Need more than ₹35 say Swiggy workers who threaten strike against new policies

• Swiggy delivery partners based in Bengaluru are getting ready for a second round of strike in case the company is unable to meet their demand.
• The delivery partners called off their first round of strike on Sunday afternoon after Swiggy agreed to address the grievances in one week’s time.
• The delivery partner’s union claims that there may be a series of strikes in other cities as well, but there needs to be a targeted action plan for that.

Swiggy’s rift with its delivery workforce might be getting bigger in the coming week, and could affect its food and grocery orders.

As many as 30,000 delivery partners, as Swiggy calls them, threatened to go on a strike in Bengaluru if their demands are not met by the end of this week, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) said.

The development comes only a day after 3,000 of them in Bengaluru called off their three-day strike after the management sought a week’s time to address their grievances.

“We have been in direct contact with a handful of striking delivery executives in a few pockets of Bangalore to assuage their concerns. These zones remained fully operational during this period. We continually evaluate our payout and incentive structure for delivery executives in order to ensure their earnings are at par with industry standards,” Swiggy said.

Delivery workers expect better pay, achievable targets

The delivery partners have been protesting as Swiggy extended their delivery zone’s and reduced payout for these long distance travel. According to the striking workers, they only earn ₹35 for five kilometers, following which they earn ₹6/kilometer.

Besides this, the company also stopped their annual bonus of ₹10,000 for delivery partners, and now only receive a weekly incentive of ₹1,000.

The workforce also claims that their daily targets have been increased too, which now takes 14 hours to complete. They expect the company to reduce it so that it could be achieved in 8-9 hours.

Partners have also raised security issues during late night deliveries, where a few of them have been subjected to violence and robbery. The 10-minute delivery target set by Swiggy for its grocery delivery service Instamart, has also made them more accident-prone.

“It [The strike with 3,000 partners] was only a symbolic gesture,” Shaik Salauddin, national general secretary of IFAT and a board member of The International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers (IAATW) affiliates in India.

He noted that IFAT alone has roughly 7,000-8,000 delivery partners associated with them, and the rest would come from other small unions and individual partners who are also impacted by Swiggy’s recent policy changes.

Business Insider India could not independently verify these numbers.

Strike of 3,000 partners too impacted Swiggy’s Instamart

Notably, the company has roughly 270,000 delivery ‘partners associated with it. They claim that even the strike of 3,000 workers deeply impacted Swiggy’s quick commerce venture InstaMart in the last three-day strike. A bigger strike, with a properly developed action plan, could have a much bigger impact, the union added.

The association noted that Bengaluru is one of Swiggy’s biggest markets due to the concentration of tech companies and startups. IFAT claims that there may be a series of strikes in other cities as well, but there needs to be a targeted action plan in that case since the demand of delivery partners in each city is very different.

According to IFAT and delivery partners Business Insider spoke to, Swiggy has previously resolved the delivery partner’s issue and may be able to resolve the issue this time too.

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