"Europe Went Bananas for Gorillas. Then Its Workers Rose Up", 30 November 2021

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... in its home city of Berlin, Gorillas’ reputation tanked as the relationship between management and riders broke down. Throughout 2021, rider complaints about working conditions turned into strikes, protests, and blockades outside the company’s warehouses and offices.

...[CEO and co-founder of Gorillas, Kağan Sümer's] efforts to present himself as one of the “crew” infuriated protesters. “In a family of flat hierarchies, there’s no clear relation between a boss and a worker,” says Yonatan Miller, cofounder of the Berlin Tech Workers Coalition...Instead, he argues, blurred power structures...make it difficult to understand who is responsible for sick pay or other issues. Gorillas has also been accused by workers of union busting, a claim the company denies. “We value constructive dialog with our employees,” a spokesperson says...

On November 23, the German capital’s labor court rejected Gorillas’ attempt to block the election of an internal works council...Gorillas’ lawyer argued there had been shortcomings in the way the works council had been set up. The judge said this might be true...but it was not reason enough to stop the election going ahead.

...in February 2021...riders in the city said they did not have the equipment to safely meet their 10-minute delivery target on icy roads. That complaint gave birth to the creation of the Gorillas Workers Collective, a group that organized riders against a range of other concerns...A Gorillas spokesperson says rider safety is a priority, that bikes are professionally maintained, and that it is currently updating its rider kit. “As in any large company with many employees, there are occasional payroll errors. However, these amount to a small percentage,” the spokesperson adds...

For the works council to become a reality, an election had to be called to choose who would sit on the electoral council. The election was organized for June 3...But when head office staff turned up, around 50 people were turned away...

The election only exacerbated tensions and, later in June, the Gorillas Workers Collective started organizing wildcat strikes...At the June 28 protest, the Gorillas Workers Collective sent the company a list of 19 demands...Yasha, from the Gorillas Workers Collective, said promised changes did not materialize. A Gorillas spokesperson, however, pointed to a November blog post detailing recent improvements...

In early October, two people turned up to a protest with bikes...they tried to encourage the group to get back to work. The protesters later identified the duo as chief commercial officer Ronny Gottschlich and chief operating officer Adrian Frenzel. The Workers Collective claimed Gottschlich and Frenzel were acting as incognito strikebreakers. Gorillas maintains they were not incognito, with a spokesperson saying “the management team regularly ride” and the duo were “well known” by the company’s riders...

...On October 5, dozens of riders were told their contracts had been terminated because they had taken part in “unauthorized strikes.” Alexander Brunst, Gorillas’ general manager for Germany, told Der Spiegel that the company had been forced to act because the strikes were “destructive” and carried out by a group that “refused to enter into dialogue.”

In November, Gorillas went to court, trying—and failing—to block the creation of the works council because it claimed there had been “serious errors” in its formation. “We regret that the court...rejected the application and did not allow the termination of the current works council election,” a Gorillas spokesperson says, adding that the company “fully supports” the forming of a works council, provided it is “done properly and includes all employees.”

Later in November, Gorillas announced it would pilot a new franchise model in Berlin, a move that workers see as an attempt to fragment their organizing efforts. The company says the new legal structure would help warehouses respond better to local conditions, and that the election of a works council “remains possible for each entity.” But the timing and location of the pilot have been met with suspicion, especially because it echoes a system already in place at one company in particular:..

...Gorillas’ recent efforts to form a Dutch holding company also echo attempts made by some of Europe’s biggest retailers facing organizing efforts in the country, according to Maren Ulbrich, secretary of Germany’s second largest union, Verdi...