Some Food Panda riders said they are on strike as delivery fees have been cut by more than half.

Some Food Panda Riders said the protest started on March 16 and they had not been notified of the reduction of delivery fees.

"If we goes one kilometer, we only earn between K200 and 300. The purpose of what we are doing now is to protest because our riders are underpaid,” said a rider involved in the protest.

Previously, it was between K600 and 700 per kilometer. Riders said the current rate is much lower than before.

"If you look at the performance of each rider, the average is K900, 1,100 and 1,200 per order. Now it's very bad. We only earned K200, 300 and 400,” said a rider with more than a year and a half of experience.

Currently, the riders are asking Food Panda to reset the previous fee. There has been no official response from the headquarters of Food Panda to the request.

"As of yesterday (on March 16), they said via telegram in which all the riders can be contacted, the reduction of delivery fees is caused by a software problem. They say that it is because of system error. It said it would do so as soon as possible, as the delivery fees had been reduced to some extent. It said managers in every nearby city would answer our Rider questions. So far no contact has been made. For example, I am at Dawbon-Thaketa zone. Each zone has a leader assigned by the riders. They haven’t contacted our leaders. They haven’t done anything yet,” said a rider with more than a year and a half of experience.

If one wants to work as Food Panda rider, he or she has to pay K25,000. After that, it is deducted at the rate of 10,000 kyats per week and the riders have to pay up to K85,000 kyats to the Food Panda. At present, the company is increasing its acceptance of riders, which is inconvenient, the riders said.

"We are valued them for giving us a job and respect them too. Now they start violate the rules. At first, they accepted us as partners. Now they don’t care about us. They are only interested in getting K85,000. So it's not fair for the riders. Not every rider earned K10,000 or 15,000 daily. Sometimes we even have to go home with K3,000 or 5,000 in hand," said a rider with more than a year and a half of experience.

Food Panda, a food delivery company, entered Myanmar in 2019 and is a German-based company.