Swiggy ran a massive ‘thank you’ campaign for its delivery heroes – two months later, those heroes are protesting against reduced pay and slashed incentives

• Swiggy’s delivery executives have been on a strike in Chennai and Hyderabad, alleging that the company has cut down their payments per order from ₹35 to ₹15 for deliveries within four kilometres.
• The delivery executives also claim that the company has increased the targets for incentives
• Swiggy, however, said that it continues to ensure that its service fee is sustainable even in the most difficult of times and said that some delivery partners continue to earn between ₹45-₹100 even now.

On June 30, Swiggy released a massive campaign – Shukriya kare, which was the food tech unicorn’s thank you note to delivery heroes across the country. Two months later, its delivery executives are protesting for better pay as they claim the company has cut down on incentives, pay per orders and more.

Swiggy’s delivery executives were on a strike in Chennai and Hyderabad, claiming that the company has cut down their payments per order from ₹35 to ₹15 for deliveries within four kilometres.

UPDATE FROM SWIGGY: Over the last couple of days, we have had a positive dialogue with our partners to explain the revised pay-outs and assuage their concerns. As a result of this positive dialogue, most of our partners are back to delivering with us and we're serving 100% of the city of Chennai as of today (Thursday, Aug 20). We are glad that our partners were able to understand the revised service fee which continues to be the best-in-the-industry.

In a now-viral video, a Swiggy delivery executive in Chennai was heard saying, “During the lockdown, we delivered food even to Corona patients, we’ve risked our lives doing that, we’ve separated from our families, our families live in relatives’ houses… we can’t go anywhere or get a job elsewhere… If they cut our pay how do we live?”

However, Swiggy said that the service fee per order is based on multiple factors to adequately compensate our partners, including distance travelled, waiting time, customer experience, shift completion and incentives.

“Regular competitive benchmarking shows that Swiggy’s delivery partners receive an industry-best service fee, even with this revised structure. This ₹15 component is ONLY ONE of the seven components of the payout. Naturally, zero active delivery partners in the city have earned only this component. Most delivery partners who have actively delivered during the week made over ₹45 per order. In fact, the highest performing partners made over ₹100 per order across the entire week,” said the company in a statement.

Not only reduced pay but lesser incentives too

But it’s more than the reduced pay per order fees, say some delivery executives. The delivery executives also claim that the company has increased the targets for incentives – changing it from ‘for delivering during peak hours’ to working a minimum of 12 hours, which means the delivery guys have to work harder for the same amount of money, if not a reduced amount.

“There's a rain mode, where you got more money for working even when it’s raining, but even that is not applicable. Last year, they had reduced the pay per order, after a strike they had reinstated the prices. But now, I have stopped getting the daily incentives, and with the reduced pay per order, my monthly earnings are going to come down to half,” a Swiggy delivery executive, who has been with the company for over two years, told Business Insider.

Swiggy, however, said that it continues to ensure that its service fee is sustainable even in the most difficult of times. “In an industry first, we supported close to 40,000 delivery partners to the tune of ₹18 crore in earnings guarantee to tide through the lockdown,” said the company.

Earlier in May, the $3.6 billion company had laid off 1100 employees, as the coronavirus pandemic pressurised the restaurant industry. Then in July, it laid off another 350 employees. Swiggy’s official statement said that ‘the past few months have reshaped our lives in an unprecedented manner’. However, the company called the latest layoff as a final realignment exercise.

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