Overtime, no lunch breaks, less than promised pay and pressure to keep quiet – these are the experiences shared by couriers at the food delivery company Barbora. A handful of workers who decided to speak out tell LRT.lt about what they say are unbearable working conditions and unfair treatment.
Barbora is the grocery delivery service by the supermarket chain Maxima. During the pandemic, the company bought billboard ads championing its couriers as essential workers and heroes – and inviting job seekers to join its suddenly overstretched staff.
Now, however, these same workers feel anything but valued. Barbora couriers, who contacted LRT.lt, complain of working under unbearable conditions and being cheated out of the pay they were promised. Moreover, they claim that their moves to unionise were met with blatant suppression tactics.
Pay and bonuses
Couriers who spoke to LRT.lt say that when they signed up to work at Barbora, the management promised that their monthly pay would be 1,300 euros after tax. In the contract, however, the pay consisted of a much more modest fixed salary, while the rest would be earned as bonuses for meeting performance goals.
These, the management assured them, were easily achievable: in effect, entry-level couriers would be guaranteed around 700 euros a month, while after gaining some experience and delivering around six orders per hour, they could expect to make 1,300 euros.
This, the couriers claim, was very hard to achieve. Moreover, after the company changed its bonus policies late last year, the 1,300-euro pay became even more distant. Experienced couriers who can deliver an order in 5 minutes barely hit 1,000 euros, they claim.
“All we want is what we were promised, 1,300 euros. But they tell us straight out: not going to happen,” says a courier who requested not to be named. Before the bonus policy change, he would make 1,050–1,100, euros a month. “We were still bearing with it, and now that they’ve cut even that, that’s it. We have decided to take action,” he says.
No time for lunch or bathroom
According to the couriers who spoke with LRT.lt, Barbora’s bonus policy does not take into account the different circumstances that they work under. In densely populated places, like Vilnius or Kaunas, there are multiple pick-up points and distances between delivery addresses can be relatively short – one order can be completed in ten or even five minutes. But rural municipalities are completely different.
“We have to drive long distances, but they give you the same time to complete them. […] There is a difference if your round is 100 kilometres or 10 to 15 kilometres,” says one courier.
Moreover, although official pick-up and delivery plans envisage lunch breaks, in reality they are spent to catch up with the schedule. Most couriers use the break time to load their vans with groceries.
“Eating is out of the question. I’ve seen this more than once when passing a colleague in the city: they are driving, holding the steering wheel with their foot and eating kebabs with their hands,” says a courier. “We don’t even have time to go to the bathroom. You sometimes find filled-up bottles in the door compartment of the car.”
A few couriers are trying to achieve the maximum efficiency required to earn the promised 1,300 euros: “They are working without lunch, return from a round, load up again, only change their wet shirt and hit the road again. One recently wrote in our group chat: I need to go to the toilet, can’t hold it anymore. We tell him to stop at a petrol station, but he replies: Are you kidding, petrol station? No time!”
According to the couriers, those of them who achieve the 1,300-pay work 12-hour shifts, 20 days a month, skip breaks, and take on all additional shifts that come their way.
Traffic hazard
The couriers say that the bonus policy also penalises them for not sticking to the so-called eco-driving rules.
“We agree with the speed limit, but certain requirements on leaning, braking, etc. complicate the work and are difficult to follow efficiently. Everything is recorded and if we get a low score at the end of a month, they cut the 150-euro bonus. The same rules apply in winter and in summer. No account is taken of the influence of the weather,” the couriers say.
In order to meet the eco-driving rules, couriers have to work slowly, but meeting the efficiency targets forces them to speed up.
Working such a tight schedule, the couriers say, increases the risk of traffic accidents. If any damage is done to Barbora’s delivery vans, it is deducted from the couriers’ pay. “We’ll soon have to pay them for letting us work,” they remark wryly.
Suppression of unionisation efforts
Beset by the feeling of injustice, some Barbora couriers decided to form a union. Although there is a labour council at the company – a body meant to adjudicate disagreements between the workers and the management – it has failed to make any changes, they say.
The company’s reaction to the unionisation initiative was anything but benevolent, the couriers say. One of the initiators was offered to leave his job and when he refused, he got suspended.
“I sent a message to my colleagues that we were forming a union – and the following day top management from Vilnius were here. They were urging us not to join the union, saying that people would just throw away their money and no one would help them,” the initiator says.
In one instance, he says, a worker from another department had a discussion with the management and decided not to join the union because he did not want to have problems. As soon as word spread that the person was considering joining the union, his workload started to increase.
“If you express any dissatisfaction, they immediately say: See the door? There’s a queue waiting outside,” observes one courier.
