Daily London
Exclusive: For many Australians, Menulog shutting down will make it harder to order a kebab on a Friday night.
But for Menulog drivers like Alexi Edwards, 29, the closure will slash her annual income and make it harder just to get by.
She’s been doing gig work on and off for almost a decade and is one of thousands of food delivery drivers who could be financially crippled by Menulog’s closure.
“It’s already quite hard to afford rent on delivery driver income,” she told 9news.com.au.
“The idea of home ownership is out of the question [and] it’s only going to get worse.”
About 120 jobs will be impacted, according to reports, but that figure doesn’t include the thousands of couriers Menulog relies on.
That’s because Menulog couriers don’t count as employees.
Unlike the 120 employees who will be “fully supported with generous redundancy packages above legal requirements”, eligible couriers will only receive a four-week voluntary payment when Menulog stops taking orders on November 26.
Edwards, who learned about Menulog’s plans to shut up shop just hours before it was headline news, is one of the lucky ones eligible for a severance package.
But she doubts it will get her far.
”The cost of living crisis has already affected the delivery of economy more than most,” she said.
“With drivers having to shift platforms, and with the increasingly lower and lower fares we’ve been getting, it’s absolutely going to make the cost of living crisis worse.”
Especially considering the roll-on effect Menulog’s closure is expected have on her other food delivery gigs.
Like many gig workers, Edwards can’t get by on wages from one platform alone.
She also drives for DoorDash and Uber Eats.
Those platforms are set to become a lot more competitive when Menulog calls last orders and thousands of drivers move across to its rivals.
“They are now going to move over, meaning less orders, a more competitive race to the bottom, and more desperate people taking lower paid orders,” Edwards said.
Melbourne gig worker Andrew Collyer, 36, doesn’t drive for Menulog but fears the mass exodus will affect his job security and income.
He worries former Menulog drivers desperate to make up for lost income will flood rival platforms and accept much lower wages just to make ends meet.
“We’re very likely to see a drop in pay and conditions because they’ll come on the platform and take anything [in terms of pay],” Collyer told 9news.
“Because they’ll be too scared to reject orders for fear of getting deactivated by an algorithm.”
Food delivery is Collyer’s main source of income and he can’t afford to accept lower wages.
But he also can’t afford to leave platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats.
Partly because they’re his main source of income, and partly because wages and conditions with smaller competitors can be even worse.
”What’s now happening is that we’ve effectively got a duopoly,” he said.
“And [DoorDash and Uber Eats] are no doubt going to use that newfound duopoly, to squeeze out small competitors, drive down wages, drive down conditions, jack up the prices for restaurants and just generally make things harder.”
Drivers already have to deal with pressure to deliver orders quickly, algorithms that can work against them, and some customers, restaurant owners and members of the public who treat them like “second class citizens”.
Menulog’s closure at the end of the month is likely only going to make things worse.
The Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) national secretary Michael Kaine told 9news the impact of Menulog’s closure on Australian gig workers will be massive.
“These are workers who have been intentionally cut out of our workplace protections by gig platforms, with not even basic rights like a minimum wage,” he said.
“These are workers who have been treated like robots while gig behemoths make huge profits.”
But there’s only so much the TWU can do for the thousands of food delivery drivers like Edwards and Collyer who will be impacted by Menulog’s closure.
The union has called for new standards to create a food delivery industry that “works for both customers and workers” before things get worse.
“This happening furthers the point the union has been making for a very long time,” Edwards said.
“The transport reforms have come too late, the minimum standards order is happening too late, and we lost the only platform that was Australian-made and doing the right thing.”
Collyer is also worried for some of his customers.
He regularly delivers meals and groceries to the elderly, aged care facilities, people living with disabilities, and other Aussies who rely on delivery to get fed.
He fears Menulog’s exit will make it harder for them to access food delivery and could see rival platforms hike prices, making the service they rely on less affordable.
