Hyderabad: Telangana gig and platform workers Union on Sunday wrote to the CEO of the food delivery app Swiggy demanding salary increment.
“We are starting Black badges protest while working from November 29, 2021. If there is no acceptance in our demand until December 5, 2021, we will resort to indefinite strike and boycott delivery work,” the Union tweeted.
Shaik Salahuddin, the head of the union put forth the demands of the swiggy delivery boys in a letter to Sriharsha Majety, the CEO. The letter reads as follows:
The continued increase in the price of petrol and other essential commodities is negatively impacting the earnings of delivery workers. In spite of working for 12-15 hours, we are unable to meet basic needs like house rents Children’s school fees which are rising day by day.
Both the companies assure the customers of doorstep delivery while they pay delivery workers only charges for the distance and not for the extra work of doorstep delivery that they are forced to do. It takes 5-15 minutes depending on the delivery location and physical labor like climbing up and down the stairs for which they are currently not being paid. Similarly, we are forced to travel a lot of unpaid distance after completing the delivery to the restaurant as part of the work to get more orders.
Repeated requests by delivery workers to the Swiggy to increase the per/km charges did not yield any positive result. Therefore, Delivery workers have once again decided to resort to protest. We are starting Black badges protest while working from November 29, 2021. If there is no acceptance of our demand until December 5, 2021, we will resort to indefinite strike and boycott delivery work.
Close to 10,000 Delivery workers – both full-time and part-time from all the major zones in Hyderabad will be participating in the peaceful strike. The strike will continue until all our demands are met. We request customers and the restaurants to extend their support in favor of delivery workers.
The demands of the Union are as follows
Minimum base pay is Rs. 35-/, Increase Batch order pay to Rs. 20-/ , Re-introduction of customer doorstep Delivery charge of Rs. 5/, Increase distance pay from existing Rs.6-/ per km to Rs. 12/- per km. Monthly Rating Incentive should be re-introduced, and that the super zones should be removed in order to reduce the delivery radius. Stop assignment of order to third parties like Shadowfox & Rapido etc.