The May 1 Trade Union (G1PS), that is advising the couriers on how to unionise, has even filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s Office, asking to start an investigation.
When word spread that the couriers were not going to give up their plans and would go public with their complaints, the company set up its own trade union.
According to publicly available information, the trade union of Barbora’s workers, set up by the management, was registered very recently and its registration address is the same as the headquarters of Vilniaus Prekyba, the group that owns Maxima and Barbora.
LRT.lt was informed about this initiative after it sent out questions to Barbora.
Bonus system as a way to unilaterally cut pay
Emilija Švobaitė, chairwoman of the May 1 Trade Union which is advising the couriers, confirms that their working conditions at Barbora are extremely poor and that some of the methods used by the company verge on the criminal, especially efforts to suppress the unionisation effort.
“I wouldn’t say it’s surprising. We often have to deal with similar actions by employers in Lithuania. The problem is that they are difficult to prove because workers do not record their conversations with their employers.”
There are also all kinds of threats, harassment or pressure, which can be indirect, such as putting a worker who is making trouble under more scrutiny. It can be difficult to prove that such a change in the company’s behaviour is a reaction to unionisation, says Švobaitė.
“There is an increased focus on those employees who are organising a trade union. The suspension of one person from work [at Barbora], according to our information, is linked to that person campaigning for a trade union,” according to Švobaitė.
She says that the pay policies at Barbora – where part of the promised remuneration is paid as bonuses – is an often-used scheme that allows employers to unilaterally cut pay.
Employers who may be stingy, short of money or otherwise reluctant to pay the agreed wage often sign up workers on a low basic salary and promise that the rest will be paid through an incentive system that ties pay to performance.
In reality, the goals of the incentive system are often unattainable and can be moved arbitrarily by the employer.
“Unilateral pay cuts can be achieved through this bonus system. […] Many workers in Lithuania see their bonuses drastically decrease when the employer changes the pay policy,” Švobaitė says.
Barbora rejects accusations
Approached by LRT.lt for comment, the management of Barbora rejected the accusations levelled at the company.
“After the change in the couriers’ remuneration policy in October 2023, the overall level of salaries has not decreased, both compared to September and to October of the previous year,” Asta Juodeškaitė, head of HR at Barbora, has told LRT.lt in a written comment.
According to her, all Barbora couriers are effectively paid in the range between 1,000 and 1,300 euros a month, after tax. In the last quarter, on average 71 couriers out of 273 would receive the 1,300-euro pay, Juodeškaitė insists.
She also rejects the complaints that Barbora couriers have no time for lunch breaks.
“The schedules are made in compliance with the law, including on compulsory breaks. The scheduled rest and lunch periods are normally sufficient. In cases where a worker’s schedule is disrupted, overtime is paid,” says Juodeškaitė.
She also notes that the company has 10 years of experience and has worked out the optimal delivery times. The experience has also been applied in other countries where Barbora operates.
“We can see that our theoretical calculations correspond to reality. In cases where employees’ work schedules are disrupted, overtime is paid and routes are adjusted,” says Juodeškaitė.
‘Upset’ with unionisation
Barbora also rejects accusations that it is obstructing its workers’ efforts to set up a union.
“We feel upset that we did not hear about the initiative to form a trade union from the initiators and we did not receive an invitation for a constructive conversation. Workers have the right to form a trade union and can do so freely,” says Juodeškaitė.
“We always encourage employees to express their opinions, ask questions and find solutions together, and we did so in this case as well,” she insists.
Barbora did not take any action that could interfere with the activities of trade unions, work councils or other bodies representing employees and their members, according to Juodeškytė.
She also says that the trade union of Barbora employees, which has been active since January 26, intends to negotiate a collective agreement.
“Please note that of the ‘couriers who would like to form a trade union’ you mention, we are aware of only one person. This worker was interviewed at the beginning of January about a possible termination of employment by mutual agreement. We took this decision because of the individual characteristics of this worker: his constant negative attitude, his conflict-ridden nature and his inability to work as part of a team,” said the head of HR at Barbora.
Widespread exploitation
Meanwhile, Švobaitė, chairwoman of the May 1 Trade Union, notes that once Barbora couriers started raising their grievances in public, other workers suffering similar conditions in other companies have contacted her organisation.
Some couriers, especially those working for food delivery platforms, are treated as self-employed, don’t have work contracts, and their working conditions are even more precarious.
“The courier profession has become a very important part of our lives since the pandemic, but as there is a huge demand, we are seeing exploitation in this field. We really see the need for workers in this field to organise and set minimum standards for safety and working conditions together with employers,” Švobaitė stresses.
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