This part is the second of two articles: the first presents the rise of food delivery platforms in Budapest and how the international journey of migrant workers structures their exploitation. The second part describes the types of pressure this new labour management system exerts on workers and how they use collective and individual resources to cope.
“I want to extend my visa for another year, but it’s entirely up to the fleet company if I can” – Deepak, a young Bangladeshi rider detailed to me while he was waiting for an order at
Corvin mall in central Budapest. This legal dependency and their indebtedness are two reasons why migrant fleet workers are easily exploited. In the second part, I aim to trace what makes them vulnerable and highly profitable for the platform.
Disciplined on multiple fronts
First of all, the migrant fleet workers’ contracts with their fleet companies are work assignment contracts. This type of contract is meant to be used for temporary tasks, whereby two equal parties make an agreement about one party performing a certain task for the other. Employing someone regularly through a work assignment contract is illegal as traditional employment entails a hierarchical relationship and more than just one specific task to be completed between parties. This means that – without the protections that the employee status offers - they can be fired immediately and nor reasoning has to be given for doing so. Their work is not regulated by the Hungarian labour law, so there is no legal limit on the hours they can work. As an employee, they could legally work 48 hours a week at most and would have to receive overtime bonus for the 8 hours above 40. Working with a work assignment contract means that 70-80 hour a week is perfectly possible with no option for bonuses. If they are fired, they have to leave the country in six to eight days and can only apply for a new residence permit in their country of origin. The only option around this is applying for a new permit, however, it is highly uncertain whether they can find a new employer.
The legal grey zone created by the use of work assignment contracts was also alluded to by the representative of Wolt: she emphasized that they had started to partner up with fleet companies to allow entry to the workforce to those who want a “more employee-like construction”.
This legal option allows for fleet companies and Wolt to have tighter control in some cases over fleet workers than over regular self-employed riders and to make viable the input of migrant labour for the platform while keeping all the advantages of the traditional self-employed courier model that shifts costs onto the individual worker.
Another important mechanism that helps keeping migrant workers in a vulnerable position is obscuring power relations. “The company does not explain to us why the new system was introduced, but only says that it was Wolt’s initiative” –Yusuf was explaining in early February and seemed to have no hope that they could impact this decision. The shift system – that meant less flexibility, but also some guarantee of an expected income for couriers – had just been abolished. Frustration was a general sentiment amongst riders at the time since it was February and the weather was slowly getting better. This meant that orders were decreasing compared to peak season. Many said that it makes no sense to complain to their fleet company about this change since they just point to Wolt and deny any responsibility. Workers have, however, no legal way of contacting Wolt as their contracts tie them to the fleet companies. So, the blame was successfully shifted while the official venues for voicing their frustration were closed.
“I don’t know how to make money like this” – Bilal, a Pakistani courier in 50s, sighed as an order appeared on his phone, but by the time he could accept it, it was gone. The shift system entailed more rigid working hours since fleet workers had to reserve shifts and would face deductions if they were not online during the shift. At the same time, it also meant a more predictable stream of income. Bashir explained to me that in the previous system, if he completed 26 orders in a 12-hour shift, he would receive at least 27500 forints (almost 70 euros), but he had to do 35 deliveries to make the same amount according to the new rules.
As we can see fleet workers face at least two types of “bosses”. While non-fleet couriers have to deal with the platform and its algorithmic management techniques, fleet workers are also managed by the fleet company that acts like a tradition supervisor organising the working life of couriers.
Since Wolt hides behind its subcontractors, the fleet companies and takes no responsibility for fleet workers, they cannot protest the platforms decision or make contact with them through any channel, thereby leaving them no space to voice these concerns. During our interview, a Wolt representative insisted that fleet companies are subcontractors of Wolt and therefore have complete autonomy over how they organise their internal system, however, this seems unlikely. The system was most likely changed according to the labour needs of the platform based on what I have been able to gather from couriers, fleet managers and the trade union.
This also entails that when the supply of labour is the highest, workers become the most vulnerable: the burden of seasonal volatility hits hardest in the summer. The labour needs of
platforms are much more easily satisfied: not only is demand the lowest, but also many students work as couriers in the summer holidays. At the same time, fleet workers have to
work sixteen hours a day in the summer to make the same amount as they would be doing twelve hours a day in the winter.
The fragmentation of disciplinary power – meaning that one’s working life is determined by multiple actors - can undermine workers’ position in another way: not only are they subject to the platform’s hidden and uncontestable algorithm, but also to their direct supervisors who aim to abuse informational asymmetries as well. “Boss, pay me pls, still haven’t got the money for January” “How can I pay you like this?”. Kabir, a young Bangladeshi rider was showing me his Whatsapp conversation with his fleet manager. This an example where management abuse worker’s lack of information about their conditions. He came asking for my help since he did not get paid for the month of January by his fleet company. The reason was that he had stayed home a couple days due to exhaustion and sickness and had no idea about the penalties fleet companies had for workers missing shifts. Also, the deductions must have been greater than necessary based on the system as it would have been almost impossible to collect so many penalties for a couple days that one ends up having their whole monthly wage deducted.
Vulnerability for workers, record revenues for Wolt
So far, I’ve sketched out the pressures that migrant fleet workers face and the resources that are extracted from them as a result, but it is also important to see how this fits into the overall business model of Wolt. As mentioned earlier, platforms are geared toward quick expansion to create market presence in new locations and deepen it in already existing markets. This process is fuelled by venture capital and cheap credit. However, investors start demanding results after a certain point as their “patience” was motivated by the promise of monopoly rents in the future and the era of low interest rates and cheap credit is largely over. This puts increased pressure on platforms to minimize losses. The new labour regime involving fleet companies and migrant workers in Budapest – by far the biggest market for Wolt in the country – can be grasped as a strategy by the platform to introduce an even more exploitable group to the workforce that is ready to work long hours and faces barriers when it comes to representing their interests.
