orkers are treated as they bring food to New Yorkers
Caribbean Life, NOV. 26-DEC. 2, 2021 27
injured by cars while riding through
the streets, and their electric bicycles
— which can cost up to $2,000 – are
often the target of violent thefts. Last
month, 51-year-old Sala Uddin Bablu,
who was working for Grubhub, was
murdered while sitting in a lower Manhattan
park during a shift.
Manny Ramirez, a delivery worker
and organizer with LDU, helped his
fellow workers fix their brake pads and
make other repairs on their bicycles at
a vigil and bike tune-up on Tuesday. He
was assaulted twice this year, he said,
once violently.
He immediately called LDU’s policy
director Hildalyn Colón Hernández and
the police, he said, who came immediately
to take a report. In the past –
before the Deliveristas had gained so
much attention — it was hard to be
taken seriously.
“Calling 911 for any emergency, they
never came,” he said. “If they did come,
they refused to write a report.”
Protections for workers
The biggest accomplishment,
though, has been the passage of a
package of bills promising more protections
in the city council, including
requiring companies to provide their
delivery workers with the insulated
bags they need for delivery, mandating
that restaurants allow gig workers to
use their restrooms, allowing delivery
workers to set limits for how far they
are willing to go to make a delivery,
and providing a clear breakdown to
customers of how their tips were being
distributed.
“There’s gonna be improved enforcement
next year, but it helps, it helps,”
Ramirez said, of the bills. “Baby steps,
little by little.”
From their inception, some of the
apps have abided by the rules set by the
council bills, providing gear, paying at
least minimum wage to their employees,
and, in some cases, providing a
breakdown of tip distribution on the
apps. Given the small delivery radius
of each dark store, riders have shorter
routes back and forth.
Josh, an organizer and delivery
worker with LDU who asked not to use
his last name, said he has met some
people who work with quick-commerce
apps. Many of the struggles are the
same, he said, but “it’s a different job.”
“They get their own bikes, they get a
more stable wage than we do,” he said.
“The Gorillas bike is supplied by the
company, a lot less likely to get stolen
because they are tracked.”
But just being an employee, rather
than a contractor, doesn’t guarantee
better treatment, Colón said.
“I think that is a false promise,”
she said. “You’re part-time, or you’re
earning minimum wage. But the work
that they do, they should be earning
even more. Just the idea that they
are employees doesn’t mean that they
don’t deal with issues of disqualifications,
non-transparency, tips that get
stolen.”
When delivery is slow or items are
damaged, it’s the delivery worker who
takes the brunt of the customer’s
unhappiness, she said, not the company.
Gorillas workers in Berlin, where
the company was founded, were fired
last month after taking part in wildcat
strikes calling for better treatment,
saying workers are often underpaid
and are not provided with appropriate
weather gear. German newspaper
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
reported that many Gorillas workers
work on contracts, not as employees,
and that many are injured on the
job while carrying heavy deliveries up
apartment staircases.
The Gorillas Workers Collective
have posted photos of broken bicycles
and screenshots they say show long
hours worked and more than 50 miles
covered by bike in a single day.
It’s unclear whether the council bills
apply to the new grocery delivery apps,
since they are not third party and are
by and large working with employees
rather than contractors.
“I think they don’t qualify on those
grounds, on not being a third-party
service,” a Council staffer said. “I think
the language in the bills is individually
portioned food. If you’re not delivering
for something more like a restaurant
or a deli, even, then those services may
not be covered even if they were a third
party.”
Having the laws on the books may
influence companies to adopt the policies
even if they don’t apply, the staffer
said.
“They may be worried the public will
see those things as best practices they
ought to be following, they may also be
concerned that legislation may come
down the pipe if we start having problems
with them, stuff like that.”
Ultimately, Colón said, “there’s no
minimum” for how delivery workers
should be treated, regardless of the
company they deliver for and the status
of their employment. The conversation,
she said, has only just started.
“It cannot be a race to the bottom,”
Colón said. “It has to be a race to the
top. It’s about the people. All of the
technologies you will see doesn’t matter
if you just click a button. There’s
human beings doing this, it doesn’t
just happen.”
JOKR rider Chris is getting ready to deliver groceries. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann