It is a trope of American films: the dog collecting the newspaper thrown over the white picket fence. It is not so commonplace, however, to come home – as Elly Holstead from Crewe did – to find that an online delivery has been left, according to the courier’s slip, “with the dog”. Rather adorably, the Yodel driver responsible for this unusual drop-off reasoned that Holstead’s cockapoo “looked really friendly”. In fact, two-year-old Roman left the skirt Holstead had ordered “in bits, and covered in dog poo”. Roman, did you have to?
His disgrace is the latest in a long line of delivery-gone-wrong stories. Black labrador Jack also chewed some dresses after a package was chucked over a gate in Merseyside, while another shopper’s cat flap was damaged by a failed attempt at shoving an oversized box through it. Perhaps most startling of all, an Amazon customer found their package in the toilet after the driver threw it through an open bathroom window. Others have reported parcels that have been stolen after being ditched in plain sight on the street, or that their signatures of receipt have been forged.
There is no doubt that this is not good behaviour on the part of those couriers working for Amazon, Hermes, Yodel and the like. But you could argue that if drivers had better working conditions, fewer parcels might end up in the loo. Self-employed delivery drivers (or “independent contractors”, in the jargon) can be paid as little as 45p per drop-off and often go unpaid for non-deliveries, incentivising their creative distribution methods.
The pressures to meet targets and earn at least the national living wage (at 45p a delivery, you would have to drop off 100 parcels a day) has even resulted in the presumably desperate instance reported in Holsworthy where one driver delivered, well, a number two (he had a poo in a customer’s shed; to be fair, he did then bag it up and put it in a bin).
It would help if companies made drivers proper employees, or at least classed them as workers. An employment tribunal in Leeds recently ruled that Hermes drivers should be granted “worker” status, meaning that they are entitled to the minimum wage, sick and holiday pay, and are protected against unfair earnings deductions. It was hailed as “one of the most significant victories against exploitation of gig-economy workers”.
Meanwhile, DPD, which delivers parcels on behalf of John Lewis and other retailers, last year offered worker status to 6,000 couriers after the death of a driver who had missed three medical appointments for kidney damage – so as not to be docked £150 in wages. It’s easy to see why leaving the delivery with Roman the dog might look like the only option.
