 The gig economy is killing people. An international group of delivery workers have published information that, for the first time, is starting to show the scale of the problem. They've collected the stories of 14 people who died whilst working for platforms, and have only started to scratch the surface of the real problem. Behind each number, there's a story. Like 21-year-old Artik, a migrant from Kyrgyzstan, who worked for 10 hours straight for Yandex food in St Petersburg before collapsing and dying of exhaustion. Or Bill Chen, who was hit by a bus whilst working for Uber Eats in Sydney. The stories of George, Julian, Pablo, Maurizio, Alberto, Frank, Sue, Jose, Ramon, Pujan and Karim are much the same. But why are these workers dying? Is it their fault? No. Platform workers are usually paid per delivery, and over the last few years, wages have been driven down to poverty levels. Now that means if you want to make a decent wage, you've got to go faster and faster. If you want to make a living, you've got to risk your life. This is capitalism, baby. We're all told that we're free and equal, but in reality, the working class have to risk their lives for the profits of the ruling class. And the worst thing is, we're letting them get away with it. Take Deliveroo, for example. Company's worth about $2 billion. But who actually produced that value? Who made the company worth what it is? Was it the high-paid London tech bros sitting in their offices sipping flat whites? Was it exploited workers rushing pizzas around the city and risking life and limb as they do so? And look, there are all sorts of short-term solutions to this. Every platform should be forced to pay a decent hourly wage so that workers aren't rushing in order to try and make enough to live on. But at the same time, more regulation just isn't enough. Fundamentally, we need to change the way the entire economy works. Run the system built on shareholder profits. We need an economy that runs for the many and is controlled by the people who actually do the work. Platform workers have had enough of this shit. They're not putting up with it anymore. And the rest of us could learn something from them.