Delivery riders working for the GoSend service of homegrown decacorn Gojek have threatened a three-day strike in response to incentives being slashed in half.

Partners working for the service say they face incentive cuts of more than 50 percent starting on Tuesday, which they fear will significantly reduce their overall income.

Yulianto, one of the drivers representing the Greater Jakarta GoSend Drivers Alliance, said they would normally receive a bonus of Rp 30,000 (US$2.10) for delivering at least eight packages a day, and up to Rp 100,000 for delivering 15 packages. Under the new policy, they will only receive Rp 9,000 for delivering at least nine packages, and up to Rp 37,500 for 15 deliveries.

“The cuts are nonsense. The merger should not make the company neglect driver’s welfare,” Yulianto told The Jakarta Post on Monday, referring to a recently announced merger of Gojek and Tokopedia, two leading Indonesian new economy players.

Read also: Gojek, Tokopedia merge to form GoTo Group

The incentives, he said, served as additional income for the drivers beyond their basic daily income per delivery order, which was about Rp 50,000 after deducting drivers’ costs while operating around Greater Jakarta. Each order could be for several packages delivered to different recipients.

Drivers usually only receive two to three delivery orders a day, which sees their basic daily income range between Rp 100,000 and Rp 150,000. Without the additional incentive, the drivers, Yulianto said, would struggle to meet the needs of their families.

This strike would begin on Tuesday, Yulianto said, adding that drivers would refuse to pick up orders and conduct peaceful demonstrations in front of Gojek’s offices in the Blok M area as well as in Kemang Timur. Yulianto expected some 1,000 riders to join the strike.

The drivers for the GoSend service differ from regular partners working for on-demand transportation service GoRide and food delivery service GoFood. During their strike, the delivery service will rely on regular drivers, which will cost consumers around 50 percent more than the GoSend service.

The cuts were first announced to several drivers on Thursday during a gathering between GoSend partners and Gojek representatives. Yulianto and other drivers said they had not been given a clear reason for the new policy.

Several drivers who got a chance to meet Gojek’s representatives on Saturday said they had been told the incentive cuts were made to accommodate additional spending to provide performance-based prizes for drivers in the so-called “exemplary driver program”.

“The information is still unclear. When we asked, they still could not provide a clear explanation,” Yulianto said, adding that they had not been involved in determining the new policy.

A junior researcher at Gadjah Mada University’s Institute of Governance and Public Affairs, Arif Novianto, said it was common knowledge that heavy discounts and high incentives meant losses for the tech companies, making them rely on investor funds to sustain their business.

Read also: Gojek looks ahead to more self-funding on core businesses' profitability

At some point, tech companies will abandon or reduce heavy discounts and high incentives so that they can become profitable. Researchers call this the end of the honeymoon period. Arif suspected this is what is happening to Gojek, especially after the GoTo merger and the expected upcoming initial public offering.

In April 2021, the biggest e-commerce site in Indonesia, Shopee, also faced a backlash after reducing courier payments.

However, Arif reminded Gojek and other tech companies recruiting workers through a partnership scheme that, according to Law No. 20 of 2008 on partnerships, the workers had an equal position with the company in determining what was best for both of them. Should companies ignore that relationship and act unilaterally, they could violate the law.

“The tech companies are possibly violating the law. The government should enforce the law rather than stand by,” Arif told the Post on Monday.

Gojek spokesperson Audrey Petriny declined to comment on a possible connection between the incentive cuts and the merger.

Audrey noted that the company had only changed the incentive scheme while retaining the basic delivery fee. The change, she said, was also done for the good of GoSend’s partners.

“This policy is a step to evenly distribute the number of partners who can get these incentives, so that more partners have the opportunity to get the additional income,” Audrey said in the statement on Monday.

On the other hand, Audrey said, the company was also trying to increase demand by increasing marketing efforts. She said that would help partners get more orders and thereby increase their income.