Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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THE NATIONAL DELIVERY INDUSTRY UNION has filed a lawsuit against Uber Eats for underpaying workers delivering multiple orders at once, a practice referred to as “stacked orders”.
In particular, delivery workers have accused Uber Eats of using unlawful payment calculation formulas, citing cases in which workers were only paid for the delivery time of one order, rather than both orders that they were handling at the time. This would violate new regulations that took effect on July 21st, which require not only hourly compensation at a rate of 245 NT per hour, a wage 1.25 times the minimum wage, as well as at least a minimum payment of 45 NT per order. The new laws were hailed by the Taiwan Delivery Industry Union Alliance and the National Delivery Industrial Union as a victory after six-and-a-half years of campaigning when they were passed earlier this year.
Specifically, food delivery workers began to organize in 2021 and called for the formation of a nationwide delivery workers union. This was in reaction to new salary calculation formulas announced by both Uber Eats and Foodpanda that would have cut their salaries by 10% to 30%. While workers could have made between 65 NT and 75 NT on a delivery last year, now workers will make between 43 NT and 50 NT on the same delivery. As such, workers will need to work more hours while making less pay. According to Chen Yu-an, one of the union conveners, while he previously made 9,600 NT by delivering 110 orders in a week, after the changes, he made 9,000 NT by delivering 164 orders.
Workers were critical of the fact that these changes, which severely affect their livelihood, were announced without consultation with workers by Uber Eats or Foodpanda. As such, they criticized the new salary calculation formulas as decided through a “black box.”
Likewise, the changes were criticized as increasing the odds of accidents for delivery workers. The average rate of accidents in central Taiwan for delivery workers increased from 1.4 times per month to 4 times a month after the new changes in salary calculation were implemented in 2021. Workers then called for accident compensation to be raised to at least 100,000 NT.
It appears that industry union groups have been attentive to the possibility that Uber Eats would try to circumvent the new laws. One notes that Uber’s entrance into the Taiwanese market as a ride-sharing service was a contested one to begin with, with Uber registering as a software company and not a taxi company to try and evade regulation as a taxi company, and racking up continual fines because of its refusal to stop operating in Taiwan. This is part of what originally led to the shift toward Uber providing food delivery services in Taiwan, seeing as legal challenges prevented Uber drivers from directly operating as a ride-sharing service. Eventually, a compromise was found with Uber registering as a taxi company.
Yet with Uber facing resistance from local taxi unions at that point in time, Uber sought to frame the issue as one in which the Taiwanese government was failing to adapt to trends in global innovation, through its failure to make way for Uber. Consequently, Uber sought to depict taxi unions as conservative forces bent on preventing innovation, thereby miring Uber in old frameworks of employment. Indeed, the rise of the “gig economy” has allowed companies such as Uber, Foodpanda, and others to skirt regulations by framing worker exploitation as technological innovation. It can be expected that union groups will continue to act to provide oversight over the company, then.