Foodpanda takeaways tell the devil about details

"We are humans, not dogs!" and "Stop unreasonable pay cuts!" slogans in English and Cantonese came one after another. On the evening of November 13, a strike that spanned all districts and broke racial barriers began.

About 300 South Asian and local Foodpanda delivery workers responded to the online call and participated in the strike action in a "online but no order" approach.

This labor dispute stemmed from the takeaway's dissatisfaction with the continuous drop in the order service fee and the unreasonable freezing of the account by the employer, so he launched a two-day strike and made 15 demands to negotiate with the employer twice.

In the end, the labor and management reached a partial consensus, and the strike ended smoothly.

The strike seems to be a success, but what are the problems behind this labor dispute?

Why forced a group of takeaways to strike?

The food delivery industry is especially popular during the epidemic, but Deliveroo and Foodpanda have entered the Hong Kong market as early as 2014 and 2015.

Generally speaking, deliverymen are generally divided into "infantry", "cyclist", "motorcyclist" and "driver".

At that time, the two major food delivery platforms adopted traditional employee contracts, and the income of the delivery staff included basic salary and order price (hereinafter referred to as "unit price").

Later, the platform successively dismissed employees and switched to self-employment contracts, and the income of the delivery staff became composed of unit price and additional bonuses.

Under the new mechanism, when takeaways go online on the platform, every second counts, taking more orders and delivering food at the fastest speed in order to earn higher income.

The food delivery industry seems to be free and flexible, and the prospects are bright, but a group of delivery workers complains a lot...

[Lazy Bag] A picture series to see the whole story of Foodpanda's takeaway strike, income changes and the "devil details" disclosed by the interviewees (click the picture to enlarge and read)▼▼▼

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McDonald's takeaway in Taiwan, no one is willing to deliver the answer to the mystery?

It turns out that customers who order food will be rejected in seconds and think about it. Take out food and go upstairs and see no one on the whole floor. Call a customer. Prophet is very dangerous and escape in seconds. Do you ask for online takeaway, will you give any tips?

Netizens in Taiwan are hotly discussing what kinds of situations are the most?

On November 8, 2021, outside the Mikiki shopping mall in San Po Kong, "cyclists" Ah Xiang and Max, carrying thermal bags, leaned against the railing and said dejectedly, "Alas, there is no (order) order yet!" They have devoted themselves to takeaway food full-time. For more than a year in the industry, he has worked as a self-employed "cyclist" on both Deliveroo and Foodpanda platforms, working five to six days a week.

There are 32 restaurants in the mall they are in. Ah Xiang pointed out that after the Deliveroo app is launched, if the location is closer to the restaurant, it will be easier to receive orders.

However, he has been waiting for nearly half an hour, constantly paying attention to the program page during this period, but the system has not yet dispatched the order, so he can only watch his colleagues set off one after another, "When I come here normally, if I go online first, I will take orders first, but when he arrives, he will take orders first. "Break the gate" (be the first to receive orders), I don't know how the order dispatching mechanism (works)!"

The mechanism is opaque, and the order delivery standard is inexplicable. In order to earn higher income, A Xiang works on two food delivery platforms at the same time.

He continued to criticize Foodpanda for requiring the delivery staff to arrive at the restaurant before the restaurant would start preparing the food, which greatly increased the cost of waiting for the delivery staff. He tried to wait for more than two hours. The order from the takeaway platform was not completed, and the wait was fruitless. In the end, he had to "kick the order" and "do it for nothing" in disguise for two hours.

It's always the customer's fault

On the day of the visit, Ah Xiang took another order from Foodpanda, but the restaurant was slow in serving food. It took him about 45 minutes from picking up the food to delivering the food. As a result, the customer complained that the food delivery was slow.

The platform froze his account for a few days without verification, and could not accept orders during this period.

In these situations, he dared not to speak out. He thought that after complaining to the customer service, his account would only be frozen or blocked. He could only endure: "What we say is that we are wrong. The restaurant is right, the guests are right, we will always be No." In addition to "hard food" complaints, they also want "hard food" orders that are not cost-effective.

Foodpanda will link the order acceptance rate to the unit price before September. If the order rate of the takeaway workers is less than 85% every two weeks, the price of each order will be reduced to 20 to 30 yuan.

Axiang pointed out that in order to maintain the order acceptance rate, he did not dare to "kick the order" (that is, the platform refused to accept the order within a specified time after the order was dispatched).

