"Deliveroo drivers go on international strike ahead of company’s IPO", 26 March 2021

Deliveroo riders in Sydney will join an international strike over pay and rights as the company prepares to begin selling stocks on the London exchange. The UK company’s initial public offering has been predicted as one of the biggest stock market flotations in London in a decade.

...Deliveroo’s prospectus included 24 pages of risk factors, such as government investigations or challenges against the working conditions for delivery riders in Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, France and Italy. It mentions an Italian probe that found riders should be entitled to the same benefits as employees, meaning the company could be forced to pay back the riders’ minimum wage, paid holidays, paid sick leave and severance entitlements for the years between their launch in the country in 2015 until 2020. Deliveroo has appealed that ruling...The prospectus acknowledges that Deliveroo’s business could suffer by riders stopping work, saying such actions might “require us to adopt or negotiate changes with respect to working arrangements that are unfavourable to the business”.