From December 20 to 25, food delivery workers in Russia, organized in the Kourier union, engaged in one of the largest worker struggles in the country in recent years: more than 3,800 delivery workers went on strike in more than 15 cities for their class demands against Yandex, the industry giant, an analogue of Uber Eats, which holds a monopoly in Russia after acquiring its main competitor, Delivery Club, in September 2022.

Yandex’s delivery drivers work in the so-called gig economy, with conditions similar to those of delivery drivers in other countries, from Italy to the United Kingdom, from the United States to Turkey. Conditions which have caused them to strike in a number of these countries. In these companies employment is framed as “Independent Contractors” and are bombarded by propaganda campaigns which presents them as part of an emerging petty bourgeoisie, instead of what they actually are, an extremely poorly paid and precarious stratum of the proletariat. This framing of them makes them responsible for all the risks and expenses that come with the job, and exposes them to complete “at will” dismissal by the company: Yandex can block them from using the Eats app at any time, without any notice or explanation.

In Italy, this is what happened last October to Sebastian, who was fired after he died: the day after the boy died in a car accident while making a delivery, his family received the automatic message of dismissal on his cell phone, "for not respecting the terms of the delivery".

During the Covid-19 pandemic, as with all other strata of workers, conditions for delivery drivers worsened, while companies had record profits: revenues from Yandex’s food-tech sector, which includes Yandex.Eats and Yandex.Market, increased in the third quarter of 2022 by 124 percent over the previous year to 9.8 billion rubles ($135 million) - all this despite Western sanctions due to the imperialist war in Ukraine.

According to the propaganda put forward by the Russian bourgeois regime, Russia would be exempt from the decadence of the so-called West. But a look at the conditions of the working class and its struggles reveals that it is not about East and West, but about capitalism, which is the same under all skies, in Moscow, Paris, Rome or Berlin.

The workers, with the Kourier union, fought for the introduction of a labor contract that would frame them as wage earners instead of self-employed, and that would improve their wages, provide greater protection from dismissal, payment of sick days and wages indexed to inflation.

The strike demonstrated how even the proletariat employed through these apps can take fighting actions: thousands of workers refused to take orders through the Yandex.Eats mobile app, disrupting service in several cities. Kourier organized workers to stop work at restaurants contracted with Yandex, forming picket lines and blocking cash registers and customers.

The strike demonstrated to workers in this sector, considered a case in itself by bourgeois sociology, a fundamental truth: that there are no "new" ways of struggle, that the road to poverty is the same for the entire working class: the struggle needs to be taken to the streets, it needs to involve the maximum number of workers, with picket lines, work stoppages in an attempt to damage the profits of the bosses.

In response, Yandex launched a campaign of lies against the strikers, claiming that they were already enjoying high wages and even having its hack pen-pushers at its service write that there was no strike going on.

Kourier reacted with a campaign to lower Yandex’s online rating and with the strike, which began with about 600 deliverymen in Moscow and St. Petersburg and grew to 3,800, in more than 15 cities, thus uniting more workers than the union leaders themselves had expected.

As a result of the strike, fines for delays were essentially abolished, additional pay was introduced for working New Year’s Eve, and Yandex backed down from its "two-for-two" work schedule (two days of work, followed by two days off-something that is not easy when you have to work 12-14 hour shifts like the delivery drivers).

The Kourier union was born in June 2020, when workers at the Delivery Club company – which was purchased by Yandex last September - struck for two months because of delayed payments. The company capitulated and sent the payments due, and thus the union was born. It acts as a class union. Since its origins, it has organized several struggles, mainly strikes on issues ranging from defending wages to rejecting fines against workers for minor infractions of company rules.

Last April its main leader - Kirill Ukraintsev - was arrested for "violating the rules of assembly", that is, for his union activity, and is still in jail. Despite this, the Kourier continued its activity, even to the point of organizing the December strike.

It is notable about this strike, in addition to its extent, is that it succeeded in halting production activity, breaking with the practice of regime unions in Russia, which for years have organized demonstrations that do not stop work. The fact that this occurred in the midst of the imperialist war in which the bourgeois regime in Moscow is dragging the working class into makes this strike, an inherently defeatist action, all the more important.

There has been no shortage, in addition to bourgeois state repression, of problems within the union. One of the opportunist workers’ parties with influence within Kourier made public the location and date of a meeting to prepare for the strike, which was thus interrupted by the arrival of the police, who identified several union militants. Those responsible were expelled from the union, and the political group saw fit to organize a competing union.

The struggle within the working class and its organizations against political and trade union opportunism is part of the struggle against capitalist exploitation on the economic level, and against the regime of capital on the political level, until the workers have the strength to confront and overcome the bourgeoisie and until they have cleaned up within their organizations. This struggle, in order to be fought and won, needs to spread its work to other categories of workers.