Source: SupChina (9/9/20)
Chinese food delivery giants vow to treat workers better after brutal exposé of inhumane working conditions
An exposé published on September 8 details the exploitative and dehumanizing working conditions faced by Chinese delivery workers on a day-to-day basis. Today Meituan and Ele.me — the top two food delivery services in the country — have responded with open letters to the public, vowing to make significant changes in how they assess employees’ performance and to treat them with more respect.
An exposé (in Chinese) published by Chinese magazine Portrait on September 8 details the exploitative and dehumanizing working conditions faced by Chinese delivery workers on a day-to-day basis.
- The piece is based on a six-month investigation and cites a number of current and former delivery workers, and management staff at major food delivery companies.
- According to the article, food delivery workers are often given an unreasonably short amount of time to complete orders, and are expected to ride recklessly and break traffic rules.
- The heart of the problem, the article argues, is that food delivery workers are actually slaves to faceless algorithms, designed to put company performance above the well-being of workers, without factoring in uncontrollable variables like weather and real-time traffic conditions.
Last week, Meituan and Ele.me — the top two food delivery services in the country — responded with open letters to the public, vowing to make significant changes in how they assess employees’ performance and to treat them with more respect.
- Meituan announced (in Chinese) that it would improve its algorithm to prioritize its drivers’ safety and add eight more minutes to the estimated time for each delivery for the sake of unforeseen factors. It also promised better benefits for its workers and their families.
- While Meituan was widely applauded for its practical measures, Ele.me shot itself in the foot with what’s seen by many as an insincere response. In a vaguely worded statement (in Chinese), Ele.me asked its customers to be more patient with their orders. The only concrete measure mentioned in its response, though, was to add a feature that allows users to voluntarily extend wait time by five or 10 minutes.
China’s food delivery economy has grown significantly in the past few years. Backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent, Meituan went public in Hong Kong in 2018, raising $4.2 billion in its initial public offering. Meanwhile, Ele.me, which was fully acquired by Alibaba in 2018, reported a considerable rise in gross merchandise value (GMV) this year.