New York City began charging its first minimum wage for delivery workers via apps on Monday, ushering in a long-awaited shift in how popular platforms like Uber, Grubhub and DoorDash operate.
The city set a minimum rate of $19.96 an hour on Sunday, with plans to fully implement the new standard by April 1, 2025. With some app-based delivery workers across the city relying primarily on tips for their living, earning an average of $7.09 American. Per hour, advocates say the new rule is a step in the right direction.
said Ligia Gualpa, director of the Workers’ Justice Project in New York, who helped lead advocacy efforts for a minimum wage.
The city said in a news release that the mandate, which took effect Monday, would start at $17.96 an hour, increase to the record level by the 2025 deadline and adjust annually for inflation. As long as delivery apps pay workers the minimum rate on average, they have the option to pay per trip, per hour worked, or develop their own formulas.
Delivery workers have long been essential to the city’s health and safety, especially during a pandemic, Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday in announcing the measures.
“The ones I saw during the Covid years, when people were able to hunker down where they are, and the reason they were able to hunker down where they are is because these men and women were giving them food and services,” he said. “We had two New Yorkers: those who were able to stay home and those who created the environment so I could stay home. We owe them a debt of gratitude. They handed it over to us. Now we’re giving to them. It’s the right thing to do, and we’re proud of it.” “.
This announcement comes after years of advocacy by local community organizations and delivery workers. on 65,000 delivery workers across the apps, often immigrants from South and East Asia, Latin America, and Africa, work in the city. However, they were considered independent contractors, excluded from worker protections and exempt from minimum wage requirements. While the city passed a package of protections for delivery workers in 2021, the Adams administration missed a January deadline to implement them.
Recent discussions about delivery worker safety and wages were further highlighted by Canadian wildfire smoke that blanketed much of the East Coast last week, causing air quality in the city to be the worst in the world on Wednesday, and triggering warnings in all five boroughs. . Many delivery workers previously said they couldn’t miss a day’s work, especially because tips are higher during inclement weather.
“If you’re outside for long periods of time, you’ll feel your breathing become more difficult. It’s starting to hurt,” a Brooklyn-based delivery worker, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said in Mandarin with an NBC News translation. Like cigarette smoke. The more you go out, the more your throat hurts.”
“The Adams administration is in the process of finalizing a rule that will ensure delivery workers receive fair wages,” a city council spokesperson said in response to an inquiry Wednesday.
Sunday’s minimum wage announcement was not well received by some apps, such as DoorDash, which called the rule “misleadingHe argued that it could lead to fewer opportunities for delivery workers, pricing more customers out of orders and impacting jobs at local restaurants. The company will “continue to explore all paths forward — including litigation,” a DoorDash spokesperson said in a statement.
“Today’s deeply misleading decision by the DCWP ignores the unintended consequences it will cause and will unfortunately undermine the delivery workers it seeks to support,” said the spokesperson, referring to the city’s Department of Consumer and Labor Protection. “We hope we can find a way forward that will allow us to continue to best serve communities throughout New York City.”
The Workers’ Justice Project is leading an awareness campaign aimed at ensuring that delivery workers know their rights and understand the new minimum wage rate. Guallpa said much of her organization’s work will involve “making sure that we teach, regulate, and enforce the minimum wage rate.”
“We still need to fight for more protections, such as fighting disruption and wage theft…and also making sure there is the right infrastructure for the industry to do that work and sustainable transportation,” said Gualpa.
Last year, Seattle went through similarly legislation That has not yet gone into effect to pay the city’s minimum wage to delivery workers and provide other benefits. In April, Mayor Bruce Harrell signed on Another law Providing paid sick leave for temporary workers in companies with more than 250 workers. This law went into effect last month.
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