Some of you could throw your whole bicycle onto this pile.
They are so worn down.
After one or two winters, some of them look terrible.
Same as our hands each time after repairing the bicycles ourselves.
Many bicyles haven't been safe for traffic for a long time.
That is not just a risk for us drivers but also for other road users.
That risk can have far-reaching consequences.
Who doesn't know at least one colleague - or has themselves been affected -
who has been driving around with defective brakes for years
while working for Foodora,
who never had a proper bicycle light
because they cannot afford it or the lights have some loose contacts
or other bicycle defects that distract us or cost us time
because we have to repair the defects ourselves.
Who doesn't know drivers who have had an accident during working hours
or was involved in accidents themselves.
All of us have experienced that,
we all know someone who has lost their nerve or suffered worse.
Only yesterday, a female bicycle driver was killed in Berlin-Schöneberg.
The first bicycle driver who was killed here this year
and surely not the last.
In Berlin, driving around on a bicycle is dangerous.
Driving on the roads by bicyle is dangerous in general.
We have a dangerous job.
We must never forget that out there.
A well maintained bicycle,
and I really mean "well maintained",
not a bicycle that somehow rolls
or that works somehow to take an order from here to there,
can decide about life and death out there,
can decide whether we are safe on the road
or whether our chain breaks at the next red light
or the brakes don't work or we aren't seen because of the bicycle lights...
... especially during the current bad weather conditions.
I am sure, few of you have missed the heavy storm last week,
in Berlin and even the whole of Germany.
"Frederike" was her lovely name.
During this time, as the storm was raging, our drivers were outside.
Even in the cities where the storm was even worse
drivers were outside doing their job.
Foodora currently forces us with its great repair system that was mentioned earlier
that we continue to drive around with our broken bicycles
until we slowly and tediously accumulated the repair costs.
Until then, the bicycles continue to be a traffic risk.
Especially drivers who have worked for Foodora for a long time
get completely ignored.
Their bicyles are worn down doing this job and fall apart.
They don't benefit from the new repair system at all.
In the end, we will most likely be forced to pay for the repairs ourselves.
Some repairs are simply necessary
and cannot be postponed until you accumulated enough hours.
That means, in the end we will pay everything ourselves again,
despite the great repair system.
Just to be clear, I have been driving for Foodora for nearly 3 years.
In Berlin, I am the driver who has been working for Foodora the longest.
I have used my bicycle from the very beginning
and meanwhile I could just throw it on this pile here.
Some repairs are overdue
but I cannot afford them as I don't earn enough doing this job.
Foodora keeps pulling money out of our pockets
for our maintenance work.
That way our wage gets indirectly lowered.
In case someone has calculated how much of their "above average" minimum wage
is left after paying for all repairs will realize
that, in fact, we are paid "below average".
Meanwhile, after the introduction of the new bonus system
many of us earn less anyway.
Some have already heard it, we have a new bonus system
which means that far less of us can reach the 1 Euro bonus per hour.
That add to it all, so we earn less and less through the new regulations.
Foodora does not only risk our safety and our health
but in the worst case also our lifes.
So we demand that Foodora pays for all our repair costs.
We demand that this is fulfilled before we further drive around with broken bicycles,
before accidents happen, not when it is too late,
but before people get hurt or worse.
We demand it now!