Swiggy protests fizzle out, delivery partners return to work

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru

The protests by Swiggy Food Delivery Partners (FDPs) that had begun on July 21 demanding better service conditions and incentives have been discontinued.

The delivery partners had spontaneously logged off from their apps and hoped that a scarcity of people and mounting delivery orders will force the company to listen to their demands, which includes reinstatement of the old rate card, which netted them more money.

 The agitations mostly happened among Swiggy FDPs based near BEL Road and Yeshwantpur, where they even staged a demonstration. The protesters said that some Swiggy executives had held talks with them, even promising them that the drivers would not be assigned to far-flung places as was the case, but the same thing still continues.

 K Raju, a Swiggy FDP who works in the Yeshwantpur area, said that he had logged off in protest, but had eventually returned to work. He disclosed that he had taken ill and that there were no sick days at Swiggy. If you miss work, you don’t get paid, he added. “A manager from the central team had come to meet us. He said he was based in the Bellandur office. He promised to settle some of the minor points that we had raised, but even those have been left unaddressed,” he said.

“We took the issue of long-distance assignments. He (the manager) said he’d restrict it to three kilometres. Even after his assurances, we’re still getting the same kind of long-distance operations. The ‘first mile’ as it still remained six or seven kilometres,” he added.

 Raju insisted that the old rate card be reinstated, but conceded that managers had no power to reverse the policy decision. “Under the new rate card, even incentives have been halved. Earlier, we used to get Rs3,000 for working 22 days straight. Now, we get Rs1,500 for the same only if we have an aggregate five-star rating,” Raju said.

Bharat Raj, a Swiggy FDP, who delivers in the BEL Road area, said that he too had gone back to work. “No executive met us,” he said. “Some of us protested. Nothing clear came out of it. So people lost patience and went back to work,” he added.

United Food Delivery Partners Union (UFDPU) had come out in support of the stir. The union has long held that there should be a separate law to govern platform economies and that the delivery persons were called partners instead of employees so that they could be deprived of the rights due to work under the constitution.