The Food, Enjoyment and Restaurants Union (NGG) has called for the first time drivers of the Lieferando restaurant delivery service to go on strike. The workers, known as “riders”, are to gather this Friday in front of the Lieferando branch in Frankfurt and later demonstrate at the main guard station, as the union announced on Thursday. Strikes in other cities are being planned.
According to its own statements, the NGG called on the company to negotiate wages for the approximately 6,500 employees in February. Among other things, it demands an hourly minimum wage of 15 euros, a 13th monthly salary and higher supplements for marginal and holiday shifts.
” Lieferando and the parent company Takeaway Express are international players and not a charmingly chaotic backyard start-up: It is high time that the hard and dangerous work of the Lieferando employees was laid down in a fair and binding collective agreement,” explained NGG department head Mark Baumeister a message. If the company continues to refuse to negotiate, the riders will expand their protests. “Supplier ando has to deliver now.”
Lieferando is a brand owned by the Dutch group Just Eat Takeaway. It is true that elected works councils give drivers the option of operational co-determination. However, there is no collective agreement for them. Trade unions have traditionally had a hard time with delivery services, mainly because of the high turnover. According to an NGG spokesman, Lieferando has so far only held protest rallies. Walkouts at suppliers similar to Gorillas were not organized by unions.
Lieferando initially did not react to the strike announcement. The company had previously pointed out that the drivers were already earning more than 14 euros per hour. The wage level is therefore higher than that of service staff in the catering trade and the hourly wage is the same as that of drivers in the system catering trade according to the collective agreement.
