‘The threat of abuse and violence is still a daily part of the job’: the bereaved women fighting to protect gig economy drivers

theguardian.com:

On the evening of 17 February 2021, Gabriel Bringye kissed his fiancee goodbye, and assured her he wouldn’t work late. Hours later, police were at the door of their east London home. He had been killed on the job, lured by a group of teenagers who booked his car on the Bolt cab ride app in order to rob him.

Known as a “trap job”, the group used a stolen phone to book the journey that ended with the 37-year-old driver’s death. Despite his vehicle remaining stationary for nearly six hours while booked on a job, Bolt had no automated system in place to raise the alarm; Gabriel was found by a passerby. He died at the scene.

More than a year since his death, Gabriel’s sister Renata Bringye and his fiancee, Mara Fazecas, are leading the fight to promote driver safety and prevent more attacks on drivers. In a campaign with the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), Renata, who also works as a private hire driver, and Fazecas, a hotel cleaning supervisor, are demanding Bolt implements better safety measures. They also want the multibillion dollar company to give its drivers worker status, as Uber was forced to do last year.

Renata, 35, remembers her older brother as a family man: “He never had a problem with anyone. If anybody needed something, he was the first who jumped to help.” The Romanian national, who had been working as a driver for five years at the time of his death, lived with his fiancee, his sister and her nine-year-old son in Walthamstow, after moving to London from Spain more than a decade ago. After working in construction, Gabriel became a private-hire driver, attracted by the flexibility it offered. He enjoyed driving, and choosing his own hours meant he could help his sister take care of her son.

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