Legal battle over employment standards continues

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/01/2024 (720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A legal battle over employment standards for food couriers stretches on, six years after it was first filed in Manitoba court.

A proposed class-action lawsuit against Winnipeg-headquartered food delivery service SkipTheDishes continues to wind its way through the legal system.

Earlier this month, Manitoba’s Court of Appeal quashed the company’s attempt to block the suit, moving the case one step closer to being certified as a class-action in favour of employee benefits for Skip couriers across the country.

In its Jan. 12 decision, the Appeal Court rejected the motion to stay the action launched by former courier Charleen Pokornik in 2018. SkipTheDishes argued the lawsuit should be thrown out because the company had a legal agreement that effectively took away couriers’ ability to sue.

The court upheld a lower court’s ruling that the company’s 2018 legal agreement for personnel was “unconscionable.”

SkipTheDishes now has 60 days to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to hear its appeal. A spokesperson declined to comment, saying only the company is “actively reviewing” the decision.

Similar to ride-booking services such as Uber, SkipTheDishes considers its food-delivery drivers independent contractors, not employees. Pokornik’s lawsuit would challenge that argument and, if successful, win recognition for drivers, who would enjoy the protection of employment standards laws.

Lawyer Paul Edwards, who represents Pokornik, said his client is pleased with the recent court decision, adding they’ll keep fighting “as long as it takes” to see couriers recognized as employees.

Pending another appeal, the lawsuit still has to be certified by the court as a class action before the issue of employee benefits can even be raised in court.

The lawsuit was filed in 2018, but put on hold pending the outcome of a related case over employee benefits for UberEats drivers. The Supreme Court of Canada sided with the drivers, against the ride-booking and food-delivery company.

Using a strategy started by Uber (and later struck down by the Supreme Court), SkipTheDishes required all couriers to sign an agreement that prohibited legal action, directing all disputes to arbitration, instead.

That agreement was introduced a day after Pokornik took legal action, and she signed it under protest in order to continue working for SkipTheDishes, Manitoba’s Court of Appeal found.

“It’s been quite frustrating and unfair for many who work in the gig economy” that years go by before these cases can be argued in court,” Edwards said.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Paul Samyn | Editor's Note

Wednesdays

A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom.

Sign up for Paul Samyn | Editor's Note

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

“Hundreds of thousands of Canadians participate in the gig economy, and with the number of companies — Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and, of course, SkipTheDishes, just to name some… that is not going away, that’s growing,” he said.

“So this is an increasingly significant part of the wage economy in Canada and all over the world. Courts now are dealing with this issue of what rights those drivers have… and of course, the companies themselves are pushing back hard. And so that means that it does take time, it takes an enormous amount of investment and money, to litigate.”

The company operates an online food-delivery system through which individuals order and pay for food from restaurants online, and a SkipTheDishes courier picks up the food and delivers it to the customer for a delivery fee and, in some cases, a tip.

SkipTheDishes has its headquarters in Winnipeg, but is owned by a publicly traded European company and operates in cities across Canada.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Katie May
Multimedia producer

Katie May is a multimedia producer for the Free Press.

   Read full biography