Lieferando (Just Eat Takeaway) fired all of its riders in July 2025.
The shock move saw 1,000 riders and 65 operational staff lose their jobs, as the company moves to a ‘self-employed’ model in the central European country.
The mass firing came despite the fact that Lieferando Austria had previously singed collective agreements with the union, the last one being in 2024.
Lieferando claimed that it needed to move to what is called in Austria a ‘free-service contract’ to compete with Foodora and Wolt, it’s main rivals, which hire riders on a (bogus) self-employed basis.
The Vida union and the wider trade union movement in Austria responded to the news by organising demonstrations across the country. The union blamed the government for failing to take action to end the use of free-service contracts in the platform economy.
“Politicians have put off protecting platform workers,” Markus Petritsch, head of the Vida road transport department, said following the announcement of the job cuts.
The Riders Collective, an association for riders linked to the Austrian Trade Union Confederation (ÖGB) called on the government to deliver a “proper implementation” of the EU Platform Work Directive, which establishes a rebuttable legal presumption of employment in the platform economy and needs to be transposed in all EU member-states by the end of 2026.
A deal was completed for South African firm Prosus to buy Just Eat in February 2025, subject to regulatory approval. The company’s move to a bogus self-employed model in Austria follows similar steps taken in France and the UK in 2024.