TRANSCRIPT
Riders from food delivery service Hungry Panda are taking a break from delivering meals to demand action from their employer over allegedly poor working conditions.
They've delivered their demands to the company's head office, calling for action on worsening pay and increasing pressure to meet dangerously short deadlines, which they say, puts their lives at risk.
The protests, organised with the Transport Workers' Union, follow what workers say is a drop in the base delivery rate from $7 to $4 for Hungry Panda motorcycle riders and from $6 to $5 for bicycle riders - changes the company denies.
Zhuoying Wang, one of the riders, is launching a legal claim against the company at the Fair Work Commission, accusing Hungry Panda of slashing the number of delivery orders she was given for promoting the protests.
She told SBS Mandarin the company claims to use an unbiased algorithm that assigns orders, but Ms Wang says she believes she's been targeted.
"I argued with them. Some riders get many orders in a day, but I don't. I asked the platform why. I have been negotiating with them since October, asking why their order assignments are unfair. They just respond uniformly that it's the system that allocates the orders."
On average, Ms Wang completes between 30 to 70 orders per shift but during the protests she says the number of orders dropped to zero.
She says this has pushed her into a dire financial situation.
"I am about to pay my rent but have no money now. I'm currently getting my meals from the girl who lives in my room. She provided me with a lot of food because she saw that I have been unemployed and without an income recently."
The latest action at the company's head office follows a snap protest in Burwood last week.
The TWU says Hungry Panda now offers one-off payment bonuses for completing a number of deliveries in a set time frame.
The protesting riders say these deadlines are unrealistic and unsafe.
The union claims since the Burwood protest five days prior, two strike participants had been injured on the job.
TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine has told SBS News the companies need to offer their workers fair pay to avoid dangerous time pressures.
"This is not university beer money. Survey asked after survey now has shown that three quarters of these workers require this work to make a living for themselves and their families. It's also shown that 56 per cent of them consistently in these surveys say that they have to rush to simply make enough for themselves and their families. And nearly three quarters of them again, who work full time hours are paid below the minimum wage, so what this amounts to is deadly pressure."
Director of branding and public relations for Hungry Panda, Kitty Lu, has disputed these claims of unfair pay.
She told SBS Mandarin the company is compassionate towards their workers with special considerations and denies changing the base delivery rate.
"I want to make it clear that we haven't changed the base rate for at least over 12 months in the past year. And therefore, I don't anticipate any allegations against us for a recent base rate change because there has been no base rate change recently. We do think we currently offer a reasonable policy. In special cases where we can see this rider is in need, as a responsible platform, we always reach out to see how much we can help them."
This recent dispute follows a landmark workers' compensation claim in 2022 where the family of Hungry Panda rider Xiaojun Chen, who was killed at work, was awarded $834,000 despite not being automatically entitled to workers compensation.
Next week, the Albanese government's Fair Work Legislation Amendment will be tabled in parliament, hoping to better protect workers within the gig economy.
Transport Workers' Union leader Michael Kaine says he hopes politicians will get behind the measures to better protect workers.
"So there's two things that need to happen here. Companies need to be always held to account, they need to be operating in a way that's sustainable. The second thing that needs to happen is, to assist that process, we've got to have industry reform at the moment, the gig economy is a free-for-all, it is lawless, these companies engage workers as independent contractors outside of the protections that we built up for employees for decades. And that means these workers are vulnerable. They're in mortal danger. And the parliament needs to address that. Now there are laws before the parliament that will address it. All we need is for the crossbench to get on board and sign off on those laws so we can make a difference."
