AssoDelivery, the Italian trade association representing the country's food delivery industry, has renewed its heat emergency protocol for 2026, expanding protective measures for delivery riders as summer temperatures climb. The move, building on guidelines first introduced in 2025, commits platforms to providing hydration subsidies, multilingual safety training, and penalty-free work refusal during extreme heat—yet labor advocates question whether the voluntary framework goes far enough in a sector notorious for murky employment relationships.
Why This Matters
• Riders maintain the right to refuse or stop deliveries without algorithmic penalty during heat waves, though the effectiveness depends on income pressures.
• Financial contributions for water, electrolytes, and reusable bottles are promised, adding to existing safety gear provisions.
• Regional ordinances in Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, and Piemonte already ban outdoor delivery work between 12:30 PM and 4:00 PM on high-risk days—this protocol coordinates with those mandates.
• Delivery workers in Italy suffered 446 workplace injuries in 2023, with roughly one-third attributed to adverse weather, including extreme heat.
The Protocol's Core Commitments
The updated "Guidelines for Heat Emergency Management in the Food Delivery Sector" run through the entire summer season, with provisions to extend or modify timelines based on regional civil protection orders and health authority warnings. The package includes targeted information campaigns on thermal stress risk, developed with occupational health physicians and translated into multiple languages to reach the sector's heavily migrant workforce—51% of injured riders in Italy between 2021 and 2023 were born abroad, predominantly in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India.
AssoDelivery, which operates under the Confcommercio umbrella, emphasizes that the measures layer onto pre-existing protections: mandatory medical check-ups once a rider crosses a certain order threshold, free training on job-specific hazards, and the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) identified in company risk assessments. The financial subsidies for hydration supplies represent a shift from the controversial "heat bonuses" some platforms trialed in prior years—extra pay per delivery when temperatures exceeded 25°C or 32°C. A Milan tribunal ruling in 2025 declared such bonuses illegal, arguing they incentivized dangerous work rather than mitigating risk, and ordered platforms to supply water and sun protection directly instead of reimbursing riders after the fact.
The Flexibility Claim Under Scrutiny
Central to AssoDelivery's narrative is the assertion that delivery workers retain "maximum flexibility" in managing their schedules, with the freedom to decline or suspend deliveries without facing reduced order flow or algorithmic downgrading. For riders enduring 40°C pavement heat while cycling through traffic, this theoretical autonomy is meant to serve as a critical safety valve.
Yet labor unions including NIdiL CGIL have long argued the flexibility framing obscures a harsher reality: most riders work on piecework contracts with no social safety net, meaning any hours not worked translate directly to lost income. The absence of a recognized employer—platforms often classify riders as independent contractors—complicates the enforcement of workplace protections and leaves riders without the unemployment insurance or sick leave that would make it financially viable to stop working when temperatures spike.
Data from INAIL, Italy's national workplace injury insurer, underscores the sector's vulnerability. Between 2021 and 2023, delivery workers filed 1,364 injury claims, including 7 fatalities—six of which occurred on the job rather than during commutes. The 2023 caseload alone hit 446 incidents, a 3% rise from the previous year. Ninety-two percent of injured riders were male, and 60% were under 35 years old. The most common injuries were contusions (42%), fractures (37%), and dislocations or sprains (15%), affecting limbs and joints—consequences of falls on wet roads, collisions, or heat-induced disorientation. INAIL itself acknowledges these figures likely represent significant underreporting, given that insurance coverage for gig workers only began in February 2020 and many incidents may never be formally lodged.
What This Means for Riders and Residents
For foreign residents working in delivery—a demographic that comprises half of the injured rider population—the protocol's multilingual materials and medical consultation represent incremental progress, particularly for workers navigating Italian bureaucracy and labor law in a second or third language. The hydration subsidies aim to offset out-of-pocket costs in a job where margins are razor-thin; a liter of water and electrolyte salts might seem trivial, but for someone earning €3 to €5 per delivery, every expense counts.
For customers ordering food during heat waves, the protocol's timing provisions mean deliveries may slow or stop during the hottest afternoon hours in certain regions. Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, and Piemonte have already enacted ordinances prohibiting outdoor work—including delivery—between 12:30 PM and 4:00 PM on days when the Worklimate platform (a joint INAIL-CNR forecasting tool) flags elevated thermal risk. These restrictions apply regardless of whether riders are formally employees or contractors, and platforms face fines if they continue dispatching orders during banned windows.
Broader Occupational Heat Risk
Delivery riders are far from the only workers facing Italy's intensifying summers. A joint INAIL-CNR study linked more than 4,000 workplace injuries annually to extreme heat across agriculture, construction, and logistics, with an estimated societal cost of €50M per year. Average productivity drops by 6.5% when employers reduce exposure hours, but for physically demanding tasks—like cycling with insulated food bags—the decline can reach 80%.
The EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) has flagged rising temperatures as a "severe occupational health concern" across the continent, though specific cross-border protocols for gig platform workers remain fragmented. Italy's Worklimate system, which tailors heat alerts to occupational categories and offers a mobile app with personalized forecasts, represents one of the more advanced national responses. Yet translating meteorological warnings into enforceable workplace action remains a challenge in a sector where the employer-employee relationship is contested or nonexistent.
The Enforcement Question
AssoDelivery's protocol is voluntary and self-regulated, relying on member platforms to implement guidelines without external oversight or worker representation in the design process. The 2025 Milan tribunal order that required direct provision of safety supplies and involvement of worker safety representatives in risk assessments suggests courts may demand more than trade association pledges. Union representatives have called for the integration of climate risk into the formal Risk Assessment Document (DVR) required under Italian occupational safety law, a step that would make heat protection a legal obligation rather than a corporate initiative.
A national protocol on climate emergencies, signed at the Italy Ministry of Labor, includes delivery workers among covered sectors, but its practical reach depends on enforcement capacity and whether riders can access complaint mechanisms without fear of algorithmic retaliation—being quietly deprioritized by the app's dispatch system.
A Step Forward, Not a Solution
The renewed protocol signals growing industry awareness that deadly heat is a labor issue, not merely a weather inconvenience. Subsidies for water, multilingual training, and the formal right to refuse dangerous work represent tangible improvements over the sector's earlier laissez-faire stance. Yet as long as pay structures reward volume over safety and employment classification remains ambiguous, the gap between written guidelines and lived experience will persist.
For the estimated tens of thousands of delivery workers cycling through Italian cities each summer—many of them young migrants building a foothold in a new country—the protocol's real test will come in August, when Mediterranean heat islands turn urban asphalt into griddles and the pressure to accept one more delivery competes with the body's limits. Whether riders feel empowered to log off when temperatures soar, or whether economic necessity overrides self-preservation, will determine if these guidelines amount to meaningful protection or merely paper promises.