Wolt has been able to adapt to consumer demand in the post-covid era with tighter labour markets while the changes to tax law also made the courier profession less desirable. The abundant pool of labour power seemed not to be available for the platform anymore. Alternatively, the platform could have responded by raising rates and giving other concessions to couriers to satisfy consumer demand, however, this would have resulted in increased costs for the platform. The fleet system and its reliance on a vulnerable migrant workforce in Budapest made it possible to avoid increasing rates – which even decreased in some cases according to the representatives of the Couriers’ League. Migrant workers have several types of pressures that compels them to work long hours and accept any order available while also having severe limitations on how they can demand better working conditions. One of the leading figure of the trade union, Gergely Tóth, explained to me that it is generally hard to organise these workers and this also negatively impacts the demonstrations that the union organizes: while the trade union urged couriers to stop work for the length of their protests to put pressure on the platforms, the efficiency of this tactic was partly undermined by migrant workers who were out there delivering nonetheless. It is important to note that union doesn’t blame the migrant workers for this, but the system that forces them to work almost constantly.
The remaking of the labour management system of Wolt also has an indirect effect on the income opportunities of the competitor, Foodora’s couriers as raising rates in their case would have weakened the platform’s competitive position. While Foodora recorded a revenue of 19 billion forints in 2022 and 26.7 billion in 2024, Wolt managed to almost triple its revenues going from 11.6 billion in 2022 to 30.4 billion in 2024. This suggests that the company strategy to satisfy demand while cutting costs was successful.
How workers cope
“We live like a family here you know, the six of us. So we have to talk about the issues as well when they come up” – Arhaan, a young Indian courier excused himself when he had to pick up the phone during our conversation. He laid out to me that they share a flat with five other Indian couriers and share much of their free time watching movies as well as household responsibilities such as cooking. He pointed to his friend who makes the best chicken biryani who had a proud smile on his face as he received the compliment.
While the labour process coordinated by algorithms inherently isolates workers, my experience throughout my research was that this tendency is not total and workers still find a way to form connections, share information and increase their resources. They also use these encounters to make sense of their working life and the pressures that it creates in their life.
As collective representation is not available for migrant fleet workers and their migration status makes their position vulnerable, they make use of the social networks to pursue collective or individual strategies aimed at improving their position and income perspectives.
According to a Bangladeshi student called Abdullah, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian couriers had a shared Whatsapp group with over 3000 members. This meant that these fleet workers also had ties to students and they use these networks to share experiences and help one another.
This shared space located where Corvin mall’s entrance meets the boulevard in central Budapest became the go-to spot for many couriers: some waited on their own and chose to be there primarily to benefit from the advantageous location for getting deliveries, but many could also be sure to see familiar faces once they returned from an order. This meeting point served as a counterforce to the generally isolating nature of the highly automated food delivery labour process.
Collective ties also provide a safety net to fall back on. I met a Pakistani courier through Amir once, his name was Zakariya. He had left his fleet company and applied for a job in a kitchen and was waiting for his new residence permit to be issued. According to Hungarian law, third-country nationals with individual work permits can apply for a new one in Hungary and be issued a temporary permit while they are waiting. To my surprise, I saw him a couple weeks later in the Wolt uniform delivering on a bike. I assumed he had gone back to his fleet company, but it turned out he was still waiting for his residence permit to be issued and got the account of another courier to be able to make some money while he was between jobs.
These ties also help people pool their resources together: Bashir and Deepak met at a company housing unit – which costs significantly more than available rooms in Budapest – and decided to team up to find a shared flat with others, which allowed them to make use of the shared living space and reduce their costs of living through personal connections.
Besides the resources of the collective, migrant workers also make use of individual strategies to improve their situation. One day in March, I bumped into Kabir on his way to the mall. He had a fever, but felt the pressure to be outside since he had not received his payments for January and February. He missed some days due to the weather and sickness in January and ended up receiving deductions, which was why his fleet manager told him he could not be paid. Later, he did not receive payment for February either, even though the shift system had been abolished by this time, which meant that workers could not receive penalties in principle anymore. “Do you think I can change my fleet company?” – he was asking me out of frustration. I promised to ask around about the feasibility of it and learned through Zakariya that it could be done by contacting the lawyers of another fleet. He went to tell his fleet manager later that he would leave if he did not get his payment. He then managed to receive his pay for January and was promised to get it for February as well on the payday in April. This goes to show that being better-informed about one’s opportunities can also improve one’s bargaining power.
Another option on the individual level is multi-apping meaning that couries work through their fleet account for Wolt, but reserve shifts when possible at Foodora. As Abdullah - having had experience about both platforms - explained to me, Foodora had higher rates per delivery, but had a shift system where those with the best stats and most hours worked would get the best-paying shifts. If fleet workers could reserve shifts at Foodora, they could make most of their time due to the higher rates this platform offers.
However, there is one last move that many couriers contemplate and one that needs to be mentioned here, namely jumping the ship. Amir once expressed a desire for individual advancement through international migration that is widespread amongst migrant workers “I have no future” – he was telling me during one of our early encounters. “Being a courier at this age [late 20s] leaves you with no future”. He had originally applied for student visa together with his wife, but his request was denied since he had already had a master’s degree in electronics and the immigration office did not believe his intention was to study in the country. This entailed that he could only apply for an individual work permit and food delivery job seemed to be an easy entry in Budapest. He tried applying for jobs that could be compatible with his qualifications, but was denied each time despite having close to twenty interviews. The lack of future prospects and the rise of the far right made him contemplate leaving Europe for the Middle-East or Canada.