He said the department replied that a meeting between representatives of the companies and riders would be held soon.
On Friday, the department told the Post it had taken several actions earlier in response to riders’ past complaints, including setting up a liaison group last year to improve communication between the government, platform operators and other stakeholders.
“Feedback from digital platform workers gathered from various sources will be brought up to platform companies for reference,” the department spokesman said.
He said the department had also commissioned the Census and Statistics Department to conduct a survey on the working conditions of platform workers.
Hong Kong food delivery platforms charge up to 85% more for orders: watchdog
Hong Kong food delivery platforms charge up to 85% more for orders: watchdog
Approached by the Post, Foodpanda and Deliveroo declined to go into the details of how to resolve the riders’ strike or their complaints, while KeeTa did not respond.
Deol said he did not know how long the strike would last, but was optimistic that conditions would improve for riders now that the department was involved.
He said riders hoped the department would “bring some changes in the contract or probably change the employment contracts”.
Individual riders signed agreements with the companies they joined but these were not employment contracts.
For example, Deliveroo riders were legally bound by a “supplier agreement”, whereas Foodpanda riders signed on as “independent contractors”.
A Foodpanda rider since 2015, Deol, 36, said riders who joined Foodpanda when it launched in 2014 were given a full employment contract, with benefits such as a pension fund, annual and sick leave and regular meal times like other employees.
But he said the company changed the terms in 2019 and hired them on a freelance basis, gradually removing all the benefits over the years.
Recently, Foodpanda tightened its “acceptance rate” requirement, which tracked the riders’ response to incoming orders and was meant to discourage them from being choosy.
Is there room on the road for a third Hong Kong food delivery service?
Is there room on the road for a third Hong Kong food delivery service?
It went up from 80 per cent to 90 per cent, and failure to hit the target cost them a bonus payment. Deliveroo’s rate is 80 per cent.
Deol said riders’ hourly rate and per-order fee had also fallen over the years.
Foodpanda riders used to earn up to HK$75 (US$9.6) per hour on top of HK$20 for every order they delivered, but now their earnings varied from order to order and they were clueless about how the calculations were made.
Deol stressed that riders were not demanding more money, but wanted proper employment contracts so that their income would not fluctuate unpredictably.
Foodpanda responded to the Post on Friday, saying it was aware that its fee adjustment had caused some riders concern.
“We are aware of couriers taking action to express their opinions, but we would like to reiterate that we have not reduced our investment in the overall service fees,” it said in a statement.
“We have made slight adjustments to the weightage of our service fee components, reshuffling 100 per cent of the adjustments into more diverse pay schemes.”
It also said the per-order fees had become more varied because “multiple components” had to be factored into the calculation, such as distance, location and time of delivery.
Hong Kong food deliverers say Meituan firm’s terms similar to existing operators
Hong Kong food deliverers say Meituan firm’s terms similar to existing operators
It said optimising the service fee structure according to order demand was a “common practice” in the food delivery industry.
Deliveroo reiterated that the company was “constantly taking in riders’ feedback and re-evaluating business practices to ensure their needs are met”.
The Labour Tribunal ruled for the first time last July that couriers should be classed as employees. That was in response to claims filed by more than 100 riders against the now-defunct Zeek delivery platform.
Lawmakers and unionists considered it a landmark ruling for defining the relationship between riders and platform operators, but few changes have been made since then.
Lawmaker Frankie Ngan Man-yu, a labour affairs spokesman for the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the government had pledged to commission research on legislation elsewhere to protect digital workers in the gig economy.
He said the government aimed to complete the policy review by 2027.
In the meantime, he added, riders for delivery platforms remained self-employed workers with no statutory employee benefits.
The city has about 114,000 digital workers on various platforms, with no breakdown of riders for delivery platforms, according to data in a Legislative Council Secretariat document.
*Name changed at interviewee’s request.