Lieferando celebrates summer party without delivery staff

Last night, Lieferando’s summer party took place at the Berlin club Haubentaucher. All employees were invited – but the invitation explicitly stated “drivers and temporary workers are excluded”. This was cause for criticism from the Lieferando Workers Collective.

Exclusive party with pool

The party is touted on the invitation letter, “What are the most important ingredients for a real day club party? That’s right. Food, drinks and an exclusive pool, just for you. We hereby invite you to our Lieferando Summer Pool Party 2022 at Haubentaucher.” The invitation letter is further decorated with the inclusion of a large and highly frequented pool, presumably the said one in Berlin’s Haubentaucher. Furthermore, the club is described as “unique in Berlin, with a breathtaking event area”. Bolded on the invitation is the exclusion of external people and time and delivery staff.

The summer party is not the first exclusive event that Lieferando organized at enormous expense only for a certain part of the workforce. Just recently, a total of 5,400 employees – again, no delivery staff among them – went skiing in Switzerland for four days. The cost of the short trip was around 15 million euros, according to Bloomberg. There’s plenty of reason to celebrate: The company is one of the clear pandemic winners.

The Deliverando Workers Collective sees this as a renewed disrespect for the delivery staff, who are known to work under very unfavorable conditions for minimum wage at Lieferando. The collective therefore called for a rally in front of the Haubentaucher. The call reads “They shamelessly celebrate an all-inclusive party, while we can’t even pay our rent! We’ll come anyway!”.

Dieferando speaks of after-work event

Confronted with the criticism, Lieferando spoke of an after-work event aimed at the staff of its German branch as well as employees of its partner company Takeaway Express. A spokeswoman also stated that events were also regularly held that were explicitly aimed at the delivery staff – such as barbecues or regulars’ tables. The qualitative difference between a regulars’ table and an exclusive pool party was not discussed.