The food delivery company Hungry Panda has failed to appear before a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry that is looking into the death of one of its workers.
In an appearance that had been planned for weeks, the company had agreed to give testimony to a NSW inquiry into the gig economy but on Monday no representatives from the company appeared.
The chair of the committee, the Labor MP Daniel Mookhey, said the company had given no notice.
Monday would have been the first public appearance for the company in Australia, which has its headquarters in the UK and targets Chinese communities around the world. Other gig economy companies including Ola have previously appeared before the NSW inquiry, as has the widow of the worker who was killed.
Hungry Panda’s delivery manager, Luna Wei, was scheduled to speak at 11.45am on Monday. But at 12pm Mookhey had to tell those watching that the company had simply not shown up.
“Our next set of witnesses were meant to be from Hungry Panda,” he said after a 15-minute delay. “Hungry Panda has failed to attend and not given any explanation.”
A Hungry Panda rider, Xiaojun Chen, was killed in Sydney in a collision on 29 September, two days after an Uber Eats rider, Dede Fredy, died.
Last week Chen’s widow, Lihong Wei, testified before the committee. She told Guardian Australia earlier that her husband’s death had left her family in financial ruin, and it was unclear whether Hungry Panda would pay her compensation for his death while working.
Mookhey told Guardian Australia that the company’s failure to appear did “not inspire much confidence in their ability to support their workers”.
“I’m disappointed that Hungry Panda failed to front the Future of Work inquiry,” he said. “It is the height of disrespect – especially after hearing evidence last week from the widow of a Hungry Panda worker who died on the job.
“The committee expects better cooperation from Hungry Panda. We will look to call them at our next public hearing early next year.”
Mookhey said Hungry Panda had sent a letter of apology at 1pm, more than an hour after its representative was due to appear.
“I’m really sorry that I didn’t attend this important meeting on time today,” Luna Wei wrote in an email shown to Guardian Australia.
“Recently, I have been busy with the safety education of riders. Today, some riders came to the company without an appointment to discuss some delivery problems with me, which caused me to fail to arrive at the meeting site on time.
“I apologise for my absence today. I’m terribly sorry.”
Later on Monday the committee heard from a director of SafeWork NSW, Peter Dunphy, who said the agency was investigating Chen and Fredy’s deaths.
Dunphy said SafeWork NSW had been notified of Chen’s death on 1 October, two days after he died, by the Transport Workers’ Union.
The question of why Hungry Panda had not notified SafeWork was the subject of an investigation, he said.
Dunphy also revealed that SafeWork NSW had reported a significant increase in gig economy notifications this year.
Nineteen incidents had been reported in the six months to July this year. In the two years before that, it received just five notifications.
“We are aware in the increase of the number of notifications,” he said. “Our overall number of notifications we receive over a year is about 8,000.”
Hungry Panda operates in six countries – the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, France and New Zealand. Like companies including Uber Eats and Deliveroo, the food delivery workers for Hungry Panda are classified as independent contractors, not employees, meaning they are not entitled to minimum wages, sick leave and workers compensation for death or injury.
Also on Monday, the committee heard from the national secretary of the TWU, Michael Kaine, who said 80% of people who work in food delivery are in Australia on temporary visas.
“These companies act as if no law applied to them,” he told the inquiry. “They are marching through our society. It’s a wrecking ball. It has ripped away public revenue and it’s ripping away people’s lives.”
Kaine said that the gig economy should be regulated by an independent standing body that could identify different classes of gig workers and recommend extra rights and conditions.
A “logical” solution would be “a body that can inquire into particular types of work”, he said.
“These kinds of digital platforms will continue to evolve, we need to have a system that is flexible enough. For example, food delivery riders riding a bicycle … They can be characterised as a level of work of with a level of dependency that can trigger workers compensation laws.”
He said this would avoid “prescriptive” definitions of worker and contractor, similar to those legislated in California which were overturned by proposition 22, a ballot measure authored by gig economy companies.
Mark Goodsell, the head of the NSW Australian Industry Group, said the gig economy was “delivering huge benefits to the Australian community”.
On Sunday a TWU survey revealed that Uber and other rideshare drivers are paid an average hourly rate of $12.35 after expenses.
.png?w=600)
