Food delivery drivers are using platforms’ data-powered systems, mass WeChat groups, and unofficial unions to fight unfair conditions.
Companies leveraged algorithms to force couriers to work faster and more efficiently, squeezing them with tighter delivery times. Since these changes were introduced, reports of traffic accidents involving couriers have grown, and couriers have started to rebel.
In busy Chinese cities such as Shanghai, some delivery work is organized around “stations.” These are hubs for independent subcontractors that organize delivery work from different restaurants, guaranteeing couriers a steady stream of work but taking a fee from the platforms they work for. “Even minor disruption in the form of these very small-scale collective actions can bring the station-level managers to the bargaining table,” says Eli Friedman, an assistant professor of international and comparative labor at Cornell University.
He would tell gig workers “how to support each other, because everyone is weak, but if they can form a link, some kind of solidarity, then maybe they can ask more from the platforms,” says Yu. These algorithmic changes have even involved making couriers compete against each other, as if they were in a game. Couriers on Meituan and Ele.me are ranked by performance, similar to the rankings in China’s most popular mobile game,. Riders are awarded titles such as Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Kings, which impact their status and income.
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