‘No one to complain to’: How Uber Eats exploits South Asian migrants in Germany

Every day, through harsh winters and summers, tens of thousands of young men who dreamt of a better life in Germany’s lively capital city ride bikes laden with green Uber Eats bags, delivering food through the streets and bylanes of Berlin.

Almost none of them chose food delivery work as their first choice.

On any given day, if you order food in Berlin, there is a higher chance that a South Asian will deliver food to your doorstep.

According to the German-based Institute for Employment Research, there is an estimated 400,000-person gap in Germany’s workforce, and therefore, many people from South Asia come to Germany to fill that gap.

But this journey is not what they imagine it to be. 

Gurvir Singh, a 31-year-old man from India, ran a small business as an electric engineer in Punjab, a northwestern state of India, and earned over 2,000 Euros per month. 

He also employed over a dozen employees in his firm.

But Singh decided to move to Germany in 2020, hoping to earn more and have a better life as expenses continued to rise.

Singh says he enrolled in a private college in Berlin but soon dropped out as he could not afford his tuition fee and rent. To make ends meet, he started working at a restaurant and then as a delivery driver for Uber Eats.

“I thought I would find proper work in my field. But the only option was food delivery. I used to manage over a dozen employees back in India, and here I work as a labourer,” Singh tells TRT World.

The main barrier, Singh says, that is preventing him from finding work in his field is his limited proficiency in German. 

Thousands of people from countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh come to Germany on student visas or invitation letters from staffing agencies, which can then be used to secure an employment permit. 

‘No one to complain to’

This isn’t just about young men working for Uber Eats, it’s about the exploitative system behind it, where third-party contractors control the work, often creating harsher conditions.

Workers like Singh never get to sign contracts directly with Uber Eats.

Instead, they work through third-party hiring managers called Fleet Partners—shadowy intermediaries who hire workers, mostly migrants, and rent out access to the Uber Eats app.

Singh says workers have to pay a commission of up to €600 to get registered on the app from Fleet Partners and 20 percent of their weekly earnings. They are also entirely or partly paid in cash.

“We never meet these fleet partners,” Singh says. 

“They exist only on paper. They get paid by Uber Eats, then they pay us in cash. If they delay, we have no one to complain to. If they disappear, we lose everything.”

Workers like Singh cannot contact Fleet Partners directly except through Telegram group chats. He says Fleet Partners sometimes conceal their identity in Telegram groups.

A researcher based in Berlin tells TRT World that outsourcing hiring to a third-party staffing agency allows platforms like Uber Eats to absolve themselves of responsibility. 

Officially, the riders don’t exist, but they are everywhere on the ground.

The researcher explains that the business of Fleet Partners to rent out Uber Eats accounts to undocumented workers is not only dubious but also helps platforms like Uber Eats avoid legal responsibility for delivery workers. 

“Since they do not hire them directly or sign a contract with them, they do not pay them minimum wages, paid sick leaves, insurance or any other employment benefits,” he explains.

Job benefits only on paper

Dheeraj Tyagi, a former Uber Eats delivery worker, explains that when someone has to join a Fleet—or the food delivery work—it happens through word of mouth. 

“The South Asian community is close-knit in Berlin, and everyone helps each other. People know if there is a Fleet that needs workers, and they put them in touch through Telegram groups,” he says.

After establishing contact with a Fleet Partner, whose identity is often concealed, they are asked to sign up on the Uber Eats app and fill in their details. However, the account is not verified unless the Fleet Partners verify it.

In rare cases, Fleet Partner sends a contract to workers. Tyagi is one of them.

After accessing the contract, TRT World found that it mentions several employment benefits, like paid sick leave and minimum wages. 

“But that is only on paper. In practice, it does not happen,” Tyagi says.

Tyagi was one of the few workers to raise these concerns in January. 

Along with a few other couriers, he organised a protest in January, which was attended by hundreds of workers across Berlin. 

“For two days, delivery workers, mostly South Asian, did not work. We demanded an increase in wages, mandatory health insurance and transparency,” he says.

