A delivery rider for Hungry Panda is launching legal action against the company over claims she was denied work on the app for promoting protest activity over pay and safety.
Zhuoying Wang used TikTok and WeChat to promote a stop-work meeting in Sydney, a meeting she had helped organise over rider pay and safety. Wang alleges that during the protest she received no orders on the app.
The Transport Workers Union wrote to Hungry Panda last week, claiming Wang was given just five orders, which was extremely low for a public holiday.
A table of Wang’s orders over the past two months, provided to Guardian Australia, show that during the 10-hour days she worked, she completed between 30 to 70 orders per shift, but this dropped down to zero around the protest and in the days following.
A spokesperson for the TWU said Wang would file a case with the Fair Work Commission alleging a breach of section 346 of the Fair Work Act, which protects workers from adverse action for engaging in industrial activity.
The company in 2021 allegedly kicked off two workers from its platform after organising a protest against rate cuts. It reportedly claimed it was due to customer and restaurant complaints but the two drivers were later restored on the platform.
The TWU said one of the riders, Jun Yang, is a lead organiser of a protest on Wednesday over a drop to the base rate for delivery riders from $7 to $4 for motorcycle riders, and $6 to $5 for bicycle riders.
The union said a bonus scheme designed to give riders one-off payments for completing a number of deliveries in a set time frame, had been introduced. It claims this is unrealistic and unsafe.
“Food delivery riders are racing towards death under pressure to keep up with unrealistic delivery deadlines imposed by algorithms,” TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said.
“Workers just trying to make a living are pushed to rush, are pitted against each other in an overcrowded rider pool, and have had their pay rates arbitrarily go backwards, forcing them to work longer, harder and faster to put food on the table.”
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Hungry Panda said the company supports delivery riders’s rights to express concerns and engage in lawful protests.
“We are diligently investigating Ms Wang’s claims to ensure our platform maintains fairness and transparency,” the spokesperson said.
“In the light of concern, we want to clarify that Ms Wang’s account has always stayed active, and is still currently active hence her ability to accept orders is not restricted.”
The company said it was open to engaging in constructive dialogue with Wang and the union to address concerns.
The union called on the Senate to pass law reforms guaranteeing minimum standards for the gig economy industry as soon as possible.
“This ordeal just goes to show how volatile this industry is without minimum standards in place. While Uber, DoorDash and Menulog are supportive of reform to set standards in the gig economy, Hungry Panda is clearly the outlier,” Kaine said.
