Getting food delivered in New York is simple. For the workers who do it, getting paid is not
A wage law in New York City meant to protect food delivery workers is getting backlash from app companies like Uber, GrubHub and DoorDash
NEW YORK — New Yorkers place over 100 million food delivery orders each year via a very simple process: press a few buttons on an app and it’s in their hands in about 30 minutes.
For the delivery workers, the process is anything but simple. And it has only become more complex since the city instituted a new wage formula designed to guarantee they make at least $18 an hour. Some of the biggest app platforms, who opposed the change, responded by limiting workers' hours, making it more difficult for customers to tip, and changing how pay is calculated from week to week.
That's left workers like Greiber Pineda scrambling to navigate opaque changes.
Pineda initially earned so much from Uber Eats under the new wage system that when a snowstorm hit New York City in January, he was motivated to work 11 1/2 hours straight, shuttling 37 meals on his moped “through the cold, the snow, everything." A few days later, the app changed its pay system — sending him around $200 instead of the $300 he expected.
“When we got paid we were up in the air, like ‘What happened here?’” Pineda, of Brooklyn, said in Spanish.
Frustrated, Pineda now spends more time on side hustles. On a recent weekday morning, he sold coffee and arepas to fellow delivery workers from Venezuela and Colombia outside a Chick-fil-A across the road from Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena. Nearby, two workers from Guinea changed the oil on a scooter while others from Latin America, China and Turkmenistan picked up orders for apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash. The city estimates that, like Pineda, 39% of delivery workers speak
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