Feature: Where to go for foodpanda riders trapped in the cracks of the take-out system after workplace injuries and strikes?

Chinese text

« bhi, bhi-"

Last January, when former foodpanda Pakistani driver Ali collided with a car on Tsing Tin Road in Tuen Mun, the Roadrunner app used by the delivery man was beeping in his Bluetooth headset, urging him to deliver his food faster. He was running late - his mind went blank as he anxiously thought, "I'm so annoyed," and he didn't notice the car next to him suddenly speeding, and the car on the side of the road skidded, hitting him and then ignoring him. He flew out and lost consciousness immediately. About five minutes later, a private car driver called the police and he was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured finger and wrist, requiring six months of recuperation, and foodpanda did not follow up on the case.

The service fee for a take-out order is only $55.

According to police statistics, in the first half of the year, 24 people were seriously injured and 164 people were slightly injured in motorcycle accidents related to delivery, accounting for 2.3% of the total number of traffic accidents and an average of more than 30 cases per month.

Among the 15 points of the strike foodpanda labor negotiations was the elimination of disruptive sound effects, but not a word about workplace injuries and insurance. The StandNews interviewed three delivery drivers who had been injured in traffic accidents, and like Ali, where can they go? Trapped in the cracks of the delivery system, they say they are forced by the algorithm to "run like slaves".

The Pakistani driver who had a broken finger in a car accident can no longer do construction work.

In 2015, Ali came to Hong Kong from Pakistan and married a Hong Kong resident. He worked as a construction site handyman, earning more than $1,000 a day. When he was out of work, he worked as a security guard at night and delivered takeaways during the day, sleeping only two hours a day. About three months after he started working, he was involved in a car accident. In addition to the hand bone fracture, the left half of the body hit full of black bruises, to take care of his wife to get into and out of bed, go to the toilet, a couple of months to heal.

As there was no video camera at the accident site, the driver left without a care, he could not follow the civil claim. After he was injured, he emailed foodpanda several times but received no reply. When he went to the office to ask questions, the employee told him not to apply for company insurance because the amount was low and said "the government TAVA (Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Scheme) will help you for six months at most".

Checking his foodpanda group accident insurance, he found that he was temporarily disabled to the point of being unable to perform his job and would receive $500 a week (raised to $780 in February), an average of $70 a day, "not even to buy a pack of cigarettes," and the maximum period of compensation was only 26 weeks. He had to apply for the government's Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Scheme, which provides a maximum injury benefit of about HK$60,000 for half a year's living expenses, during which time he cannot apply for other insurance and is not allowed to work. "We help you (foodpanda) and the government helps us, you are so bad."

Ali remembers the hour-long pre-employment briefing, which focused on delivery guidelines. The employee told him he was insured and hastily told him to sign an electronic contract on a tablet without giving him a copy. He was given a copy of the Independent Contractor Service Agreement when he went back to the office after the accident, but he could not read the English legalese due to his low education level. When an attorney learned of his experience, he tried unsuccessfully to recover the money from foodpanda, and then explained to him what "freelance" meant for the first time. One of the clauses in the agreement states that "the contractor shall be responsible for arranging his own insurance", which he thinks was concealed by the platform when he joined the company.

When the weather is humid, the affected area hurts, and the injured finger cannot bend normally when shaking a fist. He had to borrow $60,000 from a friend and still has to repay the loan. He and his friend are doing small business trading and driving van, but he only dared to take the Gogovan order once, he was really scared. He will never forget the scene in the hospital that day, when his five-year-old son hid behind his wife, who said with distress, "You have a small incident, some bones are cracked, next time if you die, what? What if a big incident happens? who will look after us?

Deliveroo usually calls live customer service to remind motorcyclists if their orders are not delivered after an hour, but foodpanda keeps reminding them - driving back to the road with the reporter, Ali recalls that if foodpanda notification hadn't been so annoying, he might have been able to respond better in time.

"I work on construction sites, some are company workers, some are subcontractors, all have insurance, why not? "Ali still blames himself, "I was not careful, did not carry the contract copy, or see clearly the provisions …… it was my fault."

After the car crash, the foodpanda customer service "concern": can you still deliver the meal?

It is almost common to see photos of car crashes being passed around in driver groups. Wei passed on a few photos of a car crash and unfortunately became the protagonist. Last August, when delivering food, at the junction of Inverness Road and East Bowring Road, the cab did not slow down when making a turn and collided with him. He fell to the ground, blacked out and lost consciousness, but despite the pain, he "subconsciously sprang up" to check the vehicle, but did not intend to cause secondary injuries. The ambulance took him to the hospital for a full-body X-ray, but no problems were found and he was immediately discharged.

