Bike or scooter deliverers travel through cities around the world to bring residents meals or parcels.

But their working conditions vary dramatically depending on the country and have been seriously disrupted by the health crisis.

Report in India and China, where delivery is a real institution.

REPORTAGE

All over the world, bicycle and scooter delivery men are now part of the urban landscape.

If the work seems identical, the tasks and the conditions of the activity nevertheless change dramatically depending on the country.

In India, the Dabbawallas have crisscrossed the city by bicycle for over a century.

Dressed in white, they transport hundreds of thousands of lunch boxes cooked by women to their husbands' places of work every day.

In China, delivery men of another genre sport red, yellow or blue, depending on the company they work for, and drive 13 hours a day.

There, it is estimated that there are at least 6 million crisscrossing the country. 

In India, a profession threatened by the health crisis

All the inhabitants of Bombay witness this strange spectacle. At noon, a special train arrives at Churchgate Central Station, filled with metal lunch boxes immediately collected by cyclists in white uniforms. Very special couriers who transport them to the many companies and institutions with colonial architecture in the south of the city.

"We are known the world over because we deliver 200,000 meals every day, with only 5,000 employees. No technology, no plastic, no paper, no vehicles. We first collect the meals prepared in the homes. We have developed a coding system with letters, numbers and colors for our delivery chain. A single meal passes through the hands of three or four Dabbawallahs before reaching its recipient. Harvard University has declared that we are the inventors of modern logistics! "exclaims Ritesh André, son and grandson of Dabbawallahs, who completed a master's degree in finance before becoming its spokesperson.

120 Dabbawalas are currently working, against 5,000 before the pandemic

He welcomes us in a small room in a building in the center of town, which serves as their office. Beside him, a dozen Dabbawallahs are trying to kill time by drinking tea or checking their phones. Because today this unique organization in the world is seriously threatened by the various confinements imposed in the city. "As soon as the Covid appeared in India, our committee decided to suspend its services. But we thought it would be settled in ten days! The Dabbawallahs found themselves in a very difficult situation."

Many Dabbawallahs live in slums.

Deprived of a salary, they found themselves in a very precarious situation.

"We have to feed our family. The Bombay government has finally allowed us to resume our service. But the problem is that most of our customers have now switched to telecommuting. So where do we deliver our lunch boxes? ? "asks Ritesh André. 

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Beside the spokesperson, Unlas Shantaram nods.

He started delivering in 1991, using his grandfather's bicycle.

He became president of the Dabbawallahs in 2007 and 30 years after his debut, he continues to feed the belly of Bombay.

"Only 120 Dabbawallahs are working at the moment, against 5,000 before the pandemic. I continue to deliver dishes every morning. Because for me, being president of the Dabbawallahs is first and foremost working alongside them, in the field, to represent their interests. "

NGOs have helped him organize food rations distributions to workers while he waits for better days. 

A profession to reinvent

For the Dabbawallahs, work began to return a few months ago, as India appeared to be rid of the virus.

But with the second wave and the reconfinement decreed last month in Bombay, the delivery men are again technically unemployed.

In order not to disappear, Ritesh André is trying to change the profession.

"We plan to offer our services on the Internet. It will now be possible to order fruit and vegetables via an app, and we will deliver to you the next morning at your doorstep."

The Dabbawallahs recently launched their website and are now relying on foreign investment.

"A company will be able to use the Dabbawallahs logo and name for its delivery services. But with one condition: jobs must be given to our workers."

The municipality promised the Dabbawallahs to provide them with a building to house them, as well as larger offices.

Ritesh hopes to be able to open a Dabbawallah museum there.

The profession must still survive the hard times to come. 

In China, the convicts of the online economy

You have to imagine an army of delivery men crisscrossing China 24 hours a day, dressed in red, yellow or blue, depending on the company for which they work.

Their number continues to increase, along with the volume of online sales: in China, 25% of sales are made via the Internet.

The country accounts for some 60% of deliveries worldwide.

It must be said that each Chinese has an average of 59 packages delivered per year.

The trend has further increased with the closures due to the health crisis. 

But their status is precarious to say the least. Delivery people are generally paid on the run and must deduct from their pay the fines - dissatisfied customer, damaged package, delay - or the cost of repairing their scooter. They rarely benefit from the minimum social protection and often work without a contract. A delivery man gets up at dawn, ends his day at the end of the evening and rarely takes time off. 

Hui Yuan, 28, left his native countryside last year to settle in Beijing.

"First, that's where there is the most work. It's easy to be a delivery driver, the hiring criteria are not very complicated. You don't need to have any qualifications. or training. Besides, when I started last year it was only a job because of the epidemic. I had no idea what I was going to do here in Beijing, so I took the first job I could find, "he says.

13-hour days

His days begin at dawn, at 6.30 a.m. He shows up at the storage center at 7 a.m. sharp and does not return home before 8 p.m. "The first thing I have to do is receive the packages assigned to me. I take them directly from the truck and I prepare my deliveries according to the addresses. I have to contact each customer individually to see if they are available. to receive their package, or where I should leave it. In a typical day I deliver between 160 and 170 packages. I manage to earn around 10,000 yuan per month. " Or 1,500 euros, a rather substantial salary for a Pekingese. 

Like him, most of these virtual economy convicts come from the countryside or small provincial towns.

They are interior immigrants, not always in good standing, second-class citizens who rent a small room or share an apartment.

20,000 delivery companies are now listed in China, many of which are very small operators who subcontract, under a franchise system, the flows of the five big names in the industry.

The owners of the latter are extremely rich.

Wang Wei, CEO of SF Express, is the fourth richest man in China after his company went public.

It already weighs more than 20 billion euros.

For those who complain, head to the prison

On the delivery side, no union exists to defend the interests of workers.

And for good reason: those who complain risk prison.

This is what happened to Chen Guojiang, a 31-year-old delivery man.

In February, just before the Chinese parliament meeting, he was arrested in Beijing for disturbing public order.

Originally from southwest China, he became the spokesperson for these couriers paid with a slingshot.

He had created a WeChat group, the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp, and a Douyin account, the local TikTok, to alert them to their precarious working conditions.

Sequences watched by tens of thousands of his delivery colleagues.

A success which earned Chen the nickname of "leader" but which cost him his freedom.

Because according to the information, Chen Guojiang is still imprisoned. 

We are far from the image of these couriers who had the honors of the communist regime in 2019 by participating in the military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the creation of "modern China" by Mao Zedong. Several dozen scooters then descended the Avenue of Eternal Peace and paraded under the portrait of the Grand Helmsman.