Workers union condemns Zomato’s ’10-minute’ food delivery scheme

Hyderabad: The Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU) and Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) have condemned online food-delivery platform Zomato’s new scheme to make deliveries in under 10 minutes, that was announced on Tuesday.

The workers unions said that in the rundown to acquire more customers, Zomato will be risking the lives of its delivery partners.

A press release from the TGPWU and IFAT on Tuesday said that companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Instamart etc. are developing “a fantasy of instant delivery” amongst the customers. “At the same time these platforms wash-off their hands by concealing the way they structure work to portray as if delivery workers are independently engaging in traffic violations and hazardous driving conditions risking themselves and the other pedestrians on the road,” it stated.

MS Education Academy

Work conditions in companies like Zomato and Swiggy are driven by incentives. The IFAT said that such programmes “incite” delivery workers to chase those incentives.

Founder and state president of TGPWU Shaik Salauddin said, “Zomato should understand the stress and pressure it creates with these new services it launches, forgetting that the workers are not machines. Many of their delivery workers work for more than ten hours and the platform actively engages such work practices by not setting any cap on maximum hours that a delivery worker can login.”

He further added that Zomato has failed to resolve cases related to leaked meals due to faulty packaging and executing fast delivery. This has resulted in penalization of delivery partners many times, Salauddin asserted, in a statement to the media on Tuesday/

He asked Zomato to look at their delivery partners “as human beings and not as machines”. He also questioned the number of accidents –fatal and non-fatal –  their delivery partners have run into. This data is unknown and should be made accessible to the public.

“As Zomato commits to provide its customers a hyperlocal experience based on demand predictability and by starting 4 ‘finishing stations’ in Gurugram, it needs to provide the delivery worker/partners with access to washroom facilities, resting areas with parking for their vehicles, charging stations and Wi-Fi access at the aforementioned locations,” the release stated.

Meanwhile, Zomato has said that the fulfilment of its quick delivery promise relies on a dense finishing stations’ network, which is located in close proximity to high-demand customer neighbourhoods.

“Sophisticated dish-level demand prediction algorithms, and future-ready in-station robotics are employed to ensure that your food is sterile, fresh and hot at the time it is picked by the delivery partner,” Zomato stated in a blog post.

Back to top button