Legislation would guarantee minimum pay and regulate conditions for delivery workers
The New York City Council on Thursday approved first-in-the-nation legislation that would guarantee minimum pay and regulate conditions for workers for DoorDash Inc., Uber Eats and other delivery apps.
The set of six bills addresses how much delivery workers get paid but also prohibits companies from charging them to receive their pay; lets delivery workers access restaurant bathrooms except under certain conditions; mandates apps to be more transparent about tips; allows workers to set parameters for what work they will take without retribution; and requires delivery apps to provide workers with insulated bags.
New York City has been leading the charge to regulate delivery apps as its millions of residents grew to rely on delivery even more during the coronavirus pandemic. It is facing a lawsuit from DoorDash DASH, +1.62%, Uber Eats UBER, +2.53% and Grubhub GRUB, -5.17% over its 15% delivery fee cap, and from DoorDash over another law passed by the city council that requires delivery apps share customer information with restaurants.
The companies also face regulatory fights over classification of their delivery workers, including in California, where a ballot initiative passed last year over the issue was recently ruled unconstitutional.
In addition, Chicago sued DoorDash and Grubhub in August, accusing the companies of deceptive and predatory business practices.
Carlina Rivera, a New York City Council member, said on Twitter that the victory belongs to the worker organizers who advocated for changes.
“I feel excited and happy because this package of legislation demonstrates the value of Deliveristas as essential workers,” said Gustavo Ajche, leader of Los Deliveristas Unidos, a group of app-based delivery workers, in a statement.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said this week during a news conference that he supports the bills, calling them important because “delivery workers have gone through so much in this crisis.”
A report by the Workers’ Justice Project and the Worker Institute at Cornell University found that the average net pay of app-based delivery workers was $7.87 an hour, far short of the minimum wage in New York, which is $15. One of the bills approved by the city council Thursday calls for the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to study how much delivery workers should be paid and establish rules to determine minimum pay by Jan. 1, 2023.
DoorDash, the nation’s leading delivery app, had a mixed reaction to the package of legislation. It supported the bathroom-access bill but expressed concern about what it said was a last-minute change that requires delivery apps to include bathroom access for delivery workers as a provision in its contracts with restaurants.
“We will continue to work with all stakeholders, including the City Council, to identify ways to support all delivery workers in New York City without unintended consequences,” a spokesman for DoorDash said Thursday. The “unintended consequences” include the company’s concern that letting workers set parameters for the orders they accept could lead to lack of delivery in underserved areas.
A spokesman for Grubhub called the bills “commonsense steps to support the delivery workers who work hard every day for New York’s restaurants and residents.”
Uber has not returned a request for comment.