FOODPANDA must accord space to its delivery partners to express their grouses or to defend themselves against any injustice in their line of work.
For starters, the online food and grocery delivery platform must put an effort to accord reasonable charges for its community of riders according to the delivery zone which has been put in place since March 2 last year, according to Malaysian P-Hailing Delivery Riders Association deputy president Abdul Hakim Abdul Rani.
“This is important because they need enough money especially in the face of rising living costs that are spiralling out of control,” HarakahDaily cited him in a reaction following a gathering of more than 100 riders in front of the foodpanda headquarters at the Southgate Commercial Centre at Jalan Chan Sow Lin in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday (June 27).
“foodpanda itself has to appreciate the services of its riders because without them, the company itself would not exist.”
This protest came about after the riders have demanded that if the delivery radius is below 5km, then the first batch should be paid RM7, the second batch RM6 and the third RM5. For orders exceeding a 5km radius, the riders demand an increase of RM1 for the first batch, second batch (80 sen) and third batch (50 sen).
Earlier, Sekretariat Forum GiG Ekonomi Malaysia chairman Datuk Seri Sharkar Shamsudin said the new system implemented by foodpanda has significantly expanded the delivery range for riders.
Based on the system which uses Google Maps for navigation and delivery routing, riders who previously covered specific areas such as Kelana Jaya may now have to comb a larger area, ie until Subang Jaya or even Shah Alam or Cyberjaya.
“They promised to look into the new system that has been implemented and will give their feedback within a month,” Sharkar had told reporters after meeting with foodpanda representatives at its office on Thursday (July 27).
“The riders’ main complaint is about the delivery fare which they feel is unfair under the new system. Now their range of delivery has expanded but the fare doesn’t justify it.”
Detailing riders’ grouses
P-Hailing Association’s Abdul Hakim gave a further insight into the riders’ woes stemming from implementation of foodpanda’s new zoning system:
foodpanda has implemented a zone expansion system that is different from the schedule and batch system practised by its riders for a long time.
Such zone expansion system is inefficient because it opens up space for various problems, one of which is the duplication of orders.
For example, previously each foodpanda rider took a work schedule which was selected based on the time, day, batch and area he operates.
But now foodpanda has introduced a new ‘switching area’ system which allows its riders to deliver orders outside their existing working area zone whereby the delivery distance can reach almost 35km.
This will cause major problems such as disputes involving standard operating procedures (SOP) and key performance indicators (KPI) of the riders.
In fact, this system leads to another problem which is the issue of the suspension and rest time of the riders.
Already burdened with a small wage payment rate, of course the riders would reject an order if it is not worth making a long-distance delivery.
However, in so doing, they will be subject to action such as being rested or suspended from work for one to three days if they refuse too many delivery orders or even worse, their employment contract can be terminated if their refusal become too rampant. – June 29, 2024
