Food Delivery Workers’ Working Conditions Improved Through New Bill

The New York City Council took an aggressive step to improve working conditions for food delivery workers by passing a package of 6 bills that seek to improve pay, guarantee bathroom access, and limit the distance workers must travel. Since the beginning of the pandemic, bars and restaurants have faced a plethora of restrictions and third-party delivery apps such as Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats have exploded in popularity. However, they have also created challenges for both the establishments that utilize their services as well as the people who make the deliveries. Recently, the Council passed a bill which imposes a permanent 15 percent cap on food delivery apps.

The package related to delivery workers:

• Establishes disclosure of gratuity policies for delivery workers.
• Requires third-party food delivery services and third-party courier services to provide workers with insulated food delivery bags, and authorizes the commissioner of the department of consumer and worker protection to deny, suspend, revoke
• Establishes general provisions related to working conditions for third-party service workers and requiring that third-party food delivery services permit delivery workers to set limitations on distance and route for deliveries.
• Establishes minimum per trip payments to third-party food delivery service and third-party courier service workers.
• Establishes standards for payment of food delivery workers.
• Requires agreements between third-party food delivery services and food service establishments and the provision of toilet facility access to delivery workers.
• Creates limitations on distance and route for food delivery workers.

Frustratingly, something that is excluded from this package but is also of vital importance is licensing and insurance requirements for e bikes. The utter disregard for traffic laws shown by these delivery workers has led to chaos in New York City streets. Perhaps the limitations on distance will improve this but the drivers should be licensed operators and since they are engaged in a commercial activity should be required to carry some level of liability insurance.

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