Delivery riders for Wolt in Cyprus are continuing an ongoing strike, demanding higher pay, safer working conditions, and an end to what they describe as retaliatory actions against workers participating in the mobilization.
What began on March 20 as a seven-day strike has developed into a broader confrontation over the conditions imposed in the platform delivery sector. Workers say current pay per delivery is so low that it no longer covers fuel, vehicle maintenance and other job-related costs. They are also demanding payment for waiting time, corrections to the app’s distance calculations, and the reactivation of accounts allegedly blocked since the strike began.
Beyond wages, drivers say they face increasing job insecurity, particularly during night shifts. Workers have reported incidents of theft, physical attacks, threats, and damage to their vehicles. At strike gatherings in major cities such as Limassol and Nicosia, participants have also described intimidation and attempts to undermine the strike, including pressure on workers to return to work and alleged targeting of those involved in organizing.
The strike has also brought renewed attention to the wider labor model in the sector. Although a collective agreement was signed in 2024 after earlier mobilizations, workers say it did not resolve the core problems of precarious employment, loopholes in enforcement and the use of intermediary companies that stand between the platforms and the people doing the work. In practice, drivers argue, the platforms control the labor process while avoiding full responsibility for wages, protections and rights.
Wolt is a delivery platform founded in Helsinki, Finland, in 2014, and it became part of DoorDash in 2022. The company operates in dozens of countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Labor disputes involving Wolt couriers have also emerged elsewhere, including strike action and protests over pay, app management and employment conditions in countries such as Georgia and Finland, showing that the tensions seen in Cyprus are part of a broader pattern in the platform delivery economy.
The Cyprus Communist Initiative says the sector’s supposed “flexibility” has become a cover for exploitation, with workers performing fixed and permanent functions without the protections of stable employment. The demands raised by the strikers now go beyond immediate pay increases to include health and safety measures, coverage of labor costs, protection from attacks, and a new collective agreement that applies to all delivery drivers without exceptions.
As the strike continues, it is becoming a wider test for labor rights in Cyprus’s platform economy. With workers from other delivery platforms also watching developments closely, the outcome may shape not only pay rates, but the broader question of whether delivery workers can win secure employment, dignity and full labor protections.
