During the pandemic they were considered “heroes”, but they earn less than 80 cents per order, they work without a contract or medical insurance and every three days one ends up injured or killed.
Food delivery man Zhu Dahe was hit by a black Porsche on his way to deliver an order. The car ran a red light and hit the left side of his motorcycle. The fall caused a tear in the meniscus in his right leg and two fractured ribs. Half an eyebrow was left on the gravel of the asphalt. Badly injured on the ground, Zhu took out his mobile and called the customer to beg him to cancel the ‘hot pot’, the hot pot with meat, spices and spices, that he carried on the motorcycle. The delivery man would take care of the 80 yuan (10 euros) that the order cost.
There were many days that Zhu did not even earn that amount in a workday. But I didn’t want the customer to put a bad review on the food app because then they would have to work overtime. The driver of the Porsche made it clear to Zhu that he would not pay him any compensation , that his company’s insurance would have to take care of that. A couple of days later, when the man went to his company office to ask for compensation for the accident, he was fired.
Zhu Dahe committed suicide in January in the southeast Chinese city of Chengdu . His story is told from Beijing by his friend Cao Xiaoqian , another Kuaidi , as home delivery men are called in China, who works for the Meituan company, one of the largest delivery platforms in the country.
“I am in a Wechat group -the Chinese WhatsApp- with a hundred colleagues from other provinces and many are in very extreme situations. In the conversations there have already been at least twenty cases of delivery men who have committed suicide in the last two years . And those are close cases that we know about. Because reality would multiply that figure, “says Cao.
“During the hard stage of the pandemic, on television they paid tributes to us, they said that we were heroes because we fed the country while people stayed at home. But, when push comes to shove, we are still the same shit as before in the eyes of most people . They see us as illiterate without studies and do not respect us, “he protests.
FORGOTTEN HEROES OF THE PANDEMIC
In Wuhan , all the tangible memories of the passage of the coronavirus through the city fit a museum north of the city. There are pieces of the blue fences that served to close the neighborhoods, recreations of the hospital rooms where patients were admitted, and protective suits that the doctors used scrawled with drawings and messages of encouragement. Mannequins with the uniforms of the delivery men who did not stop working during the confinement and the motorcycles with which they delivered the orders are also exhibited.
“It is very good that they remember us, but our working conditions are still terrible . We have to work 15 hours a day to support the family. On top of that, when we have gone out to protest, the police come and arrest us.” Cao remembers many extreme situations that his teammates have reached. Like Liu Jin , a deliveryman from the coastal province of Jiangsu, who burned himself to death on a street a month ago as an act of protest and despair. Passersby recorded it and the video went viral on social media. Liu ended up with 80% of his body burned. Another kuaidi also lit his body with gasoline at Christmasfrom Shandong province to whom his company refused to pay compensation after a motorcycle accident.
As Cao explained, Chinese delivery men have been hailed as city heroes during the pandemic closures. However, those in China are even more vulnerable to labor abuses than their colleagues in the rest of the world . They often work through intermediary companies that manage the delivery application drivers, but sometimes they withhold wages or disappear without paying.
Most of the Kuaidi are young, uneducated men, earning less than 80 cents per order . Many work without contracts or sign agreements that exclude health insurance. Last year, the Shanghai Traffic Police Department said that “food delivery workers have become a high-risk occupation.” In this great modern city of China, according to the latest official data for 2019, an average of one delivery person every three days ends up injured or killed.
There are no delivery boy unions in China. The closest thing is an association called Alianza de Conductores, which functions as a help network among the workers themselves. The founder is a deliveryman named Xiong Yan who has been detained for a week on charges of “organizing a demonstration.” Xiong has already spent 26 days behind bars in 2019 for trying to mount a “revolution” among delivery men.
“WE ARE CHEAP LABOR”
” Singles Day (Chinese Black Friday) was approaching and the two biggest food delivery platforms, Ele.me and Meituan, were cutting our rates per order. Drivers were frustrated and I texted one of my association chat groups suggesting that we choose a district and refuse to deliver there. We all put notes on the back of our mopeds saying what we were doing and why. I thought that that way we could raise public awareness of our cause and get the platforms to pay attention. But the police arrested me for organizing a protest, “Xiong says in a letter he wrote on Wechat.
Last year, after Chinese politicians began to praise the work of delivery men during the closures of the pandemic, Xiong took advantage and began to record several videos on social networks in which he gave voice and exposed all the complaints that his colleagues had. .
“I don’t feel trapped by the system, what catches us is the tricks of the platforms. They set all the rules and we have no choice but to play along. We are cheap labor. When it comes to platforms, yes one of us resigns, there are many more willing to take his place, so they are not worried, “Xiong continues. “Customers can make complaints, just like restaurants and platforms can blame drivers for any problems. We are caught in the middle.”