He adds that during the protest, some people from Fleet Partners came and beat up a few workers and threatened them with termination if they did not resume their work. 

Weeks later, Fleet Partners knocked at Tyagi’s apartment in Berlin and asked him to stop raising concerns about couriers. 

If he did not, they would report him to the police and close the Fleet, leaving dozens of workers jobless. Soon, Tyagi’s access to the Uber Eats app was blocked by his Fleet Partners.

Tyagi says there is no mechanism to reach out to Uber or put forth their demands. 

“Workers feel helpless in the face of such exploitations. Nobody wants to come forward to fight for their rights because they are afraid that if they lose their job, they will have to go back to India,” he says.

The Berlin-based researcher says Fleet Partners and Uber Eats can exploit couriers because they are not unionised, and these platforms know that. 

According to workers TRT World spoke with and reports from Fair Work, this arrangement fails to ensure fair working conditions. 

“If workers were unionised, things would be different, but then it is not easy to unionise for them because it might come at the cost of losing their jobs. No one would want that,” he adds.

Larissa Schroder, Senior Communication Manager at Uber Eats Germany, says Uber provides in-app support that allows riders to report misconduct by fleet partners. 

However, riders say they rarely make use of it, fearing they might lose access to the platform if they complain. 

“Our fleet partners are contractually obligated to comply with all applicable legal requirements — in particular, labour law regulations and the payment of the statutory minimum wage.”

According to couriers, very few make it to Uber’s legal support teams, as most of the drivers don’t know what their employment clauses entail since they never get one. 

TRT World informed Uber about the widespread commission system imposed by fleet partners, but the company did not respond to that question.

Desperate times call for desperate measures 

Many of the South Asian food delivery workers in Berlin are students, and joining a fleet is an easy option to cover their expenses, tuition fees, and rent. 

Singh says most of the students from South Asia do not speak German, so they have fewer options finding a part-time job.

Given the surge in housing rent in Berlin, self-funders are unable to survive without a job.

A researcher based in Berlin says Fleets use this vulnerability to exploit thousands of students and workers by paying them less than minimum wage without any benefits and taking a cut from their earnings.

Singh calls this work exploitative but says people like him do not have many options. He says Fleet Partners charges riders 20-30 percent of their earnings. 

After working 50 hours a week, he makes €2000 to 3000 a month. But after spending on his bike and paying commission to Fleet Partner, he ends up with €1500. Most of the time, he is paid in cash. 

With this amount, he pays his rent, bills and sends some money to support his family in Punjab.

“In case there is an accident during my work, or if I fall sick, Uber Eats does not cover those expenses. That goes from my pocket,” Singh says.

Not just Uber

A report by Fair Work Germany, a workplace relations regulator, states that the subcontractor model used in Germany’s platform economy fails to guarantee fair working conditions. 

In their report, Fairwork states that no platform relying on subcontractors met the minimum standards in 2025. 

“The workers…were often not provided with any health and safety contributions, or covered by any insurance when working, and often had to use their own equipment (or rent the equipment for a fee), with no means to appeal management decisions or benefit from collective representation,” it adds.

It is not only Uber Eats that operates using a subcontractor model. Other platforms like Wolt, and Bolt also use a similar model in Germany. 

Uber Eats tells TRT World that the model offers partners the “advantage of being able to utilise their employees across multiple platforms, thereby increasing their revenue potential – which in turn enhances the competitiveness of these companies.” 

However, the researcher says it is aimed at cutting costs and circumventing legal obligations towards workers.

The Fair Work states that subcontracting in Germany functions as a point of entry into the labour market for migrant workers and “a mechanism that reinforces existing inequalities and unfairness in the labour market”.

In hindsight, Singh says he feels bittersweet about his decision to leave his comfortable life in Punjab and come to Berlin. 

He says if he were paid and treated fairly, he would not have any regrets. 

He says his relatives and friends look up to him, assuming he lives comfortably in Berlin. 

"I do not tell them about my hardships, and I wish they never know about it."