The photograph is illustrative.

Wolt couriers in Slovenia have announced a full-day strike for Friday, October 16, due to dissatisfaction with working conditions and steadily declining earnings.

They are demanding from the platform a guaranteed compensation of at least 20 euros gross per hour, including time spent waiting for orders. As reported by Slovenian N1 citing the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), the couriers will publicly present their demands on Friday at 10 a.m. at a gathering in central Ljubljana.

The strike organizers claim that compensation for individual deliveries is decreasing, while at the same time the number of available orders is falling. Along with rising living costs and fuel prices, such conditions, according to them, are making it increasingly difficult to earn a stable income.

They are demanding at least 20 euros gross per hour

The couriers' main demand concerns the introduction of a guaranteed hourly wage of 20 euros gross. In doing so, they are asking that the calculation include the entire time during which they are logged into the app and ready to take an order, regardless of whether they are making a delivery or waiting for a new job.

If a courier does not earn the projected 20 euros gross during one hour, Wolt should, according to their proposal, pay them the difference up to the guaranteed amount.

The couriers also believe that there are currently too many of them compared to the available number of orders. Therefore, they are demanding a temporary suspension of onboarding new couriers onto the platform until a better balance is established between the number of workers and the amount of work.

They particularly warn about the position of foreign couriers, whom they believe could be exposed to even greater financial insecurity.

They are also dissatisfied with support during work

In addition to higher earnings, the couriers are demanding better support while performing their work. They state that communication with the platform mostly takes place via online chat and that customer support staff are often not sufficiently familiar with local circumstances.

They therefore demand the possibility of speaking directly with a person who knows the situation on the ground. In urgent cases, they believe, they should receive a response within no more than 3 minutes.

They are also demanding a more transparent calculation of compensation so that they can check how earnings for each delivery are determined and how any changes in the calculation system affect their income.

During the strike, they will remember their deceased colleague

In announcing the strike, the couriers also referred to the recent traffic accident in Maribor, in which a 26-year-old food delivery courier on a motorcycle lost his life.

They announced that during the gathering they would remember their late colleague and expressed condolences to his family and loved ones.

Will Wolt accept the couriers' demands?

The announced strike once again raises the question of working conditions via digital platforms, especially the method of calculating earnings and the financial security of couriers.

One of the key questions is whether couriers should also be paid for the time during which they are available for work but do not receive orders. This is precisely what the strike organizers insist on, believing that the current model does not ensure sufficiently predictable income.

For now, it is not known how many couriers will join the strike or to what extent it will affect the availability of Wolt's services in Slovenia. The further development of the situation will also depend on whether the company agrees to discuss their demands.