Delivery workers voiced their disapproval online and called on other delivery workers to negotiate with the company. Finally, Foodpanda cancelled the policy in September this year.

But it was replaced by the "frozen account system".

They noticed that the unit price of Foodpanda began to drop since September, and the long-distance orders (hereinafter referred to as "far orders") were particularly serious.

Ah Cheung took San Po Kong to Wong Tai Sin as an example, the unit price of "cyclists" was reduced by 20% from $35 to $28.

Max avoids distant orders whose unit prices have fallen sharply. He has refused to accept distant orders many times, but he is "punished" by the platform by suspending the online line. When he refuses to accept two orders, his account will be frozen for five minutes. .

From the "85% order-taking rate mechanism" to the "frozen account system", forcing takeaways to "voluntarily" accept low-priced orders, he admitted that "the platform has been changing the mode of exploitation."

[Extended reading] #deliverer

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Strict new employee guidelines, takeaways fired

"Infantry" Ryan is not self-employed, but he is not immune to exploitation.

Ryan works full-time at the restaurant five days a week and hopes to earn extra money by joining a food delivery platform in his spare time.

He became an employee of Foodpanda in early 2019 and works two to three days a week for about two hours at a time.

Under the Employment Ordinance, he enjoys minimum wage, MPF and other benefits.

The income consists of the hourly basic salary and the unit price, but the unit price is uniform and calculated according to the employee's rating group.

Taking Ryan as an example, he has tried to flatten the unit price of 25, 27 and 29 yuan per order. He has a basic salary of 25 yuan per hour. If he receives two orders per hour, he can get at least 75 yuan.

If the monthly average hourly wage is less than the minimum wage of 37.5 yuan, the platform will also make up the difference.

As for the self-employed people under the platform, Ryan pointed out that their unit price is calculated according to distance, rating group, etc. Generally, each order is more than 30 yuan.

He mentioned that Foodpanda is encouraging its employees to become self-employed in 2020 with the incentive of "earning more substantial income".

Due to the high unit price, about 90% of the employees at that time became self-employed.

But he was worried that the salary and benefits would be less guaranteed after switching to self-employment, so he insisted on not switching.

Later, the self-employed delivery workers in the industry found that the unit price of the platform continued to drop. "Everyone began to feel that it was not worthwhile, and there was no guarantee. The salary was much lower than our employees in the old system." When Ryan thought that he could "keep Xun Gong", this year In mid-May, Foodpanda updated its employee work guidelines, requiring "infantrymen" to work at least 15 hours a week during peak hours.

He informed the company by email that he had a full-time job and failed to meet the working hours required by the code, but the platform sent him a dismissal notice a month later, "It sounds good to meet the company's development needs, but in essence it says, 'Your costs are too high. ’, it’s better to fire you.” After being fired, Ryan can join the self-employment plan, but he admits that he has a bad impression of Foodpanda and has no intention of joining the platform again. Currently, he mainly takes orders from Deliveroo.

[Extended reading]

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Disgruntled employees decide to strike in protest

Waqas Fida, a 27-year-old full-time South Asian delivery worker, had a similar experience.

He came to Hong Kong from Pakistan in 2018 to settle with his wife. He has two children and is the sole breadwinner of the family.

In the same year, Waqas became an employee of Foodpanda. As an "infantry", he received a basic salary of 40 yuan per hour and 15 yuan per order.

He pointed out that the salary package was good at first, and the part-time delivery staff earned at least 15,000 yuan a month, which was enough to cover daily expenses such as rent.

Until 2019, the platform pointed out that his online time was insufficient and directly froze his account.

When Waqas asked the platform to unblock the account, the platform said he could only reopen the account as a self-employed person.

He learned that the self-employed "motorcyclists" at that time cost as much as 60 to 75 yuan per order, so he bought a motorcycle for 45,000 yuan and went back to Pakistan to get a driver's license, "I hope my family and I have a bright future."

After switching to self-employed "drivers", Waqas found that everything was not as good as he imagined.

This year, he found out that the unit price dropped to about 40 yuan. "Foodpanda doesn't think we are its employees and doesn't care about us at all!" During the meal period or being fined for "copying the card" and other expenses ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 yuan, the remaining income can only cover daily expenses.

Waqas criticized the platform for arbitrarily blocking the accounts of deliverymen without knowing the truth before the account was banned.

Recently, his account was frozen for five days because he did not carry a thermal bag as required by the platform.

