This story is published in partnership with Agência Pública, a non-profit investigative news agency in São Paulo, Brazil. The original version was published on April 4, 2022, in Portuguese. This version has been edited for a global audience, and was translated into English by Matty Rose.

São Paulo, Brazil — After three years of working for restaurants as a food delivery runner, Paulo Lima suffered two traffic accidents that almost cost him his life. In 2015, he decided to quit. But when his daughter was born, and his financial situation deteriorated, he had little choice but to return. Like millions of Brazilian citizens, Lima was doing app-based delivery work to make ends meet and support his family.

"I was unemployed, so I had to go back to being a motoboy [motorcycle delivery worker]. But the apps had already taken over the market. Like everybody else, I had to sign up on the apps, pay for a motorcycle in installments and work. I went through a lot. I've been humiliated, mistreated, and I got unjustly in debt with the apps — it was outrageous."

It was this situation that led Lima to speak out against the labor practices of delivery apps online. Lima made a series of videos on social media that soon went viral. Known by his nickname, Galo ("rooster" in Portuguese), Lima started a movement called Entregadores Antifascistas, or Anti-fascist Delivery Workers. He launched a petition effort demanding that delivery platforms provide workers with meals, hand sanitizer, and personal protective equipment amid Brazil’s ongoing Covid crisis, which has had the second-highest overall death toll worldwide, after the U.S. The petition garnered more than 300,000 signatures.