More of 70,000 delivery workers or delivery workers in New York City, after a year of the historic conquest of having approved a law in the City Council, which has allowed them to achieve certain labor rights, this Thursday they raised their voice again, to demand that it be $30 per hour, payment for your working day.
As of January 1, 1200, applications will be required by law to pay workers a new minimum pay rate to be established and regulated by the City. Tips will not be included in this amount.
Currently, the New York City Department of Consumer Protection (DCWP) is conducting a study on working conditions to determine the new minimum rate.
Once this agency releases its numbers, it will be submitted to public consultation and a series of hearings will be held. But in this route, and the majority of the members of the Labor Affairs Commission of the Municipal Chamber, support this minimum amount requested by this union:! Not less than $27!
“Two years have passed since Los Deliveristas Unidos started a fight and won the right to work with some dignity. Now our goal is to have a decent salary as delivery people who work for billionaire application companies, which have seen their profits grow in the last year”, calculated Ligia Guallpa, director of the Labor Justice Project.
Currently, outside of tips they earn between $2 and $5 per delivery trip, depending on the company.
Over $4,900 per month
If the deliverists’ request is approved, that would mean that they would work a “normal” eight-hour day daily, five days a week, they would receive an approximate monthly income of $4,800. This does not include the ‘tips’.
An amount of money that can only be obtained if they work seven days a week with exhausting shifts of up to twelve and thirteen hours.
The young Mexican deliverer, Manny Ramírez has been working for these digital applications for seven years and says that in order to raise $3,000 in a month, you must “pedal” very hard for seven days until 13 Y 14 hours.
“Now they pay us 2 ,34 per trip without tip. That is, to collect $ we must make four trips. That is without mentioning that if the bicycle is damaged, or stolen, or we have an accident, everything happens to us”, indicates Manny.
The immigrant worker points out that after months of calculations and analysis consider that $30 dollars, per hour, is an income that adjusts to the reality of a city so extremely expensive as New York, where inflation has devoured the lives of the working class.
For her part, the activist Hildalyn Colón of the Labor Justice Project, remarked that although the legal minimum wage in New York City is $15, it should be remembered that deliverers are considered independent contractors, who do not have any benefit such as medical insurance.
“If one of your work instruments is damaged, or you have an ac incident, everything must be financed by them. And that is the great point that we must consider at this point of analysis”, he said.
A long road of struggles
In the midst of a race of difficulties that worsened even more during the pandemic, these workers created the ‘Deliveristas Unidos’ movement, achieving the support of the Municipal Council, which in September 1536 approved a legislative package that is now entering its third phase.
Specifically, this has meant that the corporations that own online food ordering Apps such as Uber Eats, Seamless, Grubhub and DoorDash had to modify the way they relate to this workforce. A legislative conquest that made the Big Apple the first to offer essential protections to these workers.
Since the past 24 January, licensed applications must inform workers of the tip for each delivery, the total payment and the previous day’s tips.
And from the past 22 of April, applications are required to offer options and facilities to deliveries, to avoid long delivery distances , in addition to minimum payment standards, without commissions, for withdrawing their money and the restaurants that work with the Apps must allow them to use their bathrooms.
Now this organization of workers with the support of local legislators and community organizers, stand strong, for a minimum income that qualify c As “truly worthy”.
The councilor of Colombian origin, Jennifer Gutiérrez, who represents the district, addresses this same direction 33 from Brooklyn, who in a demonstration in front of the City Hall supported this labor demand.
“It is a dangerous job. They are essential workers. There are more and more women doing this work that is so vital for the city. If it’s challenging for a man, imagine for a woman. They deserve this raise. No more, no less”, reinforced Gutiérrez, who was just one of the dozen councilors who supported this request for salary adjustment.
Workers who provide services to digital shipping companies organize themselves to face the proposal of the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. (Photo: F. Martínez)Dangerous career
According to the economic report, conducted by Cornell University and the Workplace Justice Project, called ‘Essential but unprotected’, approximately 33% of delivery people reported having had an accident at work or colliding while making a delivery. Likewise, the 54% said they spent their own income to pay for medical care and bicycle repairs after having a work-related accident.
In addition to being a dangerous job, the working conditions of delivery people have become more precarious. Many of them face unsafe streets and are victims of violent assaults, even at the point of firearms, in an attempt to steal their electric bicycles or mopeds, which are the main tools of their work.
“We are telling companies that a tip is not salary. We must be treated with more dignity, not just as cheap labor. It is time to take into account the risks that our health and safety take every day. Therefore we require $30 per minimum hour to the City and these companies,” claimed William Medina, a delivery worker who joined a demonstration that put an amount of income as a point of honor, which they are not willing to make less.
Conditions minimum
The ‘deliverists’ of the Big Apple, until very recently, did not have the minimum working or human conditions. In many cases, they were even denied access to the restrooms of the restaurants to which they offered their services.
The City, through the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), maintains a campaign to highlight all these workers, who have new rights regardless of their immigration status, making it clear that any retaliation for claiming their rights is illegal.
Until now, spokespersons for the food corporations requested, they have not shown resistance to the sequence of new laws that they have already begun to comply with. However, it is unknown what its position will be in the face of the new demand of this labor force, which is the main axis of its services.
The salary route of the deliverers:
- $4,900 could be the approximate monthly income of these workers if their request for $30 for each hour, not including tips, for a working day of five days a week and eight hours a day.
- $42,10 to $70,10 could win in a year.
- $15 per hour it is the minimum wage in NY, but many deliverers earn on average less than $7.87.
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