He was discharged immediately. In the first week, Wei was unable to get out of bed because of the severe pain in his backbone, and he felt that there were problems. A month later, a follow-up consultation in a wheelchair diagnosed sciatica and a herniated disc, and the doctor told him it was related to the car accident. After recovering, he continued to work as a delivery boy for a living because of the high market share of foodpanda.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, a connoisseur at the scene reported the crash to the customer service agent in the driver's app on his behalf, but all he got was a question: "What's the meal? The only question I got was, "What's the meal? After being out of work for six months and living off his savings, he looked into foodpanda's insurance information and found that, for one thing, he had to report his injuries within 30 days and, for another, the amount was so small that he preferred to pursue a civil claim against the driver. "Foodpanda is an employee, but the substance (of the provision) is not … when we are in an employment relationship, the employer has to provide MPF, giving us a lot of benefits, so in fact, Foodpanda is avoiding this responsibility.

The first month of the establishment of the concern group to follow up on 3 work injury cases. foodpanda: the shift will stop after accident

The company's employees have been working in the area for more than a year, and they have not been informed about their insurance, and the 30-day deadline for claims has passed. She added that the independent contractor agreement only appears once during account registration, and copies are not available for review afterwards, and that the average South Asian rider cannot read English or Chinese well enough to understand the insurance and agreement provisions.

According to the data platform measurable ai, which announced the market share of Hong Kong takeaway platforms in May, Foodpanda topped the list at 51% and Deliveroo at 44%, making the two units account for 95% of the market. Comparing the two group life insurance policies and the ECO coverage, the difference between the accidental death and permanent disability coverage is $120,000 to $180,000, and the workers' compensation liability is also far from the same.

The Concern Group has been in place for about a month and has followed up on three cases of serious injuries to UberEats, foodpanda and Deliveroo delivery workers in car accidents. Take the case of an Indian rider’s death for example, the incident happened 2 hours after he went offline, but the policy only covers an hour after he was offline, which is difficult by standard to claim and is still pending with the insurance company. She said that during the follow-up process, Deliveroo only called to say they were sorry.

She said it was "very difficult" to apply for insurance, especially since foodpanda outsources its customer service to Malaysia and other places, and often has problems communicating with local drivers. The UberEats platform has not yet contacted the family of the injured. She had to ask another driver to report the accident in the app's customer service before she could submit her identity information to the insurance company on behalf of the driver.

At around 1 p.m. on Nov. 4, the Yuen Long foodpanda rider was knocked off his bike and suffered head, back and neck injuries, and received more than 20 stitches. As soon as Ka Wing learned of the accident, she rushed to Tuen Mun Hospital, wrote down his contact information and foodpanda insurance information, and asked the neurology ward nurse to pass it to the injured person. The injured person was unable to report the accident in the app because his cell phone was lost, so she had to borrow the phone from the nurse to call Ka Wing and then let her report it for him. She said that foodpanda has not yet taken the initiative to contact the injured person, who has not yet been discharged from the hospital, so the concern group has to handle the documents on behalf of the injured person, and the insurance claim process has not yet begun. The claim period is only limited to 30 days after the incident, "if the concern group did not find the injured, the injured may not know the insurance information because of the lack of assistance, and finally the claim is not.

She also pointed out that, in general, employers need to buy workers' compensation insurance for their employees, generally within two years of the injury, covering occupational diseases, but also so that the injured can be discharged from the hospital before processing the documents, foodpanda purchased group insurance claims period of only 30 days, simply do not know the chaos after the injury.

She further pointed out that many riders can only rely on the Social Welfare Department's Traffic Accident Victimization Program, « when other options are not available, insurance is not available, and does not meet the donation, no NGO to provide charitable funds, this is the only way.

foodpanda Hong Kong responded to The StandNews' inquiry, emphasizing that "the safety of the delivery person is our primary consideration" and that when applying to become a delivery person, we proactively ask if they accept insurance. The order will be cancelled directly.

The driver claims to have been hired without understanding, and the service fee has fallen off a cliff.
At the same time, foodpanda has been firing contract employees - a group with hourly wages, benefits, vacation, and workers' compensation insurance covered by law.

Last Tuesday, during foodpanda's labor negotiations, police once pulled up an orange belt to stop and check the take-out workers at the scene, with only scattered people nearby to show their support. A number of takeaway drivers have accused foodpanda of unreasonably terminating employee contracts recently, with Hussan, an Indian driver in Tin Shui Wai, showing an email screenshot: "I woke up and my contract was terminated for no particular reason. Even though he has been working for foodpanda for three to four years and has been in the highest rated group 1, he now has no choice but to work as a self-employed person.

