Hundreds of Go-Viet drivers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s biggest metropolitan area, recently protested over a new reward scheme that they said would make it much harder to earn the same income, according to local media reports.
Launched in Vietnam last September, Go-Viet is a subsidiary of Gojek, an on-demand services platform from Indonesia that has been locked in fierce competition with Grab to become the region’s super app. Go-Viet has about 100,000 drivers in Vietnam that provide services to customers such as motorcycle transportation, food and parcel delivery. Go-Viet has yet to roll our four-wheel car hailing in Vietnam.
The protest escalated quickly in front the Go-Viet’s headquarter in District 3 of Ho Chi Minh City this past week, with drivers lining up to demand answers from Go-Viet on the new reward scheme, which is applicable from July 18.
Go-Viet drivers can earn bonuses if they hit a certain benchmark of points, which they collect based on fulfilled orders.
Under the new rewards scheme, the number of points that drivers can earn for each ride was raised but reward benchmarks were adjusted, making it harder to get enough points to hit the minimum requirement for the daily bonus, which is also the most lucrative bonus.
A similar attempt by Grab to implement such a scheme in Indonesia in November 2018 saw hundreds of Grab drivers in Jakarta take to the streets in protest.
Answering KrAsia‘s request for comment, the head of communications for Go-Viet, Nguyen Van Chi, said that “the new surge-pricing-based scheme is designed to regulate the service for both consumers and drivers, based on the varying levels of demand throughout the day.” She notes that Go-Viet is engaged in “ongoing dialogue” with the drivers and will continue to fine-tune the process.