Up to 80 percent of those working as food deliverers worry that they will get into a traffic accident while making deliveries, a survey released yesterday by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) and the Taiwan Labor Front found.
“Many people are engaged in the gig economy, which has created new job opportunities, but these companies must not take advantage of legal loopholes to shift burdens onto the laborers, such as work environment hazards and the cost of labor insurance,” Fan said.
“We have witnessed recurring tragedies: road accidents involving delivery riders followed by disputes over compensation and medical bills,” she said, citing that over a two-month period, delivery riders in Taipei were involved in more than 200 traffic accidents, resulting in one death and 202 people injured.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The survey, which was conducted from July to September, received valid responses from 126 delivery riders working for Foodpanda, Uber Eats and similar companies, Taiwan Labor Front representatives said.
The results showed that 81.7 percent of respondents were most concerned about getting into a traffic accident, followed by restaurants and eateries taking too long to prepare meals (79.3 percent), inability to contact the person who placed the order (62.6 percent), difficult customers (50 percent), and getting lost or not being able to find an address (42.8 percent).
Eighty-three percent of respondents were men and most were aged 31 to 35 (26 percent), followed by those aged 36 to 40 (23 percent) and 26 to 30 (20 percent).
Forty percent of respondents worked part-time as food deliverers and 42 percent worked full-time, while 18 percent were high-school students.
Among the full-time delivery riders, 68 percent had no labor insurance, while 32 percent had coverage through a workers’ union. Sixty-eight percent of the part-time food deliverers had labor insurance through their other job, while 18 percent had no labor insurance and 10 percent had coverage through a workers’ union.
The results showed that 24 percent of respondents worked more than 50 hours per week, while 44 percent had worked more than 12 hours in a single day.
Most of the respondents earned less than NT$5,000 per week (35 percent), followed by those earning NT$5,000 to NT$7,500 per week (28 percent), NT$7,500 to NT$10,000 (18 percent), NT$10,000 to NT$12,500 (7 percent), NT$12,500 to NT$15,000 (5 percent) and more than NT$20,000 (5 percent).
Fan and the Taiwan Labor Front representatives called on the Ministry of Labor to conduct a study of the working conditions of food deliverers, including assessments of their work safety and the development of mechanisms for their protection.
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