“Even a small disruption in the form of these very small-scale collective actions can bring station-level managers to the negotiating table,” said Eli Friedman, an assistant professor of international and comparative labor at Cornell University.
While China has banned independent unions and strikes, that hasn’t stopped gig workers from organizing unofficially. Many food delivery drivers find opportunities to collaborate thanks to other types of algorithms, helping them find like-minded people on Douyin, where gig workers share experiences and advice.
“We support each other,” said another gig worker at Ele.me, China’s second-largest catering platform, who asked for anonymity. “It certainly helps some, but not that much.”
The most famous informal union is the Knights League, which was founded in 2018 to allow riders to share tips with each other. The most famous gig activist, Chen Guojiang, aka Mengzhu, reportedly ran 16 WeChat groups that reached more than 14,000 delivery guys. Chen was arrested by Chinese authorities in March last year on charges of “causing trouble” after trying to mobilize strikes among fellow delivery couriers in Beijing. It is unclear who is leading the protests since his arrest and subsequent release.
He would tell gig workers “how to support each other because everyone is weak, but if they can form a link, some kind of solidarity, then maybe they can ask more of the platforms,” Yu says.
Lack of time is one of the most common complaints among couriers. Between 2011 and 2020, China’s online food delivery industry grew from $3.4 billion to $105 billion. But as the industry expanded, more couriers joined, pushing prices down, while platforms continued to shorten delivery times.
At the same time, reports of couriers being involved in traffic accidents while running to make deliveries were increasingly reported. A Shanghai traffic police report found that in the first six months of 2017, a courier was involved in a fatal traffic accident about every 2.5 days.
These algorithmic changes have even caused couriers to compete against each other, as if they were in a game. Couriers on Meituan and Ele.me are ranked by performance, similar to the ranking in China’s most popular mobile game, Honor of Kings† Riders are given titles such as bronze, silver, gold, and kings, which affect their status and income. Companies often run competitions to encourage couriers to take more orders, inspiring some riders to play back the algorithms right away, falsifying orders to improve their status.
But perhaps the most damaging trick a platform can pull is to remove a rider from the system completely. An investigation by Beijing Zhicheng Migrant Workers Legal Aid and Research Center in January found cases where couriers’ records would inexplicably disappear after an accident involving a rider. Gig employees must use order data in the app to prove they were injured on the job, but if they can’t access the app, they can’t provide evidence to back up their claims.
Public scrutiny over working conditions at gigs was heightened after a slew of viral incidents, some of which were fatal. In 2019, a driver carrying meals for Meituan, the country’s largest food delivery platform, stabbed a clerk during a dispute, sparking debate over couriers’ time constraints.
