What's wrong with this lawyer?!

Pei Zhenyu sat in the conference room without saying a word, in fact, she was a bit slow to react.

The food delivery platform's outsourcing of delivery riders' labor services was a matter specifically dealt with by the headquarters' legal affairs group; how to outsource, how to manage, had already become an extremely mature system.

It was equivalent to creating a moat for the platform itself; under normal circumstances, no matter how capable you delivery riders are, you could only deal with the outsourcing companies.

Moreover, they outsourced differently in various places, and depending on different types of riders, they split into a variety of outsourcing arrangements, and could even go further with regional franchising.

In such a situation, normally you couldn't even dream of defending your rights; let alone labor relations, you didn't even have an employer, as yours was purely a cooperative relationship.

Of course, this was under normal circumstances. If they encountered those who were unreasonable and insisted on making an issue of it, there was a possibility of breaking through; if they really litigated layer by layer, there would always be a result.

So previously, some food delivery platforms had come up with a new trick: make riders become self-employed, that way they wouldn't count as laborers, and the relationship between both parties was genuinely cooperative.

If you didn't register, then you couldn't work as a rider.

Driven by profit, food delivery platforms had ample motivation to concoct these schemes, and because there was no punitive compensation system for individuals like delivery riders, very few lawyers would take these cases.

That's why some people say the food delivery platforms lose out a lot; when a delivery rider suddenly dies, they just go and extort... honestly, I don't know what to say about that.

After all, to make a big boss lose enough to become the richest person in a province, you can only say reality is much more formidable than fiction.

That was also where Pei Zhenyu couldn't catch up with her thoughts; although they had just initiated arbitration, based on the current evidence, their side had a high likelihood of losing...

Previously, the platform had paid compensation on many occasions, but it was mostly due to sudden deaths or serious injuries of delivery riders. In such cases, courts would naturally tend to favor the delivery riders.

If there was a bit of public opinion on top, the likelihood of losing was very high.

This had become a sort of unwritten rule in verdicts concerning new labor forms such as food delivery riders, ride-hail drivers, and so on. Consider it a piece of obscure knowledge.

If riders sought to affirm labor relations to claim double wages or to be fired, it was generally not acknowledged; understand, I won't say the reason, everyone probably knows it.

However, if a rider applied for compensation due to injury or sudden death, then based on some of the existing cases, the court would definitely rule that the platform should bear responsibility.

At that moment, the platform's moat would seem to disappear suddenly, as some courts easily find excuses—labor relationships, platform faults.

But for courts without easy excuses, they would outright declare the existence of labor relations, account the rider's situation as occupational injury or death, the specifics of the verdicts being quite flexible, also considered as being case-specific.

However, this case was different; Tang Fangjing did not assert that there was a labor relationship between the rider and the platform, but entirely based on the platform's labor outsourcing contract, determined there to be a labor relationship between the rider and the outsourcing company.

Then, taking a novel approach, she launched an attack on the company from the angle of social security; it was a path no one had taken before.

And as Pei Zhenyu carefully reviewed the materials, she had a strange feeling that the other party might have found a loophole in the company's moat; having a single company act as a labor proxy for an entire province was problematic!

There were not a few legal affairs staff like Pei Zhenyu in the company; someone had already pointed out this loophole to the furiously outraged branch general manager, who ended up lashing out at them.

"Why didn't you mention it before? What's the company paying you for? Now that we're at labor arbitration, you're telling me this? Is this useful now?" the general manager bellowed.

He was the general manager of the Hanxi branch, a high-ranking position. Considering the company had branches in every province, if his branch lost the lawsuit, it was easy to predict the consequences he would bear.

The current general manager felt very aggrieved no matter how he thought about it; damn that Tang Fangjing coming to Hanxi Province for no good reason!

Moreover, he had no clue about this matter before seeing the application.

As a result, now, because of some haphazard moves by a contracting company in the counties below, the entire platform company was affected.

"Call that San He company. I don't care by what means they do it, but they must settle this matter, or they can forget about being the contractor," the general manager cursed for a while before finally speaking up.

The head of the legal affairs department nodded with a bitter face; their entire department had been berated for a long time, and now they could finally take a break.

"Forget it, I'll call myself!"

Within San He company, Xia Deming no longer paid attention to Li Fugui's case; now that it had come to this, they could proceed with due process as the company's legal affairs were confident.
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Even if that Tang Fangjing was so tough and won the lawsuit, it would be nothing more than paying money. What if it spread online, what then? When the time came, they would just dissolve this company and register a new one.

Operations like replacing the head just as easily as swapping hats, were just small matters.

As long as they could keep making money, what was a bit of criticism? Several platform companies face public ire, having been criticized heavily, and yet they remain firm, unaffected in the slightest.

In this day and age, there are too many jobless young people; the food delivery industry is a particularly large reservoir, and critically, it brings in money fast. A few criticisms, what do they matter? If you don't want to do it, there are plenty who will.

Just then, a secretary approached: "President Xia, there's a call from the platform company."