iFood will have to pay BRL 375 thousand to the family of the delivery person – 03/03/2023 – Market

The iFood app was ordered by the São Paulo court to pay compensation of BRL 375,000 to five heirs of a delivery man who died in a traffic accident while working for the platform.

iFood says, in a note, that it sympathizes with what happened and that it does not comment on ongoing processes. The company can still appeal.

From the total amount of compensation (which is R$75,000 per heir), iFood will be able to deduct the R$100,000 paid to the family through life insurance. According to the app, couriers using the platform have access to seven types of insurance coverage during deliveries.

Deputy labor judge Yara Campos Souto, from the 8th Labor Court of São Paulo – South Zone, also determined the payment of a pension equivalent to two thirds of the last salary of the courier, of around R$ 2,500.

For the widow, payment must be made by the date on which he would complete 75 years. For children, the pension will have to be paid until they turn 24 years old. The total amount of the pension can be paid in a single installment, according to the sentence of February 27, with a 20% reduction.

The worker had been working as a delivery man on a motorcycle for just over a year when he had the accident. The family defended in the Labor Court that he was an employee of iFood, as he was subject to control and punishment by the company.

In the action, iFood said it is not a transport company, but a sharing platform between customers and suppliers.

“It is worth mentioning that the platform’s partner couriers are independent professionals, they can define their schedules, work in competing applications simultaneously, which mischaracterizes the employment relationship with the company, as has already been recognized in decisions of different judicial instances”, said the application to the report in this Friday (3).

For the judge, the relationship between the courier and iFood does not fit the concept of autonomy. “Although the worker, in theory, can reject deliveries, it is certain that this power is limited, since repeated rejections or inactivity in the application for a long period lead to the non-offering of new deliveries to the worker”, wrote Yara Campos Souto.

Furthermore, she considered that the means of production are the platform itself, not the cell phone and bicycle or motorcycle that belong to the worker or are used by him.

Based on this understanding, it determined the retroactive registration of the delivery driver. Labor allowances such as the FGTS (Service Time Guarantee Fund), vacations and the constitutional third, 13th, overtime and additional hazard pay equivalent to 30% of the base salary must be paid.

The definition of a legal rule for work mediated by applications began to be discussed more frequently after the pandemic. The current government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) created a working group and wants to define regulations that increase the protection of these workers.

iFood, which is a leader in the food delivery segment, says that since 2021 it has publicly supported the debate on a regulation that “understands the new labor relations and guarantees social protection and rights for delivery men and women.”