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| A Coupang Eats rider delivers food on a bicycle in Seoul, in this Jan. 31 handout photo. Courtesy of Coupang |
By Kim Jae-heun
Local food delivery platform Coupang Eats has met resistance from the union that represents its riders after reducing its commission fee for workers of the delivery service.
Coupang Eats adopted a new fee system on Tuesday that pays delivery workers 600 won less than the previous 3,100 won of its standard commission fee. Instead, the food delivery player decided to pay an additional 10,000 won to those who travel long distances for a given delivery. This sets a maximum 16,000 won delivery fee for riders.
However, for delivery workers who only want to travel short distances, this means a major reduction in their pay. Those who deliver 10 orders per day ― supposing that they only take orders traveling short distances ― will receive about 200,000 won less in earnings per month.
A group of delivery workers on a Naver internet community proposed going on strike for a day.
"If we accept Coupang's new policy, it will lead to a reduction in our pay with other food delivery services like Baedal Minjok and Yogiyo as well," one of the riders wrote online anonymously. "Also, Coupang's new system can pay you between 200,000 won to 1 million won less per month."
It has not been confirmed how many delivery workers would join this proposed strike.
On Monday the country's biggest delivery worker union, known as "Rider Union," started collecting signatures from their members to go on strike as an act of resistance against Coupang's new fee system.
"We have to collect signatures from delivery workers to show Coupang how many of us oppose their new payment policy," a Rider Union official said.
Coupang Eats said it cannot confirm the exact number as their riders are casual employees and it only knows they are working when they start accepting orders.
A possible strike is not expected to cause chaos to the food delivery service as Coupang Eats is used by only 17.1 percent of all delivery service customers. And 81.76 percent of delivery service customers use the country's top food delivery service Baedal Minjok while 36.89 percent use No. 2 player Yogiyo, according to mobile phone market researcher Mobile Index, noting that most customers use multiple services.
In the event that Coupang Eats cannot provide delivery service due to lack of delivery workers, customers will simply order food with other delivery services.
