Lieferando delivery workers demonstrate against layoffs
On April 1, 2025, delivery workers of the food delivery service Lieferando demonstrated in Vienna against the termination of the entire workforce by the end of June with a switch to freelance service contracts. The demonstration was organized by the trade union vida and the "Riders Collective".
Bicycle messengers
Cancellations at the AMS announced
What had happened? In mid-March, Lieferando announced that it would "align its logistics model with the Austrian industry standard," as the APA reported. "With the termination of our employee model, we will have to lay off around 600 drivers, exhausting all possibilities," Lieferando said two weeks ago. "Another 65 or so employees at our locations in Vienna and the provinces are also affected." The dismissals have already been announced to the AMS early warning system.
Collective agreement buried
Until now, as a delivery person, you had the choice of employer to decide whether you wanted to work as an employee or as a freelancer. "This freedom of choice is now completely gone," as Lieferando is the last employer in this industry to have employed delivery staff on a larger scale, said Susanne Haase, Regional Managing Director of vida Vienna, during the demonstration to the APA. "Basically, we blame the other companies even more" for not having hired their employees according to the collective agreement, Haase said. Foodora and Wolt had also argued to the union with competitiveness and flexibility.
"Until now, as a delivery person, you had the choice of employer to decide whether you wanted to work as an employee or as a freelancer. This freedom of choice is now completely gone, as Lieferando is the last employer in this industry to have employed the delivery staff on a larger scale."
Implementation of the EU Platform Work Directive
"At the moment, we know how much we will get at the end of the month. That's no longer the case," said a "rider" at the demonstration to the APA. A central demand was the prompt implementation of the EU Directive on Platform Work. This was decided in 2024. "The EU member states have until December 2026 to implement the directive: But this must happen faster, time is pressing," said ÖGB President Wolfgang Katzian in a press release. With the implementation of this directive, "the company would have to prove that someone is self-employed and not the other way around," said vida Vienna Regional Managing Director Susanne Haase. Furthermore, employers would have to disclose their algorithms that allocate orders to delivery staff in the future. As a result, it would have to be proven that the rejection of an order does not entail any disadvantages, explains Haase.
Support from politicians
"The recently announced mass redundancies at Lieferando confirm how important it is to look at the issues of platform work and bogus self-employment," emphasized Labor and Social Affairs Minister Korinna Schumann (SPÖ) in a press release after a working meeting with ÖGB President Wolfgang Katzian on April 1. The government programme provides for the creation of the necessary legal framework as soon as possible, Schumann said.
Social plan is in place
The vida trade union and the Lieferando works council have now concluded a social plan for the employees. Employees can find out details about the social plan from the works council.
KV virtually without employees
The employees at Lieferando soon no longer benefited from the hard-won collective agreement because the competition did not want to follow suit, ÖGB President Wolfgang Katzian regretted in a press release. "If they continue to be employed as self-employed, they will probably work in bogus self-employment, i.e. without minimum wages, without entitlement to paid leave in the event of illness or vacation entitlement, without protection against dismissal and without vacation entitlement."
In Austria, there has been a collective agreement (KV) for bicycle delivery workers since the beginning of 2020. Since the beginning of 2023, the monthly full-time gross income for bicycle messengers under the collective agreement has been 1,730 euros (net 1,440 euros). By comparison, according to Statistics Austria, the at-risk-of-poverty threshold in 2023 was 1,572 euros per month for a single-person household. More recent figures are not yet available. This collective agreement is now "virtually buried". There are "virtually no more employees in this collective agreement," complained vida Vienna Regional Managing Director Susanne Haase.
Warning strike series of the riders
Several food delivery warning strikes took place as early as 2024 to achieve higher wages and better working conditions. According to union estimates, about 2,000 of 5,000 bicycle messengers ("riders") were recently employed throughout Austria, the rest were on the road as freelancers.
Platform work topic in parliament
At the end of March, in view of the announced redundancies at Lieferando, the Greens tabled a motion for a resolution in the Social Affairs Committee of the National Council to urge the federal government and responsible ministers to quickly implement the EU Directive on Platform Work. Implementation as quickly as possible would create the conditions for the correct legal classification of employees and associated labour rights, according to the Greens. The government should present a legislative proposal to implement the directive by the end of September 2025 so that the necessary changes can come into force by the beginning of 2026.
Source: APA Austria Press Agency
