsement of our approach when it comes to dealings with our driver fleet. It’s unlikely that such endorsement has been received by some other active operators of the Australian gig economy.

The gig economy should be its own category

For Australian gig workers, flexibility is the chief advantage. Many studies have proven this to be true. Flexibility, independence and the freedom to work when you like and as much or as little as you like attracts Australians to gig work, and these advantages are especially attractive to so many because they’re different to typical employment contracts. The platform business model is unique in this sense and ought to be preserved as part of any Australian gig economy overhaul. 

The setting of standards to ensure fairness for gig workers is absolutely needed, but to take it as far as imposing mandatory rules on platform operators to provide gig workers with traditional employment benefits — in addition to the unique advantages gig work currently provides — would make the platform business model simply unworkable and this would be to the detriment of the more than 2 million Australians who currently work within it.

Sherpa has a growing fleet of 11,000 drivers, servicing 75% of the Australian population with a focus purely on same-day delivery. Sherpa has completed more than 7 million same-day deliveries to-date, operating under a platform business model that has been under high scrutiny especially after the COVID-19-spurred boom drove unprecedented consumer demand for fast delivery of online purchases. 

The gig economy in Australia is a space that’s bustling with income-generating opportunities. For the space to thrive so that all parties benefit, the Fair Work Commission must accelerate rules for more transparency and standardisation across the board.

If we recognise gig work as its own category, rather than stubbornly clinging to an old workforce paradigm, gig platforms can do what’s fair, rather than be forced into an ‘all or nothing’ scenario.

Time to weed out ‘the bad guys’

Sherpa has been operating for almost a decade and we’re in the game for the long run. Our road to success requires our drivers. We value and need them, so it’s in our interests to treat them fairly as independent partners — but not employees.

It’s fair to state that generally, gig economy platform operators are currently painted as the ‘bad guys’ — businesses that treat gig workers as second-class citizens when it comes to wages and conditions. I absolutely refute these negative connotations purported by too many politicians and media commentators as they’re tarring the entire gig economy industry with the same brush. 

The government needs to weed out the bad guys so the good guys, who are doing the right thing by gig workers, can keep rising as the tide rises.

We need regulation that puts all gig operators on an even playing field, and lifts general benchmarks to offer fair pay, protections and systems to ensure gig workers’ voices are heard. Through the setting of these standards, all complying gig operators who are doing the right thing by gig workers, can keep growing while the gig workforce as well as businesses and consumers also benefit.

Virtually all Australians in varying degrees are feeling the financial pinch of inflation and the increased cost of living, but consumers’ appetite for immediacy when it comes to retail in particular is not on the decline. As the demand for same-day delivery continues to rapidly grow, so too does the need for standardisation across the gig industry. While only a few retailers were able to offer ultra-fast delivery in the past, that has all changed as a result of the gig economy and platform business model. 

The platform business model works and its appeal to businesses and individual gig workers continues to strengthen. Our legislators must introduce enforceable rules across the industry to raise the standards of all players, yet remain flexible enough to allow these companies to cater to the changed retail landscape and the realities of a modern workforce.

Duncan Brett is the CEO of Sherpa.