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15 cents per km: Indonesian gig-economy drivers fed up with low wages
Sydney Morning Herald - March 31, 2018
And so, last Tuesday, thousands of ojek (the Bahasa word for motor cycle taxi) drivers swarmed to the Jalan Meda Merdeka Barat, across the road from the Presidential palace, to voice their concern about pay and conditions.
The riders worked mostly for GoJek, a local start-up that has grown exponentially in the last three years.
Some also worked for global ride-sharing giant Uber or the Singapore-based Grab, which just this week acquired Uber's south-east Asian operations. It wasn't their first protest.
The protest itself follows a pattern that has been repeated the world over, as first taxi drivers have criticised ride-sharing apps for under-cutting them on price, and then the ride-sharing drivers themselves have protested about their own pay and conditions.
But it's hard to overstate the phenomenon that is GoJek. A month ago, the firm raised $US1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) in capital so it could expand.
Investors include Google and Chinese tech firm Tencent Holdings. Eight years ago the company did not exist. But on the streets of Jakarta, and indeed all over Indonesia, the green-jacketed riders are near ubiquitous.
GoJek isn't just a motorcycle-based ride-sharing service that facilitates quick passage through Jakarta's stifling traffic. It doesn't just do personal transport.
Its riders deliver everything from hamburgers to hairdressers. It's common to see boxes stacked precariously high behind their drivers, heaving this way and that as they zoom in and out of traffic.
The firm is now also investing heavily in a mobile payments platform – another potentially lucrative play for the company.
But the riders are paid a pittance – about 1600 rupiah (15 cents) per kilometre, according to the Jakarta Post. By way of comparison, in Jakarta, the annual monthly minimum wage is set at about 3.6 million rupiah ($340).
So it was that your correspondent, attempting to steal an hour at lunch (a visiting Papa Massola in tow) to check out the Museum Nasional Indonesia, and walked into the middle of the protest.
The museum, of course, was shut. The guard at the gate gesturing at the mass of people milling around. So as we wended our way back to my office, passing the thousands of riders, we stopped for a chat.
As I pulled out my notepad and tried to explain in awful Bahasa who I was and why I wanted to ask some questions, Yusuf, a GoJek driver, was thrust forward by his mates to speak to me. Yusuf, and his friends, were all smiles as they answered my questions.
"We are protesting price of GoJek, it is too low," he said. "Same price for all three [ride sharing services], we hope the government does."
How many hours a day did Yusuf work, and how long had he been driving a GoJek? "Have been driving for four years. Work ten hours a day, every day. I hope the government listens to us, Mr Jokowi."
And then it was time for a photo of Yusuf. His friends, of course, had other ideas and our five minute interview turned into a 20-minute group photo call and a never-ending series of selfies with two sweaty foreigners.
In fact, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo – a leader with a deft touch and a populist bent – met with drivers' representatives on Tuesday and promised mediation over the dispute. Grab promised a couple of days later it would look to raise wages.
GoJek, a company valued at $US5 billion, can surely afford to do the same. The next protest might not be so amiable.
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