City Council Passes "Groundbreaking Package Of Legislation" To Help Food Delivery Workers

The City Council passed a slate of bills on Thursday to improve some of the harsh conditions faced by the city's 65,000+ food delivery workers.

The six bills will establish minimum payments required for delivery workers, and allow workers to set a maximum distance per trip that they will travel, including parameters they can set around bridges or tunnels. They will stop apps from charging workers fees to receive their pay and require workers be paid at least once a week. One bill will force apps to disclose their tipping policies and make them more transparent to workers; another will stop apps from charging delivery workers for insulated bags, which can cost up to $50. And one will require that restaurants allow workers to use their bathrooms.

"Having access to bathrooms is a human right everyone should have," Manny Ramirez, 34, a deliver worker based in Morningside Heights, said during a press conference on Thursday morning.

Following the passage, councilmember Carlos Menchaca sent out a statement about the "groundbreaking package of legislation," saying, “Today we made history by passing critical pieces of legislation... we finally brought justice to delivery workers. The fight is not over, however. We will continue to fight for their safety in our city and their rights through the implementation of our legislative package."

"My instinct is to say I can't believe this day has finally come, but the reality is I can," said councilmember Carlina Rivera, who sponsored the bathroom bill and has worked on the package of bills for almost two years.

"This battle has been hard-fought, and the fact I can say this is just a few short months after [the bills'] introduction is a testament to the fierce organizing power and investment of the city's Deliveristas," she added. "You risked your lives and your livelihoods during the pandemic to keep New Yorkers fed and the city afloat. Maybe it did take some very tragic moments to get to this moment—waist-deep floodwaters and a pandemic—but this victory is yours, we know how vital you are to this city, we know workers deserve dignity and respect."

Despite being celebrated as "essential workers," the problems and insufficiencies plaguing the industry became especially acute during the pandemic.

According to a damning survey released last week, delivery app workers routinely earn low wages well below New York's minimum wage, lack basic labor and employment protections, and face dangerous working conditions on the streets of NYC, including crashes, bike thefts, and physical assaults.

Excluding tips—which are a "highly unstable" but essential form of income for them—the survey found the median hourly wage for delivery workers in New York City is $7.94. Even including tips, the hourly net pay is $12.21, below NY's $15 minimum wage. In addition, about 42% of respondents said they experienced non-paying or underpayment of tips, late payments or non-payments of an entire week's earnings.

“We shouldn’t have needed a pandemic, or a hurricane, for us to recognize that Deliveristas are essential workers who deserve essential rights," said councilmember Brad Lander, who sponsored the minimum pay legislation. "The organizing of Deliveristas and the hardships of this year have galvanized action to demand better pay, safety, and working conditions for workers who have been excluded from traditional labor protections."

Among the major delivery apps—Grubhub, Doordash and UberEats—only Grubhub had come out in favor of the legislation.

The bills have had the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said during his press conference this morning, "This legislation is important. Delivery workers have gone through so much in this crisis. All working people have and anything we can do to lighten the burden to make their lives a little easier to help them recover, we want to do, I know the City Council feels that strongly. We've been working together on this legislation, and I look forward to supporting it."

Some advocates say they hope this framework can be used in other cities around the country to protect workers' rights.

Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said that though these bills are a step in the right direction, there is more work to be done to help delivery workers.

“The protections being considered address basic needs app-based workers must have for some level of dignity on the job," she said. "From here, we need to move into a policy debate where we develop a local and statewide regulatory framework that gives app-based workers the rights to negotiate work arrangements with employers.

“App companies have anchored their business model on the independent contractor premise, thereby shifting the costs of operations and safety net protections to the workers, consumers and, ultimately, to the broader society," she continued. "Failure to regulate these applications and failure by policymakers to define who has responsibility in this gig/independent contractor model is leaving workers across the platform economy without basic human and worker rights protections.”

In July, the City Council voted to extend a cap that was imposed on third-party delivery apps during the pandemic of 15% for deliveries and 5% for other services, such as marketing. The cap had been set to expire in August, and would have allowed apps to charge commission as high as 30-35% combined, depending on services.

That cap was supported by Los Deliveristas Unidos, the collective of mostly immigrant food couriers fighting for labor rights. That group is part of the Worker’s Justice Project, and has been holding rallies all year and pushing lawmakers to pass these bills to improve working conditions.

Earlier this month, Grubhub, DoorDash, and UberEats announced a lawsuit challenging those permanent fee cap on delivery services, arguing "the fee cap limits the ability of delivery services to share the cost of delivery with restaurants, leaving consumers, drivers and delivery apps with the tab."

Last week, Doordash also filed a separate lawsuit against the city claiming a new law requiring food delivery platforms to share customer data with restaurants violates their customers’ right to privacy.