As a sales manager in Pakistan, he was dissatisfied that the platform did not put himself in the shoes of the food delivery workers and decided to take the lead in organizing a strike action: "I need to come out and correct the food delivery industry and let the whole Hong Kong know about Foodpanda's exploitative behavior." The Waqas launched a group and a special page "FoodPanda Workers Hk" on various social platforms on November 8, and the strike action began on November 13 and 14.

In the end, about 300 South Asian and local delivery workers responded to the online call to strike, hoping to paralyze food delivery and delivery services in multiple districts during peak hours, and protested against the platform’s oppression and exploitation of the rights of delivery workers outside Pandamart stores in various districts.

The labor side put forward a total of 15 demands, of which the most critical demand is to increase the unit price.

After 14 hours of negotiation over two days, Foodpanda only agreed to add an additional service fee, saying that the unit price would remain unchanged until June next year.

However, the platform is willing to propose improvement plans for other demands. For example, the delivery person can appeal after his account is frozen.

As a result, Waqas and a group of labor representatives believed that the platform was willing to face up to the issue of the treatment of delivery workers, and finally reached a partial consensus on the appeal and announced the end of the strike.

Concern group laments that self-employment is not free and hopes to establish mutual aid relationships

During this strike, Jia Yong and Harry, members of the delivery worker rights concern group, spontaneously served as a bridge between South Asians and local delivery workers.

After Waqas expressed their demands in English on social platforms, they translated and forwarded the message to other groups, hoping to gather more local forces.

The Concern Group is an organization under the Christian Industry Council, which focuses on work-related injuries and occupational diseases.

In order to understand the situation of the delivery staff firsthand, the two of them joined Foodpanda's "infantry" in the middle of this year and negotiated with the management as representatives in July.

However, they said that the platform was tough and arrogant at the time, "preparing speeches in advance to kill our feelings."

In the end, the platform refused to increase the unit price and refused to meet again.

They officially set up a concern group in October, and from time to time contacted minority delivery workers, and found that they "seem very free, but they are all under control."

Jia Yong explained that although the delivery worker can choose the working time, the account will be directly frozen if the order is refused multiple times, and the platform will adjust the unit price every two weeks, and the delivery worker's salary will be greatly deducted by the platform.

In addition to raising labor rights issues and collecting opinions on the social platform page, the Weekly Concern Group will also assist work-related injury cases in recovering compensation.

Unlike employees, self-employed delivery workers are not eligible for workers' compensation if they have an occupational disease.

They once met an "infantry soldier" whose shoulder was strained by carrying a slanted thermal bag for a long time. He needed X-rays and beatings. He spent more than 3,000 yuan in medical expenses, but he could not get compensation.

They suggested that the government regulate the platform and provide workers with occupational disease compensation.

In addition, Jia Yong pointed out that although the platform provides free insurance for the delivery staff, when the delivery staff is injured, the platform generally does not take the initiative to contact them, nor does it explain to them what insurance is available.

In October of this year, an Indian-born Deliveroo deliveryman died in a traffic accident during food delivery. Jia Yong said that although the platform actively contacted the family of the deceased at that time, he only said to them: "We are sorry for this." At that time, the family needed She believes that the platform should provide more assistance to family members, while lamenting that the concern group has no specific solution, "It needs to be discussed together, because the whole (takeaway) The group is very diverse, and everyone’s demands are very different.” Delivery workers usually work alone in different regions, and she hopes to unite delivery workers through settlements and build a mutual aid community: “In the future, we may unite to resist this kind of unequal power. state."

The strike softens the platform's attitude

Although this strike seems to be going well, there are still many omissions.

The Social Innovation Research Center of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has studied the rights and interests of platform workers in recent years. Research assistant Xu Yongran pointed out that the power structure of the platform and the delivery staff is not equal.

In an ideal "Gig economy" model, freelancers provide services through piecemeal transactions, and they should be able to negotiate their salary and work content with the platform. However, at present, delivery workers and the platform are closer to labor-management relations. Employee consultation is required.

Another research assistant, Mars, responded: "They only need to change their algorithm, press a few buttons, and the entire terms will be changed." Xu Yongran said that in the past, platforms faced opposition and promised to improve the policy, but only "out of the box" A new policy 'plays' you for a while, and then reverts to the same old ways."

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[This article was reprinted with permission from University Line, an internship publication of the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The original text: The treatment of the delivery workers after the strike ends still needs to be improved]