Indian riders strike on New Year’s Eve as platforms roll out ’10-minute delivery’
I. A ‘Failed’ Strike
It is described as a failure because the strike did not achieve its primary objective. The riders hoped that by walking out during the New Year’s Eve peak—when orders surge—they could leave the platforms in a predicament of having plenty of orders but no riders to fulfil them. This, they believed, would provide the necessary leverage to pressure the platforms into withdrawing their recently launched ‘10-minute delivery‘ service. Alongside this core demand, the riders had other grievances, including calls for better safety measures and income guarantees.
Unexpectedly, the platform companies adopted a ‘carrot and stick’ approach: they ignored the strike and dismissed the riders’ demands, while simultaneously raising ‘market adjustment’ prices per order to lure other riders back to work and dampen demand to compensate for the shortage of manpower. Consequently, there were simply not enough riders participating in the walkout. Industry estimates suggest that India has roughly 700,000 to 800,000 active delivery riders per month; a strike of 40,000 was nowhere near enough to paralyse New Year’s Eve deliveries. As a result, the New Year operations of India’s major delivery platforms remained largely unaffected.
Confident in their victory, Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato—one of India’s largest review and delivery platforms—even took to X (formerly Twitter) on New Year’s Day to mock the striking riders.
Addressing the conditions demanded by the strikers, he added: “Just think about it: if a system were inherently unfair, how could it possibly continue to attract people to join and choose it as a career?”
The ‘partners’ he refers to are the delivery riders, a term that signals they are not viewed as employees in their relationship with the platform. This means it is incredibly easy for the platform to retaliate against those who initiate walkouts or strikes. While Indian labour laws protect the right of employees to strike—meaning employers cannot dismiss or terminate contracts based on strike action—riders, lacking formal employment contracts, are denied these protections.
II. The Ongoing Struggle of Workers Against the Platform Economy
So, what does the platform economy look like in a developing nation of 1.4 billion people?
Similar to most countries, India has seen a proliferation of various platforms cropping up in recent years, most of which expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Take Zomato, one of the giants of the sector. Founded in 2008 as ‘FoodieBay’, it began as a restaurant review site. In 2010, it rebranded as Zomato and continued expanding its review services globally. By 2015, Zomato began experimenting with food delivery; initially, it partnered with other delivery services, only establishing its own fleet in 2017. During the 2020 pandemic, Zomato seized the moment as Indian states announced social distancing measures to expand aggressively—acquiring UberEats‘ Indian operations on one hand, and launching a grocery delivery service on the other. By this year, Zomato has become India’s largest food delivery platform, commanding a 58% market share in the restaurant delivery sector.
Why did the pandemic accelerate Zomato’s expansion so effectively? Partly, it was due to the surge in demand for delivery as people were isolated; partly, it was because the pandemic dealt a severe blow to the Indian economy, leading to widespread unemployment. During the New Year’s Eve strike, Western media interviewed numerous delivery riders on the streets of India. Many revealed they had previously been sole traders or small business owners whose cash flow collapsed during the pandemic, forcing them to shut their shops and turn to delivery work to survive.
In India, the world’s most populous nation, the strategy of delivery giants has been to ramp up investment, slash prices, and strive for a monopoly. Delivery costs in India are remarkably low. Data shows that Zomato’s average delivery fee is approximately 12.5 Indian Rupees (roughly £0.12). After paying the rider, the revenue from a single delivery is insufficient to sustain a massive platform. So, how do they keep operating? Firstly, they rely on platform fees from the catering industry—restaurants using the service pay Zomato a commission of 15% to 30% per order. Secondly, they rely on constant investment. Investors believe that once a platform like Zomato achieves a certain level of monopoly over the vast Indian market, it can simply raise prices to reap enormous profits, making them eager to bet on Zomato’s future.
III. The Collapse of Small Businesses and the Endless Stream of Riders
Consequently, a vicious, accelerating cycle has taken hold in India: delivery and e-commerce platforms rise in prominence, aggressively slashing prices to secure a monopoly in India’s vast market. These price cuts leave a multitude of small shops and business owners unable to compete, turning them into the unemployed. With few alternatives in terms of manual labour or office work, many of these people are absorbed by the platforms, buying their own motorcycles to ‘partner’ with them as delivery riders.
Against the backdrop of such an ‘oversupply’ of labour, the Zomato founder’s comment—asking how people could be attracted to work if the system itself were unfair—is a classic case of ‘let them eat cake’. Precisely because of this buyer’s market, Indian delivery riders face ever-increasing pressure regarding both their delivery targets and their income.
IV. Excessive Working Hours Threaten Road Safety
Safety and accidents are pressing issues for many Indian riders, stemming largely from the platforms’ insistence on squeezing delivery times for every order. Riders complain that existing targets already force them to run red lights, flout traffic rules, take reckless risks, and work themselves to the point of exhaustion. “To complete the task on time, we have to go faster and faster. If we aren’t fast enough, we won’t deliver on time. Once I receive an order, the only thing on my mind is to hurry, hurry—that’s the only way to take on more orders.”
The riders participating in the strike contend that the new “10-minute delivery” target is a bid for market share that completely disregards rider safety. Moreover, should an accident occur, they have no employment contracts; the platforms treat them merely as “independent contractors”. In a meeting with Indian Parliament member Raghav Chadha, the riders highlighted their deep concerns regarding safety—particularly the risk of injury or crashes under intense time pressure and the total lack of support thereafter.
V. Contract Workers or Sole Traders?
In recent years, several trade unions for gig workers have emerged in India. The Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU), which spearheaded this action, along with several other unions, has previously organised protests for app-based domestic workers and ride-hailing drivers, highlighting issues such as substandard pay and discrimination based on caste and identity.
Due to the inherent nature of platform work, the gig economy is often seen as a difficult environment for establishing employee associations and trade unions. To counter this reality, Indian associations have increasingly used social media to mobilise and connect workers, using short videos to spread awareness about occupational safety, tax returns, and social security registration. Simultaneously, they campaign for offline “rest stops” for riders, using these physical connections to collect and report grievances as a follow-up to their online campaigns.
A report published by the TGPWU in 2025 revealed that 62% of surveyed gig workers felt that union activities had brought them some benefit, including providing a platform to voice their demands and breaking the deadlock where individual workers were unable to engage in dialogue with the platforms.
VI. Platforms Summoned for Talks
Furthermore, as similar walkouts have increased in recent years, and pushed forward by various associations for riders and platform gig workers, the Indian central government—while unwilling to recognise riders as “employees”—is considering a plan to bring platform gig workers under social security and regulatory frameworks. Some state governments have already passed legislation or are preparing to do so to provide legal protections for platform workers.
Among them, Rajasthan has already enacted legislation, while several other states, including Karnataka, have entered the legislative process. A common thread in these laws is the requirement for platforms to allocate approximately 1% to 5% of per-order income to establish a protection fund for riders. Additionally, most of the legislation requires companies to provide riders with full contracts and to register them with the government. While these are not employment contracts and the benefits are meagre—not to mention the challenges of enforcement—the underlying logic mirrors recent platform economy management legislation in places like Singapore: treating platform labour as a state similar to employment and requiring platform companies to assume a portion of the responsibility for mandatory social insurance.
Editor: Tianle