by Yvonne Tan
The story of entrepreneurship has long overshadowed the story of the unfair labour conditions these entrepreneurs’ workers face. Proponents of the gig economy regularly rehash a number of justifications for why labour conditions do not need to be improved. These include supposedly competitive pay, job flexibility and flexible hours.
However, massive strikes and protests led by workers of the gig economy in surrounding countries such as Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand have resulted in high-level mediations and changes in government labour policies. These movements were able to achieve this despite most workers never meeting or working with one another. They were able to enact spontaneous collective action while remaining leaderless.
After the estimated 100,000 drivers went on strike for three days, Lalamove couriers and Grab drivers also took up the cause, shining a light onto working conditions in Indonesia’s gig economy. These were not isolated cases. Protests and strikes against job suspensions, income reductions and demands for better health insurance have been carried out throughout Indonesia since 2015.
In Hong Kong, it all started with a Foodpanda delivery driver of South Asian descent. He had his account suddenly suspended and expressed his anger in an anonymous group chat of other drivers. The invite link quickly spread and has led to almost 1,500 members today. Now, these drivers were able to share their grievances on exploitative working conditions, racism and low wages. They could organise themselves to go on strike and formed links with local non-profits such as “Concern Group for Food Couriers’ Rights”. They even famously linked up with Boxson, a YouTuber who shares his life as a delivery driver. By November 18, negotiations between strike leaders, who were mostly South Asian workers, and Foodpanda management led to the fulfillment of some of the strike’s 15 demands.
Delivery services have taken on more importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, many workers also notably lent a hand in rescue efforts during the flash floods in Malaysia. They are now widely seen as “heroes”.
Another group of Malaysian heroes, medical staff, went on strike in July 2021. The Hartal Doktor Kontrak protest called into question the contract system, which said medical officers were not going to be absorbed as permanent staff after five years of service. Many Malaysians had a far more positive reaction to the doctor’s strike than they had to strikes by low-wage workers.
This is in stark contrast with an almost similar experience taking place in April 2021. An innocent chat between a Shopee Express courier and a customer revealed that the reason the package was late was that there were strikes. Shopee was going to cut the pay for each delivered package from IDR 2,000 (USD 0.14) to IDR 1,500 (USD 0.10). Screenshots of the conversation went viral, leading many Indonesian netizens to join the strike online with the hashtag #ShopeeTindasKurir. The online element of the strike was a great platform for Shopee couriers to share stories of their working conditions—stories that are hardly reported or known.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, a mass boycott of Foodpanda under the hashtag #BanFoodPanda was underway. The delivery service had stated that they would terminate an employee for attending an anti-government protest. The boycott was so effective that Foodpanda allegedly lost almost 2 million users and 90,000 merchants. Although, Foodpanda has claimed the numbers were inflated.
Pundits and economists typically tout gig workers as the future of work. What about the future of demanding better working conditions? Workers should be able to organise in a decentralised and spontaneous manner even in the private sector. Critiquing elitist privilege must come hand in hand with uplifting lower classes. We must recognise that the problem is systematic economic insecurity.
There is a deep classism against low-wage workers in Malaysia that needs to be addressed. Many locals associate low-wage workers with Southeast Asian or South Asian “foreigners”. The coinage of the term B40, to denote the lowest economic class, brings with it a fair share of critique against the upper-class T20. However, we do not use the term B40 in a way that invokes solidarity. There needs to be more advocacy for inter-class cooperation for the right to fair working conditions.