During this summer of heat, smoke, and flash flooding, food delivery workers have been braving the streets to bring New Yorkers our food. Biblical weather isn’t delivery workers’ only challenge, though: their pay in New York City averages around $7 per hour without tips, and there’s a high rate of workplace fatalities, after which survivors generally get little or no help from the apps.
It was welcome news, then, that New York City in June set a rule establishing a pay floor for delivery workers of $17.96 per hour, a rate that would land workers around minimum wage, accounting for expenses, unpaid wait time, and other factors. This rule was passed pursuant to a hard-fought law sought by a worker group, Los Deliveristas Unidos.
Several corporations, including Uber, DoorDash, and GrubHub, swiftly filed lawsuits to stop the July 12 effective date. These apps, it should be noted, don’t follow workplace laws like every other employer; they treat their workers as independent businesses and not as employees (they’ve been sued for this by the attorneys general of California and Massachusetts). The apps should have counted themselves lucky that they were expected only to pay a better wage.
Instead, the corporations’ court filings raise countless objections to the city’s analysis in setting the pay rate. (My favorite: the apps will suffer “reputational harm” because of the rule, as though it’s reputationally helpful to underpay a highly visible workforce that New Yorkers can...
A slew of NYPD officers recounted on Sunday horror stories from their careers in which they say they were falsely accused of sexual misconduct and, despite being exonerated, had the allegations sh...