On Monday, December 12, riders for Wolt, a Europe-wide food-delivery company, went on strike in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Later that week, riders in the resort town of Limassol followed suit. The workers taking action against the firm — mostly immigrants from India and Nepal — then mobilized others in Paphos, Larnaca, and the main urban centers of Cyprus. The workers demanded a pay raise, as well as a lowering of the commission that middlemen currently take from their paychecks.

In Nicosia, the striking workers rallied in front of Wolt’s headquarters, standing chatting next to their parked motorbikes. Seeing reporters like myself as well as the union officials from the Pancyprian Federation of Labor (PEO) — a socialist trade union affiliated to the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) — they gathered round to tell their stories. Jamie, a student originally from eastern Nepal, told me that, “The fleet managers make the rules to benefit themselves. We want the official franchise, Wolt, to put some restrictions on what fleet managers can do.”

Jamie had arrived in Nicosia one year ago, after paying a couple thousand of euro to a middleman who helped him apply to study at one of Cyprus’s many private schools. He pays around €4,000 per semester to a college that offers a student visa. Once enrolled in a Cypriot university, he has the right to work twenty hours per week when the school is in session and thirty-eight hours during holidays. There were not many choices for Jamie, as the Cypriot government allows third-country (i.e. non–European Union national) students to work in only nine specified industries — food delivery among them.