Hong Kong Foodpanda couriers go on strike to ‘demand better and fairer pay’, saying new map system has cut wages

Hundreds of disgruntled Foodpanda couriers have gone on strike in Hong Kong over a new map system, which they claim the online food delivery platform has rigged to impose further pay cuts, among other grievances.

The delivery workers planned to go on strike from 6pm on Saturday until midnight on Sunday, which would be followed by a five-day industrial action during which they would refuse orders from Foodpanda’s on-demand grocery service Pandamart.

While Foodpanda argued its new system ensured a more accurate and fair measurement of the actual distance its couriers travelled, the deliverers threatened to continue the actions if the company refused to negotiate or meet their demands.

“We launch this strike to demand better, fairer pay,” Rehman, a Foodpanda rider and one of the strike organisers who asked to be identified by only his surname, told the Post.

At the top of their list of grievances was a new map system the company rolled out late last month that calculated the wages of couriers based on their delivery distance.

The new system was introduced to meet the demands raised by couriers during a strike last November when they complained that the previous map did not take into account the city’s hilly terrain and called for fairer calculation of their wages.

Rehman, 35, who has worked for Foodpanda for about three years, said he used to earn about HK$45 (US$6) to HK$47 for an order with a delivery distance of between 3km and 5km, but the amount had fallen to between HK$40 and HK$42.