“What are the most important ingredients for a proper day club party? Right! Food, drinks and an exclusive pool, just for you.” That’s what the delivery service Lieferando wrote in a witty invitation to a big company party this Friday in Berlin. What a great employer – one might think. If it wasn’t for this little additional information.
Only Lieferando employees are invited to the event, as it says below, “drivers and temporary workers are excluded.” What are the most important ingredients of an employee party? For Lieferando, apparently everything, just not the employees, on whose muscle strength the company lives.
The German economy is shaken by a lack of staff. The labor market has changed from an employer to an employee market within a few years. In the competition for specialists from Generation Z, companies pamper their employees with four-day weeks and sabbaticals with full pay. Employees have rarely been in a more comfortable position. Unless, it seems, they drive for Lieferando.
The delivery service, which has its employees in bright orange uniforms with absurdly large boxes on their backs cycling along the street cafés in Friedrichshain, has now even managed to turn even a summer company event for employee motivation into an act of humiliation. At least for those who are not allowed to be there.
Because in view of the invitation policy, the enthusiastic description of the party by the pool sounds like a slap in the face to the delivery driver, who is heavily laden with food and worries. The employees expect a “breathtaking event area,” it says. “It not only combines chic Berlin with urban style, but also the Berlin summer feeling with the outstanding pool,” the authors say; there will be food, drinks and two top-class DJs. “Let’s go and meet at the pool!” But please no drivers.
The fact that in many companies the strategic decisions are made by a management that has little connection to the realities in practice, not only train attendants of the railway can sing a little song. But the fact that the team is left out even at symbolic reward parties and that is also explicitly stated represents a new dimension of ignorance, at least in the eyes of the drivers.
The delivery drivers seem hell-bent on ruining their bosses’ pool party. On Twitter, a Lieferando Workers Collective called for protests at the event location: “Riders and drivers explicitly unloaded? We’re coming anyway!” it says.
A spokesman for Lieferando justified the lack of instinct with practical reasons, according to the Bloomberg news service. It was simply not possible to invite all employees. However, the logistics division regularly organizes events such as barbecue evenings for drivers too.
But the calf-strong delivery drivers obviously don’t want to be stuffed with a few grilled sausages. In their protest call, the angry drivers mention an apparently previous ski event, which their breadwinner is said to have cost 16 million euros. A provocation for the employees at the bottom of the Lieferando chain, who have been demanding better working conditions for a long time.
The pool party at the Haubenauch seems to be the last straw for her. “They’re shamelessly celebrating an all-inclusive party while we can’t even pay our rent!” Dark clouds are gathering over the pool party in Friedrichshain. The Lieferando drivers do not see orange, but red.
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