“It’s the first time I’ve voted in an election in Spain,” says a Glovo delivery driver who prefers not to reveal his name after voting at a company location in Madrid, located between the Prado Museum and Retiro Park. Normally it serves as a support place for the company’s delivery drivers, with shelves full of backpacks, jackets and yellow helmets, but this Saturday it was transformed into a polling station. It is one of the six locations where the company’s first union elections were held in Madrid. Glovo fought for years to avoid, in defense of its self-employed model and against the salaried model supported by justice and rider law. In these first elections, one of the parties that supported these regulations, CC OO, has won decisively, with 13 of the 27 delegates in the running.
Unai Sordo’s union is one delegate away from the majority. Fetico finished in second position with four representatives, the same ones obtained by the Free Transport Union (SLT). The union associated with Vox, Solidaridad, has three seats, the same as UGT, as confirmed by sources from CC OO, UGT and SLT. By votes, CC OO has achieved 155 (48.4%); Fetico, 50 (15.6%); SLT, 40 (12.5%); Solidarity, 39 (12.2%); and UGT, 34 (10.6%).
Only 320 of the 2,890 delivery workers called to vote have voted, 11.1% of the Madrid workforce. It is a very low participation rate. They could vote at six points scattered throughout the region: in the capital on the central Casado del Alisal street; in Leganés; in Pozuelo; in Alcobendas; in Pinto; and in Torrejón de Ardoz.
Sources in the sector had been anticipating the possibility that the Solidarity union, associated with the far-right party Vox, would win, a prediction that has not ended up materializing. The company does not specify the composition of the Madrid workforce, but the unions point out that a good part are Venezuelan migrants. Many are very critical of the Chavista regime and the Spanish coalition government, which they associate with the leaders of their country of origin.
One of those critical distributors is Rafael Martín. “Let them tell me rider. We have gone from earning more than 3,000 euros to putting me at 1,200. I didn’t come here because I was lazy,” he says after voting. When asked how much he values the certainty that salaried employment provides and the social coverage it ensures, he answers: “I came to this country to work, to make money. If the day has 24 hours and I want to work 25, that is the person’s problem.”
It is not the majority position of the distributors who have participated in the elections: between CC OO and UGT they account for 59% of the votes. Although the big winner has been abstention, since 2,570 workers out of 2,890 have not spoken out
CC OO and UGT won in other provinces
These are not the first union elections for Glovo delivery drivers. Elections have already been held riders in Pamplona (with eight delegates from CC OO and one from the Basque union ELA), A Coruña (nine delegates from CC OO), Cáceres (three delegates from UGT), Pontevedra (nine from UGT) and Alicante (nine from UGT and eight from CC OO), according to data provided by the unions. On January 27, the Almería elections will be held.
However, the Madrid elections have a special symbolic significance, as it is the region with the most delivery drivers and the most importance for the company. On this occasion, 27 delegates were elected, those in charge of defending the rights of workers in a highly questioned company, just the opposite. The processes already carried out have been challenged by the company, unlike what happened this Saturday in the capital region.
The participating unions recognize how difficult it has been to organize the elections, given the atomization of the workforce and the dispersion of employees. They also highlight the difficulties in accessing a detailed census.
Glovo has been operating in Madrid for a while, but the delivery drivers still did not have union representation, despite the large number of their workers who travel around the region by bicycle. Employees have achieved the right to elect their representatives thanks to employment in the company.
The structure of the Glovo committee in Madrid differs from that usual in Spanish companies. According to the Ministry of Labor, in 2025 6,200 union representatives participated in agreement negotiating tables. Of them, 2,047 are from CC OO (33%) and 1,999 from UGT (32%). In the remaining third, the Basque unions ELA (8%), LAB (4%) and the Galician CIG (2.3%) stand out, along with the national unions USO (3.5%) and CGT (1.9%).
What did each union propose?
Before the elections, CC OO and UGT have defended the “benefits” that laborization gives to delivery workers, compared to the self-employed system that prevailed until 2025. CC OO has also claimed that they achieved recognition of the seniority of employees in the negotiation for hiring, in a similar line to UGT, which demands “fair algorithms.” Both protest the agreement that currently applies to workers, the 2006 courier agreement, and which they intend to change.
It is a complaint that Fetico and SLT also have an impact on. This union proposed that the application agreement be the one that already applies to the Uber Eats fleets and in which this union participated. Fetico protests the “numerous non-compliance” of the company despite the laborization, while at the same time questioning the virtues of the rider law. Solidaridad has been characterized by its criticism of this regulation, CC OO and UGT for supporting it and has tried to bring together the delivery drivers who opposed this law.
Battle to the rider law
Glovo is the main food delivery company in Spain, a sector completed by Uber Eats and Just Eat. The third is the only one that has respected the rider law (which had employer and union support) since it came into application in 2021, the legislative translation of what justice had already been pointing out: a food delivery person is not an entrepreneur and the relationship with the platform that employs him cannot be established on his own.
Glovo announced the employment of its staff at the end of 2024, two days before the company’s top leader, Oscar Pierre, was accused of a crime against the rights of its workers. The million-dollar sanctions imposed by the Inspection did not alter its actions, but the tightening of the Penal Code did. The promise crystallized on July 1 of last year, with the hiring of around 14,000 delivery drivers.
The criminal threat was on the horizon for Uber Eats, which with the approval of the rider law He assumed the salaried scheme, but shortly after he returned to self-employment when he noted Glovo’s commitment to that organizational model. Last week he took the final step and announced his intention “as soon as possible.” The Inspection punishment for its hybrid model (one part self-employed and the other salaried) is still pending, but a priori he avoids the penalty with which the Ministry of Labor threatened him.
subcontracts
The delivery drivers participating in these elections are not the only ones who circulate in more than 900 Spanish cities with yellow backpacks. There are an undetermined number of Glovo employees in fleets, subcontractors to whom the company entrusts part of its operations. Uber Eats and Just Eat, the other two large companies in the sector, also operate with them. What’s more, Uber Eats has no intention of hiring its self-employed delivery drivers directly, but rather expects them to be integrated into the subcontractors with which it operates.
