New York City lawmakers recently passed a set of bills that intend to enhance working conditions as well as to establish minimum payment amounts for businesses such as Grubhub (NASDAQ: GRUB), DoorDash (NYSE: DASH), and Uber Eats (NYSE: UBER). This will be the very first time that New York City will pass legislation that keeps the delivery industry in check, which has come under close examination throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the events surrounding Hurricane Ida.
Some of the following protections in the bills that the delivery services need to adhere to are: drivers are able to establish a maximum distance for every trip that they go on; food delivery applications are unable to charge couriers for any amount of money; drivers are able to choose whether or not they would like to take trips through bridges or tunnels; delivery services are unable to charge drivers or couriers for bags to distribute food; and so on.
"We recognize the unique challenges facing delivery workers in New York City and share the goal of identifying policies that will help Dashers and workers like them," a DoorDash spokesperson stated, quoted by TechCrunch. "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."
This set of bills was brought about with commentary from Los Deliveristas Unidos (LDU), which is a set of mostly immigrant app delivery workers that began from the Workers Justice Project. The group has been protesting for stronger working conditions during all of COVID-19.
"The bitter truth is that many food delivery workers can work 12 hours a day in the cold or rain for multiple food service apps and still not make enough to feed their own families," the LDU website says.
With the enhancement of conditions for delivery workers in New York City through the passing of various bills, there will be a general increase in compensation as well as an establishment of higher morale. In turn, this will help workers to overcome significant challenges and to give them a much stronger sense of support.