Mr. Leung and more than ten riders went from Tuen Mun to Sheung Wan to show their support. Mr. Leung pulled up the sleeves of his shirt, showing the scars, said lightly, last year, also due to a car accident abrasion of the flesh of the hands and feet, had no choice but to recuperate for six months, during the Government Traffic Accident Victimization Scheme to claim compensation. When the accident occurred, he only bought commercial insurance for his motorcycle, with an annual premium of about $2,100, and as for personal insurance, "there is no 'full coverage' for motorcycles".

About three or four years ago, Mr. Leung worked full-time as a site electrician during the day, and then as a part-time delivery driver for Pizza Hut and McDonald's at night, all at an hourly rate, "even if you don't run, you get 300 mos. When Tuen Mun opened, the staff called him to persuade him to become self-employed, saying that he could get $75 for a single order and a commission for service during peak hours. When the site fired him, he agreed with the mentality of "making quick money" and became a full-time take-away worker. He thought he would get more for his work, but the price list dropped sharply, and the algorithm was extremely opaque.

Foodpanda updates the service fee for each district every two weeks and abolished the flat service fee in July this year. The StandNews checked the records and found that the minimum service fee for tram drivers and infantry fell by almost half compared with two years ago, with the Tuen Mun district falling from $70 in the middle of the previous year to the latest $42.

Mr. Leung's monthly income fell from a peak of more than 40,000 to more than 20,000 at present. "We don't have insurance, we all count on our own … your order fee has included all the living expenses, injuries and car maintenance .with a little more than 40 dollars, who will risk their lives for you? In comparison, McDonald's is an outsourcing system, Pizza Hut is an employee system, at that time, although his hourly wage is only about 50 dollars, but the advantage lies in the company car, the company gasoline, "not enough gas then go refill, there are problems then go fix it, car crashes are covered by insurance. »

He calculated the cost of parking fees 700 dollars a month, the daily fuel cost of about 80 dollars, coupled with the increasing number of housing estates prohibit take-away parking, sometimes by the police video citation, often lead to a lost of 320 dollars equivalent to half a day of labor, plus the car engine wears out too fast, from time to time he needs thousands of dollars in small repairs, when the unit price of take-away is less than 50 dollars his livelihood is difficult to continue, can only work long hours to supplement income, but chronic fatigue and the risk of accidents greatly increased.

After the negotiation, the basic service fee did not increase, but only added the bonus for the time.

Ka Wing thinks that insurance claims and salary are two concepts, "the company has the responsibility to compensate for medical expenses, even if the salary of how much there is no way to cover the money issued outside the business. She added that the contracted foodpanda employees of the old system can be compensated for work-related injuries according to the law, and receive four-fifths of their salary during the recovery period, but now the contract is terminated and gradually turned to self-employment, in line with the global trend of the industry, but countries have also begun to regulate by legislation.

In 2019, two foodpanda and UberEats delivery drivers were killed in car accidents in Taiwan, forcing the Ministry of Labor to establish an employment relationship between the delivery platform and the employee, requiring the platform to provide compensation for work-related injuries. "The question is whether the industry is self-employed or fake self-employed? Is it an employment relationship? It is difficult to negotiate and needs to be regulated by government policy.

On July 15 this year, there was a labor negotiation because local foodpanda takeaway staff protested against the service fee continuously inserting water, and the five major demands at that time included "raising the group personal accident insurance coverage". The company directly denied that there was no room for negotiation after the takeaway staff raised their demands, and the negotiation was unsuccessful for four hours. As one of the several labor movement activists present at the negotiation table, she described the outcome of this negotiation as "very difficult to achieve", with a 180-degree change in attitude and a willingness to propose solutions, but a reduction in the minimum service charge as a global company policy, and a tug-of-war of about three hours on the first day of negotiations.

The StandNews obtained the strike's 15 demands and solution documents, and by press time, eight of the demands' solutions were already in effect.

In addition to the softening of the ringtone, the obvious reduction and the increase in margin service fees, Mr. Leung does not feel any improvement for the time being. Due to the strike for several days, he is now in the fourth batch, and the number of orders has also decreased. He thinks that the first point is to increase the basic service fee to $50, but the current solution is to replace it with a bonus of $8 per order during peak hours, which is tantamount to asking the takeaway staff to "run batches".

