Last week, a tribunal ruled that Deliveroo riders in north London were not entitled to basic employment rights because they are not “workers”. The case was brought in May by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) to force the firm to accept the collective bargaining rights of its members. But in its ruling, the Central Arbitration Committee, which oversees collective bargaining law, concluded that Deliveroo couriers are self-employed because they have a right to ask a substitute to perform a job for them. By law, anyone with the right to do this is classed as self-employed, and self-employed workers aren’t entitled to collective bargaining rights... The 21st-century phenomenon of the “gig economy” has, critics claim, undone a century of progress and reintroduced sweatshop conditions. The IWGB had hoped that a tribunal ruling forcing Deliveroo to recognise union membership, would haul it into the new millennium.