A courier for food delivery firm Deliveroo is taking legal action against the company because he does not want to be treated as self-employed, broadcaster NOS said on Wednesday.

Sytze Ferwerda, who is being backed by the Labour party, has raised enough money via crowdfunding to pay for a lawyer and the summons has now been issued, NOS said.

From February, Deliveroo’s 1,750 delivery workers in the Netherlands will become freelancers which, the company says, means they will be able to keep more of their earnings.

Ferwerda says the company is treating couriers as independent contractors but in fact they work directly for Deliveroo. ‘I am a student, I’m not a little company,’ Ferwerda told RTL last year.

Labour MP Gijs van Dijk told NOS that companies like Deliveroo are ‘the new bad guys on the jobs market’.

Deliveroo, however, says most couriers want more flexibility and being self-employed is the best way of achieving this. In addition, the company fully complies with labour market laws, the spokesman said.