Although the history of motorcycle delivery services in Turkey dates back 30 years, it has gained prevalence especially in the last 4-5 years due to the emergence of new marketing strategies by online food delivery companies and the development of online shopping habits. With the pandemic, delivery services, especially in the food sector, have become an indispensable part of Daily life, extending to nearly every sector and business. The number of motorcycle delivery workers has reached historic highs, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
As the Delivery Worker Rights Association, established to research, identify, report, and raise awareness about the problems faced by delivery workers, we conducted a field research to determine the profiles, institutional structures, and operations of organizations including associations, federations, unions and committees; to identify the issues delivery workers seek assistance for and whether there are support mechanisms available; and to determine the types of activities the organizations engage in. Within the scope of the research, we gathered infor-mation on how extensively the activities of delivery worker organizations reach workers, how the organizations establish relationships with workers and their problems, how they interpret workers’ issues, which problems they perceive as more urgent, thoughts and suggestions regarding platform delivery work, experiences in collaborating with each other and relevant institutions, future plans, and solution proposals.
In Turkey, there are a total of 79 delivery worker organizations. 69 of them are in the form of associations, including 8 federations, 1 confederation, and 15 districtlevel associations. Additionally, there are 6 transportation and service unions, with 3 of them affiliated with union confederations. Furthermore, there are 3 organizations organized under the names of solidarity network and committee, and 1 Chamber of Tradesmen (an organization that recognizes platform delivery workers as tradesmen, not workers).
Taking into account factors such as their year of establishment, level of activity, membership numbers, and the cities and geographical regions they operate in, we selected a total of 25 associations, federations, confederations, unions, committees, and solidarity networks operating across 14 cities in Turkey, with a total population of 41,502,958 people. We conducted meetings with representatives of these organizations, with 20 held face-to-face and 5 online, each lasting approximately one hour.
Downloader PDF: A-GENERAL-OVERVIEW-OF-MOTORCYCLE-DELIVERY-WORKER-ORGANIZATIONS-IN-TURKEY.pdf
