Mercado Livre Couriers in Brazil Set a 25 September Strike Deadline in Goiás
BRAZIL · LABOUR
Key Facts
- —The threat Mercado Livre delivery drivers are threatening a general stoppage on 25 September.
- —The deadline 20 September for negotiations to produce something.
- —Where Goiás and the Federal District, with coordinated action planned in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.
- —The rates R$180 (about US$35) for cars, R$270 (about US$53) for utility vehicles, R$460 (about US$90) for small trucks. Unchanged for more than three years.
- —The workload Over 100 stops and 150 packages a shift, against roughly 40 stops and 80 packages previously.
- —The grievances App changes that block stops, and penalties for packages recorded as not received.
Nearly four times the stops for the same daily rate. That arithmetic is what the couriers are striking over.
Delivery drivers working for Mercado Livre in Goiás and the Federal District have threatened a general stoppage on 25 September over rates that have not moved in three years.
The Arithmetic
The daily rates the drivers work to are R$180 (about US$35) for a car, R$270 (about US$53) for a utility vehicle and R$460 (about US$90) for a small truck. Those figures have not changed in more than three years.
What has changed is the load. Drivers describe shifts of more than 100 stops and 150 packages, against roughly 40 stops and 80 packages when the rates were set.
In real terms that is a substantial pay cut delivered without any change to the headline number, which is the mechanism by which most platform pay falls.
The Other Grievances
Two operational complaints sit alongside the rates. Drivers say app changes have begun blocking stops, which removes work from a route after it has been accepted. And they object to penalties applied when a package is recorded as not received.
The second is the sharper one. A penalty for a delivery the driver says was made, imposed on the basis of a record the driver cannot contest, transfers a business risk onto the person least able to carry it.
The Scale of It
The stoppage is set for 25 September with a negotiating deadline of 20 September. It covers Goiás and the Federal District, with coordinated actions planned in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.
This is smaller than the disputes running at Correios, Caixa and Banco do Brasil, and it is a different kind of dispute. Those involve unionised public-sector employees with established bargaining structures. These are contractors.
Mercado Livre has built the fastest delivery network in Brazilian e-commerce on exactly this contracting model, and a coordinated stoppage across four states in the last week of September would land in the run-up to the fourth-quarter peak.
How Platform Pay Falls Without Falling
The pattern the Goiás drivers describe is the standard mechanism by which delivery pay declines. The headline rate stays where it is while the work required to earn it expands.
Route density is the lever. A courier paid per shift rather than per delivery absorbs every additional stop the algorithm adds, and improvements in routing efficiency accrue entirely to the platform.
That is not a Brazilian phenomenon. The same dispute has produced strikes and litigation in Spain, the United Kingdom, Colombia and Mexico over the past five years, generally with the same structure and rarely with a durable settlement.
Why Contractors Are Harder to Organise
The drivers are contractors, not employees, which means there is no bargaining unit, no recognised counterparty and no legal duty on the company to negotiate.
What replaces it is coordination through messaging groups and regional driver associations, which is how this stoppage was organised and why it spans four states without a union behind it.
The weakness of that model is enforcement. A stoppage holds only as long as enough drivers stay off the road, and a platform with a large pool of available couriers can usually replace a proportion of them within days.
Its strength is timing. Late September sits just before the fourth-quarter build, which is when replacement capacity is scarcest and the cost of disruption is highest.
More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the stoppage?
25 September 2026, with a negotiating deadline of 20 September.
Where?
Goiás and the Federal District, with coordinated action planned in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.
What are the current rates?
R$180 (about US$35) a day for cars, R$270 (about US$53) for utility vehicles and R$460 (about US$90) for small trucks, unchanged for over three years.
What has changed?
Workloads, from roughly 40 stops and 80 packages to over 100 stops and 150 packages.
What else are drivers complaining about?
App changes that block stops after acceptance, and penalties for packages recorded as not received.
Sources: Mais Goiás.
This article was drafted with automated assistance and reviewed before publication. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief
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