China’s food delivery platforms are competing to implement social security benefits, since the government presses to improve conditions in an industry criticized in the past by a hard treatment of its cyclists and drivers.
The biggest players in China, Meituan and Alibaba, Ele.me, have said they will expand the benefits of social security for their full -time delivery workers.
His movements followed the electronic commerce platform JD.com Announcing last month would enter the food delivery business and provide social security schemes for drivers, including the benefits of housing funds and various types of insurance.
The developments occur after the Chinese leader XI Jinping They met with business leaders From the entire private sector of the country, including Meituan’s executive president, Wang Xing, urging them to “cultivate a deep sense of national responsibility,” said analysts reiterated the need for companies to serve the objectives of the Communist Party.
“In China, this must be an event with some kind of symbolism,” said Hui Huang, a sociologist at Shanghai Jiao Tong University who spent a year working as a delivery worker for Meituan and Ele.me to investigate his doctorate.
“The government also has an urgent desire to improve the working conditions of cyclists. . . Especially under the current common prosperity agenda, ”said Huang.
He added that the platform -based concert economy, with about 82 million workers, had been a useful sponge for employment as China’s traditional industries retreated. More than 10 million people work as driving food delivery drivers, with numbers that shot after the Covid-19 pandemic kept the entire cities locked at home.
Analysts warn that, although it is important, the ads have been scarce in the details. And while the movements would probably be partially motivated by the calls to protect workers, there was also an element of competition, with important platforms reluctant to lose drivers and market participation to their rivals.
“It would be great if JD.com is really sincere to become a model to follow for the entire industry. . . There may be a great undulating effect, ”said Jenny Chan, associate professor of Sociology at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
But, he added, the platforms must clarify how many workers qualify for payments, if drivers will have to make contributions themselves and how will they guarantee responsibility, given that many drivers are employed through third parties. “The devil is in the details,” he said.
Delivery services to carry, known as Waimai In China, they have expanded much beyond the delivery of only food and edible. Buyers can now request a variety of items for almost instant delivery from their local cities, paying rates that are often well below RMB5 ($ 0.70).
Meituan’s profits totaled more than RMB29B in the first nine months of last year, in income of approximately RMB249BN.
The Alibaba Local Services segment, which includes ELE.ME and the company’s MAPS application, had a loss of $ 111 million in adjusted profits before interest, taxes and amortization in the six months until September 30 last year. The revenues for the segment were $ 4.8 billion.
The industry has Be under fire In the past for their treatment of workers, particularly following cases in which delivery drivers have died in traffic collisions. Regulators have moved to restrict the use of algorithms that impose onerous fines on drivers and encouraged runners to join the unions.
JD.com already operates a network of plots nationwide, with options that include delivery of the same day or the next day. As part of its movement towards the Waimai The sector, said that it would gradually introduce the benefits of housing funds for drivers and the five types of social security, covering jobs related to work, medical costs, unemployment, maternity costs and pension payments, since the beginning of March.
Meituan said the next day that he was building a “system related to Social Security” that would progressively come into force “for part -time passengers full -time and stable” from the second quarter of this year.
Ele.me, the second largest in the country Waimai Platform, he said last month that he had launched a test scheme to provide social security benefits to passengers in some cities, adding that “he would thoroughly accelerate the promotion of the protection of general rights for food delivery passengers.”
JD.com then added that it would cover the total cost of payments and that passenger income would not be reduced to finance them. Meituan and Ele. They refused to provide more details about how their schemes would work.
Lei, a delivery worker of about 20 years, said that Meituan’s number of riders had increased since he registered four years ago, while the delivery rates had fallen.
“Now there are too many riders. . . He is definitely very competitive, “he said about his situation in the southern city of Guangzhou.
On a good day, Lei can win as much as RMB300 working for 10 hours, but recently a policy recently introduced that prevented drivers who work throughout the day had deed their profits, he said.
“You have to work every day,” he added, drinking tea during a break. “The more you deliver, the more desire.”
Huang of the University of Shanghai Jiao Tong warned that a broader reform would be needed to achieve the complete protection of workers in new sectors that had emerged in recent years.
“China is now changing an intensive traditional economy to an economy based on technology,” he said. “You can only gradually reform and gradually improve your working conditions.”
Additional Gloria Li reports in Hong Kong