He explained that the delivery staff will be divided into four batches each week according to the order acceptance rate, shift hours, etc. The higher the level, the more priority they can receive orders, and the delivery staff will rush more orders during peak hours, and when they encounter orders with a waiting time of up to half an hour, or parking locations in the hardest-hit areas, they usually avoid them and quickly "kick the orders", but the new proposal provided by the company provides a bonus for peak hours, and at the same time, the requirement of order acceptance rate from one week The company's new plan offers a rush hour bonus and shortens the order acceptance rate from one week to one day, which is the same as tying up the takeaway staff so that they can stop kicking orders in order to keep the high order acceptance rate, he described the company as "confusing", "I come to say that I will not kick orders for 80 mos (the estimated bonus amount for peak hours). He said that it is even more difficult to predict how many orders will be dispatched that day, and will not know the acceptance rate of the day - because the app is calculated on a weekly basis, it is until the bi-weekly payroll will he know the number of bonus.

On the day of the interview, Mr. Leung received only four or five orders during the two-hour lunch rush - three of which came from foodpanda, and even no orders from 9 to 11 p.m. the night before. « You count on one single[takeaway platform] and you're really a dead-end. Compared to Deliveroo, which is free to go online, foodpanda needs to take on more "run batches" to get higher revenue, but even when it jumps from fourth to first, the price difference is only $2, which he thinks lacks incentive.

The order is not written in the delivery distance, "unlimited people" is suppressed price drivers: like slaves
The biggest problem is that even if the employer implements the plan or not, there is no way for the takeaway staff to monitor it.

The current foodpanda service fee calculation method is complicated, including the basic service fee, distance, group, task and peak time bonus - but the system does not show the delivery distance, only the location of the restaurant and destination marker (pin), price and travel time, "your (calculation method) is not clear, I will know how to earn … at least I think we should show the distance first.

Mr. Leung remembered that about half a year to a year ago, foodpanda's order had shown the distance of the destination, and then the straight line distance calculation, even if there was a long-distance bonus, the same is the payroll before you know, equivalent to "doze off and do it", "you do open will know there is about how far". On the other hand, he also found that when the order pops up, if you are driving a motorcycle in the 10-second time limit, the original price will change with the distance and usually decrease.

Because of the strike, Foodpanda revealed for the first time that it had hired 10,000 delivery workers, but did not disclose the proportion of motorcyclists, cyclists and foot soldiers. "The service fee is too much, it's not reasonable. … You can hire unlimited people, so the price of this line is coming lower and lower. Mr. Leung pointed out that the walking distance to the Tin Shui Wai area, there is no room for the survival of motorcyclists, they all have turned to the Tuen Mun area, when the old workers go, the new workers do not know the price to enter the industry, the situation is the same as "blood change".

He pointed out that in the past, the company had specified that the walkers only accept orders within one kilometer, and full-time take-out workers in Tuen Mun will be in the group to refuse to accept long-distance orders, but then there are newcomers to the industry, willing to do, delivery distance will become longer and longer, but also make the price of a single synchronized lower. "If you don't go on strike, you may say next week it's $35, there's a single, $35, will you do it? Some people will go 'I do it' … became like a slave so like all the way to run run run, but it seems that the salary can not catch up.

Three years ago, he judges that the industry has entered a "sunset", "the cake is only so big", the more people do, the more "not enough to eat". He has to support a family of four and a young child with one paycheck. In the past three months, he has been unable to make ends meet due to a drop in service fees and plans to sell his other car to "fill the hole". In his early thirties, he is considering returning to work as a construction worker, but is concerned about whether he can physically cope with it.

After the strike, the treatment has not changed « We know in our heart what this company really is »

On the day of the strike negotiation last Tuesday, reporters asked one of the South Asian riders if he felt that his community was more active in the strike, and he hastily denied it, saying that the strike was racially neutral and stressing that "we are together in this". But Mr. Leung said that he was asked by an Indian-born rider who knew him well, "Why are so few of you from Hong Kong coming out? He replied helplessly, "There's nothing we can do, everyone is on their own.

During the strike weekend, there were about 30 striking motorcycles parked on the streets of Tuen Mun, but 70% to 80% of them were South Asian riders' cars.

At the time of the interview, Mr. Leung still had the strike leaflet on the side of his motorcycle box, and said he had "kept a low profile". In the long run, he intends to change careers, but the timing is still on hold. If the situation does not improve before Christmas, he said blandly, « if there is something the we’ll come again", but with the speed of the replacement of the take-away staff, the next year, « we don’t know where the organiser’s would be", Mr. Leung sighed: "If there is no South Asia friends organizing next time, I believe that there may not be someone to do it.