Gig Workers Meetup
With Deliveroo having departed from Australia, now more than ever, those doing app-based gig work need support. What this event is intended to offer is a space in which food delivery riders and gig workers can come together, meet one another, and feel supported.
By providing free access to food and drinks, relevant information, phone chargers, and other amenities, Melbourne’s Gig Workers Meetups are intended to gather support - and demonstrate a need - for a permanent gig workers hub in Melbourne’s CBD. Gathering support also means informing the general public about the experiences of gig workers. To this end, the Meetups will involve gathering information from gig workers about how the city could best support their needs and desires.
Please use the Questionnaire page to provide your information. The questions focus on how delivery riders use the city and how the city could best accomodate their needs and desires. This information could be used to help make the city more supportive of food delivery riders.
Meetup at Micro-Labs Melbourne
The first iteration of the Gig Workers Meetup took place over two days in December at City of Melbourne’s Micro-Labs on Bourke Street. This iteration was delivered in conjunction with the City of Melbourne, Monash University, the Transport Workers Union, the Young Workers Centre, and St Kilda Bike Kitchen.
Explanatory Statement
Food Delivery Workers
Project ID: 34843
Project title: Conducting interviews and questionnaires with food delivery workers
| Dr Tom Morgan Department of Architecture Phone: +61 438 381 474 email: Tom.Morgan@monash.edu |
| Andrew Copolov Phone: +61 412 480 227 email: Andrew.Copolov1@monash.edu |
You are invited to take part in this study. Please read this Explanatory Statement in full before deciding whether to participate in this research. If you would like further information regarding any aspect of this project, you are encouraged to contact Andrew Copolov via the phone number or email address listed above.
This is a student research project.
What does the research involve?
The aim of this study is to gather information about the experiences of a wide range of food delivery workers in Melbourne.
Participants will be asked to express their opinions on the experience of working for food delivery companies. This information will be collected through interviews with the student researcher, and/or through a questionnaire. Interviews will involve audio recording, and if participants give their consent, will also involve photography and/or video recording. Participants are under no obligation to be photographed or video recorded.
Interviews will be informal in nature and will generally be conducted in one 20-minute session – either online or in-person, depending on the preference of each participant. There is possibility that participants may be contacted again after their initial interviews for follow-up interviews, though they are under no obligation to accept further commitments or engagement with the research.
Why were you invited for this research?
You have been invited to participate in this research because you have been identified as a food delivery worker. No matter how many hours you spend doing delivery work, or for which company you are working, your experiences are important to this research.
Consenting to participate in the project and withdrawing from the research
To consent to be involved in this research you will need to sign and return the supplied consent form.
After consenting to be involved, you retain the right to withdraw from further participation at any stage of the project, however if you have already submitted a questionnaire response it will not be possible to remove your contributed data from the study.
For interview participants, you will be able to withdraw your data from the research up until the point when the student thesis is submitted. The expected submission date is March 2025.
Possible benefits and risks to participants
This research may contribute to ongoing efforts to make food delivery work safer and more comfortable. Taking part in this research does not entail any foreseeable risks. As a participant, you will only be involved in the research after providing your informed consent.
Confidentiality
The information provided by participants will be de-identified. In some instances, participants may consent to having identifiable recordings of their interviews shared. In all other situations, all information gained from participants will be confidential. If it is necessary to refer to participants by name, pseudonyms will be used instead of real names.
When responses are collected in languages other than English, a translator will be consulted to verify online translation results. For translation purposes, the translator will have access to interviews and questionnaires provided by participants. Identifying and contact information provided alongside the interviews and questionnaires will no be made available to the translator.
Storage of data
The data from interviews and questionnaires will be stored electronically – both in a secure Monash Google Drive, and on a secure hard drive disk. This data will be kept for a minimum of 5 years, and after it is no longer required it will be securely destroyed.
Use of data for other purposes
Data collected may be used in other future projects by the researcher, however this information will only be used in a de-identified format and in projects for which ethics approval has been granted.
Results
This data will exist as an appendix to a Monash University PhD thesis in the Department of Architecture. As part of this PhD thesis, aspects of the interviews and questionnaires may be presented in public forums and exhibitions. When presented publicly, this information will be de-identified except in cases where a participant has consented to having their information shared in an identifiable format.
Participants who choose to be contactable will have the results of the research shared with them via email.
Complaints
Should you have any concerns or complaints about the conduct of the project, you are welcome to contact the Executive Officer, Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC):
|
Executive Officer Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC) Room 111, Chancellery Building D, 26 Sports Walk, Clayton Campus Research Office Monash University VIC 3800 Tel: +61 3 9905 2052 Email: muhrec@monash.edu |
Thank you,
Dr Tom Morgan & Andrew Copolov