Mr Yang, who goes by James, was part of a strike of about 20 riders in Burwood on Tuesday and that night received a message from a HungryPanda account telling him the company would “collaborate with you to terminate our co-operative relationship”. His account was then suspended, Mr Yang said.

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“I feel helpless, I’m frustrated,” Mr Yang said through a union translator because he, like many of his colleagues, speaks little English. “I’ve been working here and when I got unreasonable treatment... I got fired.”

HungryPanda confirmed it had reduced pay down to what company representative Tina Sun said were industry-standard rates after paying above the market previously. “No drivers are receiving 20 per cent or 25 per cent less,” Ms Sun said in a statement. “The average adjustment is less than half that amount, and some rates are increasing.”

Ms Sun said some riders had been removed from the HungryPanda app because of “customer complaints”.

Joellen Riley Munton, a labour law academic at the University of Technology Sydney, said the fact riders faced a pay cut for not wearing a uniform cast doubt on the company’s claims its workers are not employees.

“It’s very clear from this that notwithstanding any wording in the contract, they’re obviously seeking to benefit from the advertising that they will get from people wearing those t-shirts and uniforms around,” Professor Riley Munton said.

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The uniform rule was also at odds with another provision in the contract that insists riders must work for other companies in an apparent attempt to avoid the conclusion they are employees, Professor Riley Munton said. If the rider was swapping between delivery apps, “what have you got to do, disrobe mid-delivery?” she said.

Ms Sun said riders were only paid a “marketing fee” for wearing a company jacket and insisted it would not affect riders’ daily bonuses for completing a set number of deliveries, though elsewhere HungryPanda has said the two were tied. In the message to riders, the company says the new pay rates are for Sydney city and will last for a two-week trial.

Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine called for a tribunal to monitor the gig economy, a position endorsed by federal Labor, saying Hungry Panda’s decision to cut a rider off its app for protesting while also insisting they were an independent contractor was contradictory.

“The company is dictating terms in a schizophrenic manner to avoid paying minimum wage or giving workers rights while trying to cover up its efforts to exercise control over workers,” Mr Kaine said.

Another rider, Sun Fang, has written to Hungry Panda requesting elections for work health and safety representatives in the wake of the death of one rider, Xiaojun Chen, in a road incident last year.