As Lieferando and Uber Eats turn to subcontracted fleets, immigrant couriers face layoffs, legal gray zones, and the quiet erosion of worker rights in Europe’s “fair labor” capital.
Outside Berlin’s Ostbahnhof, the air smells of drizzle and exhaust. Dozens of riders stand together, their orange and green backpacks lined like small flags of defiance. Someone plays music on a phone. Another rider holds up a cardboard sign that reads, We are not machines.
They are protesting layoffs. But that word feels too small. What they are really fighting is a new system that has quietly rewritten what a job means in Germany’s gig economy.
The hidden switch
For years, delivery apps such as Lieferando, Uber Eats, and Flink hired riders directly. Contracts were simple: the platform was the employer. Riders received pay slips, social insurance, and a little security.
That changed when the companies began using “fleets”—small subcontractor firms that take over the hiring. On paper, the riders now work for these fleets, not for the apps that direct their routes or control their hours through algorithms.
Labor lawyers call this a legal gray zone. It lets delivery giants dodge the country’s strict labor laws while claiming they still support “flexibility.”
A loophole in plain sight
In theory, fleets handle everything: contracts, insurance, wages. In practice, many exist only on paper. When a fleet loses its contract with a platform, hundreds of riders lose their jobs overnight. No notice. No severance.
“We came here legally, we pay taxes,” says Ahmed, a 27-year-old from Pakistan who has been delivering food for two years. “But when the company changes the contract, we lose everything — the job, the visa, the dignity.”
Under Germany’s immigration rules, many workers’ residency permits are tied to their employment. Lose the job and you risk losing the right to stay. It’s a quiet pressure that keeps riders from speaking too loudly.
The silence of fairness
Germany likes to see itself as the model of fair labor. Collective bargaining, works councils, predictable rules. Yet at the street level, the gig economy has built a parallel world.
The FAU Berlin union and Verdi have filed complaints calling fleet systems “outsourced exploitation.” Labor lawyer Dr. Anja Huth told taz newspaper that subcontracting “creates a shadow workforce beyond the reach of collective agreements.”
When asked, a Lieferando spokesperson said the company “works only with certified partners who meet all legal standards.” Uber Eats used similar language: “We collaborate with independent fleets that provide flexible opportunities.”
Flexibility for whom, though? The riders waiting in the cold say it feels more like a trap than a choice.
⚠️ Human angle here
A few blocks from Alexanderplatz, I spoke with a rider named Rafiq. He had come from Bangladesh three years ago and sends most of his earnings home. His bicycle brakes squeal, his jacket is torn at the shoulder, and he jokes that Berlin weather “tests the soul.” He says the fleets pay late. Sometimes they forget the tips that the app shows customers have given. He shrugs, saying softly, “What can I do? My visa depends on them.”
Between app and asphalt
Germany’s food-delivery boom started during the pandemic. Demand soared, profits climbed, and the number of riders doubled. But as orders slowed, companies searched for cheaper ways to keep wheels turning. The fleet model was the answer.
For riders, it meant fewer direct protections and more uncertainty. For companies, it meant fewer lawsuits and lower taxes. For customers, it meant food still arriving hot at the door — the human cost hidden behind a QR code.
Still, protests are growing. In Hamburg, riders staged a slow-ride through the city center, blocking traffic for ten minutes at a time. In Munich, they leafleted customers, explaining how each order passes through three hands before reaching the courier.
“The delivery comes from us,” one flyer read, “but the respect should too.”
Cracks in the model
Politicians are beginning to notice. The German Labour Ministry has hinted at new regulations that could make platforms jointly responsible for subcontracted workers. The European Union’s Platform Work Directive, still under debate, could force transparency on how apps classify and pay riders.
Even then, enforcement will be hard. Fleets disappear and reappear under new names. Riders move cities, change phones, lose proof of employment. The system counts on their invisibility.
Reflection
Watching the protest disperse, I kept thinking of Germany’s reputation for fairness. How rules and rights are supposed to protect everyone. Yet here, the country’s most visible workers — the ones who light up the city’s nights with neon bags — are treated as if they belong nowhere.
Maybe this is the real cost of convenience: the delivery that arrives on time because someone else’s rights didn’t.
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