The App Driver and Courier Union’s Zamir Dreni and Cristina Ioanitsecu

THEY get you to the station on time and bring you home late at night.

They deliver you hot food when you do not want to cook, and drop off presents at your front door.

But the legions of cab drivers and couriers are among some of the worst abused and exploited workers today, and the App Driver and Courier Union is leading the fight to help them.

The union’s vice chair Zamir Dreni has seen first-hand how so many of his members are exploited – and how employment legislation has not kept up with the explosion in app-based cabs and deliveries.

Mr Dreni, a minicab driver who then worked for Uber, has been a union member since he was 18.

He said: “The business has changed for the worse. The operators are limited companies with a very large amount of money behind them. Their power in this market has changed the whole game for the worse, for both the passenger and the driver.”

Topics his union takes up include the lack of sickness benefit, holiday and maternity pay, and decent conditions. Working practices also have come under the microscope. Many drivers say a form of profiling means jobs are not handed out equitably as drivers prepared to accept lower fares are often favoured.

He added: “The opera­tors are the only ones winning, The passengers are paying an arm and a leg. Uber, for example, keeps a huge proportion – well over half.”

Mr Dreni says the idea that the drivers are all self-employed is a way for big companies to avoid fulfil­ling their obligations to drivers.

He said: “There is no sick pay. If you are ill, you don’t get paid.”

He added that while the main operators had a form of health insurance, his union has attempted to help more than 300 drivers claim basic sickness benefits and not one met the terms of the firm’s sickness payment rules.

He said: “There has been no movement on holiday pay for couriers and cab, either, despite a court ruling.”

Union rep Cristina Ioanitsecu was pregnant while driving her cab. She was told if she had worked for three months and completed 150 trips up to when she was going into labour, they would pay her a one-off £750. She would get no maternity pay at all otherwise.

Ms Ioanitsecu had to work up to the day before her child was born and was back behind the wheel within two weeks of giving birth.

She said: “I had to. I had no choice. I worked on the Friday and gave birth on Saturday. I was told by my doctors I couldn’t drive for a few weeks because I had had a caesarean. I had to go home between trips to express my milk. My baby needed me there, but I had no choice. We needed the income.”

And the union say that food and parcel delivery services are even worse than the app-based cab firms.

Mr Dreni said: “It is shocking what is happening today in the UK. The law is being made a fool of.”

As well as poorly monitored working conditions and the same lack of holiday or sickness benefits, he highlighted a thriving black market in delivery accounts – a practice where drivers sell their jobs onto others.

The delivery system works by the food company selecting a driver nearby – Mr Dreni said it doesn’t matter what firm you have ordered from . The job is then allocated and drivers paid for each delivery made.

He said: “We see this all the time. This is worry­ing on many counts. An unauthorised delivery person may not be insured. They may be hiding from the authorities, have a reason for using another person’s name for work. Perhaps they do not have the correct resident documents, or a criminal record.

“This all means they can be badly exploited by their employers. The scale of this problem is almost unimaginable and takes place right across the UK. This is a private limited company using exploited labour and the govern­ment is doing nothing about it. Where is the law? We have a huge issue with a black market going on, right under everyone’s noses.

“No one is taking responsibility for this.”

Mr Dreni added that a new government must urgently look at how the law is being enforced.

He said: “We need fresh legislation. But the sad fact is current laws are not being enforced. We need laws that mean drivers and couriers get full sick pay, holidays and maternity pay. We want employers to take responsibility for the people creating their wealth.”