Delivery partners of Swiggy working in Chennai have declared a strike against the company for reducing their wages to Rs. 15 from Rs. 35 per order.
The delivery partners have also alleged that their incentives have been slashed, and that they haven’t been able to achieve break-even with the wages that have been included in the revised wage policy.
Swiggy’s new wage policy hasn’t been welcomed in the city at all.
Find out all the details about the delivery executives’ agitation right here!
Swiggy Reduces Wages Of Delivery Executives Per Order; They Go On Strike
The delivery executives on strike against online food delivery platform Swiggy are demanding that the company roll back its new wage policy. As per reports, the new wage policy offers them only Rs. 15 per order, which was Rs. 35 per order earlier.
About 50 employees protested in Royapettah whereas multiple protests were held in other parts of the city as well. As per reports, the protests by the delivery executives have been an obstruction to many food delivery services in several parts of Chennai.
The delivery staff has said that prior to this, the company used to pay them Rs. 40 per order, within a 4 km radius. The staff said, “We did not fight back when they brought it down to Rs 35. But now, it has further dropped to Rs 15. How can we feed our family with this?”
He said that with this new structure, he will only get Rs. 300 if he delivers 20 orders a day.
The employees have demanded that Swiggy bring back the previous wage as they have been putting their lives at risk by traveling during the pandemic and ensuring that no one remains hungry. They state, “We sit on the pavement and eat. Even auto drivers sit inside their rickshaws and eat. We lose our dignity every day so that our family gets to eat at home. We cannot have that taken away from us.”
Swiggy Slashes Incentives Too; Delivery Executives In An Outrage
One delivery executive from South Chennai has revealed that there is a steep decline in the incentives given to them. He said that there are two delivery peaks in a day: one around lunch and one around dinner timings. Apparently, if the delivery executives worked through these timings, they would be awarded with incentives. And now, the incentive has been taken away, forcing the executives to work much harder for the same amount of money.
He said, “We used to get some time to rest in between. Now that the incentive has been taken away from us, we have to work for a minimum of 12 hours a day to earn such incentives.”
Swiggy has said that they are in touch with the delivery executives and are working to resolve this issue.
Update: Swiggy has reached out to us, and explained us their side of the story. Here is their official statement on this matter..
“Media reports quoting that Swiggy’s delivery partners in Chennai earn Rs 15 per order are inaccurate. It is important to note that the service fee per order is based on multiple factors to adequately compensate our partners including distance travelled, waiting time, customer experience, shift completion and incentives. Regular competitive benchmarking shows that Swiggy’s delivery partners receive an industry-best service fee, even with this revised structure. This Rs. 15 component is ONLY ONE of the seven components of the payout. Naturally, zero active delivery partners in the city have earned only this component. Most delivery partners who have actively delivered during the week made over Rs 45 per order. In fact, the highest performing partners made over Rs 100 per order across the entire week.
We have always maintained that our delivery partners are the backbone of Swiggy; more so in the current scenario where they have enabled us to serve millions of fellow citizens as an essential service. It is our constant endeavour to ensure that their service fee is sustainable even in the most difficult of times so that they are able to continue serving our consumers. During the lockdown, when many cities were shut, we financially aided delivery partners who continued to log-in despite not being able to deliver any orders. In an industry first, we supported close to 40,000 delivery partners to the tune of Rs 18 Cr in earnings guarantee to tide through the lockdown.
As the food and essentials delivery segment continues to register an upward trend in orders and as the festive season approaches, we remain committed towards the well-being of our delivery partners and helping them understand their service fee payouts better.
Note – Delivery partners are engaged on a principal to principal basis.”
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