"Yes it's hot but you have to work or you don't earn," Omer Iliaz, 22, a rider from Pakistan, told AFP near Rome's Termini train station.
"If we work only four or five hours... how is it possible to eat, dress and everything?"
Iliaz said he earns 30-70 euros ($34-79) a day depending on the orders, working 10-hour shifts.
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"People in this area are working in very high temperatures -- higher than what is considered a stress temperature" for the human body, said Simona Abbate, a campaigner from Greenpeace.
"The climate crisis is impacting above all the most vulnerable people in the population. The people who need to work, who have to work."
The organisation said it was detecting surface temperatures of up to 80C in the heavily asphalted area around the station.
The city was one of 16 in Italy under red alert on Wednesday, with highs of 35C.
Temperatures in the capital are expected to rise further to 38C by the weekend.
The Lazio region where Rome is located has approved an order for construction workers and delivery riders not to work between 12:30 pm and 4:00 pm due to the high temperatures.
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But the order is being widely flouted and food delivery apps do not notify their customers of any restrictions around those hours.
Damiano Carbonari, an activist from Italy's CGIL trade union, said union representatives were distributing water and creating rest areas around the city where riders could take a break.
The union is also trying to ensure that the riders, many of whom are self-employed, are given contracts that mean they could be paid even if they do not work in the hottest hours.
"They know that if they don't work nobody is going to pay them so they are forced to work despite the heat," said Carbonari, who estimates there are around 1,000 riders in Rome.
Carbonari said some companies have in the past offered a higher fee for riders when temperatures go above 35C, pointing out that this incentive "put workers in extreme danger".
Adam Khan Safi, another rider, said he sometimes took short breaks in the middle of the day because "our energy is so low" but these were exceptional.
"We work and we eat," said the 40-year-old from Afghanistan, boarding his bicycle after coming out of a fast food outlet with his latest order.
By AFP's Dario THUBURN
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