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      New York City delivery workers win rights to better tips, bathrooms and more

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      Gig economyNew York City delivery workers win rights to better tips, bathrooms and moreA package of bills targeting app-based companies such as Grubhub and Doordash will also set minimum pay Kari PaulThu 23 Sep 2021 21.14 EDTLast modified on Thu 23 Sep 2021 21.31 EDTNew York City lawmakers have passed a historic package of bills to improve labor conditions for gig economy and food delivery workers.The first of its kind legislation, which targets app-based delivery companies such as Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Doordash, will set minimum pay, allow workers to keep more of their tips, and limit how far workers can be asked to travel for deliveries. It will also guarantee workers access to bathrooms – an issue that has long plagued people in the gig economy and has been exacerbated by Covid-19 restrictions.City council speaker Corey Johnson, speaking in a press conference following the vote on Thursday, said the package would give workers the “rights they deserve” and inspire future legislation.‘I don’t like being treated like crap’: gig workers aim to retool a system they say is riggedRead more“New York will now be the first city in the country to make sure delivery workers are not exploited – to make sure people are treated with dignity and respect, that they get their wages, and that they are not exploited by these multibillion dollar corporations,” he said.The legislation was written in collaboration with Los Deliveristas Unidos (LDU), a collective of mostly-immigrant app delivery workers that have long pushed for living wages, bathroom access, and the right to organize.It comes as Covid-19 has increased consumer reliance on delivery services, causing the sector to grow exponentially in the past year. Uber Eats, the food delivery segment of the ride-hailing company Uber, grew by 190% in 2020, adding 36,000 couriers in New York City alone.But the growing army of workers found themselves on the front lines of a pandemic with no health benefits and little job security. Many complain they are unable to access bathrooms and often cannot see or access the tips that customers add to orders.Excluding tips, the median hourly wage for delivery workers in New York City was $7.94 in 2020 according to a study from the Worker’s Justice Project. The hourly net pay when including tips was still below New York’s $15 minimum wage, at an average of $12.21.A spokesman from Grubhub said the company supported the bills, calling them “common-sense steps to support the delivery workers who work hard every day for New York’s restaurants and residents”.“Ensuring they receive a living wage and have access to restrooms isn’t just a good idea – it’s the right thing to do,” he said. DoorDash has also expressed support of the legislation.Cities are increasingly cracking down on the gig economy. Chicago sued food delivery apps in August for misleading consumers, restaurants, and workers – including “using consumer tips to pay itself rather than its drivers”. In June, San Francisco voted to cap delivery app fees charged to restaurants at 15%.But some of the companies targeted by these efforts are also fighting back. California in 2020 passed a law entitling drivers to benefits and better pay, which industry giants such as Uber quickly countered with their own bill exempting themselves from the legislation. Uber now plans to appeal after that bill, Prop 22, was ruled unconstitutional in August.Workers themselves are also making their own efforts, demanding the benefits afforded to full-time employees including better pay and the right to organize.Starting this week, contractors at Instacart have called on customers to boycott the app as they demand better working conditions. In June, Uber and Lyft drivers participated in a day-long strike to demand the right to organize.Worker advocates say the New York bills are a good start but do not address some broader concerns about the gig economy in the US, and that more comprehensive legislation on a national scale is needed.“This is an excellent step in the right direction, but I am concerned that a piecemeal approach to addressing these serious issues is going to take the wind out of the movement towards basic employment rights for these workers,” said Veena Dubal, a professor of employment law at University of California, Hastings.She added that delivery workers are at a very high risk of injury and should be entitled to workers’ compensation and healthcare when they are hurt on the job.“This is better than nothing in the short term, but lawmakers should not think by passing these bills they are doing enough,” she said.TopicsGig economyNew YorkUS politicsWorkers’ rightsnewsReuse this content More

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      California passes landmark bill targeting Amazon’s algorithm-driven rules

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      CaliforniaCalifornia passes landmark bill targeting Amazon’s algorithm-driven rulesThe legislation would require warehouses to disclose to government agencies the quotas used to track workers Kari PaulFri 10 Sep 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 10 Sep 2021 07.58 EDTCalifornia has passed a landmark bill taking aim at Amazon and the controversial, algorithm-driven rules that govern the lives of its warehouse workers.The first-of-its-kind law was passed by the state senate this week and will soon land on the desk of Governor Gavin Newsom, who has not yet signaled whether he will sign it.Under the bill, warehouses will be required to disclose to government agencies – and to the employees – the quotas and metrics used to track workers. It would ban penalties for “time off-task”, which discourage workers from using the bathroom or taking other necessary breaks. It also prohibits retaliation against workers who complain.Amazon warehouse workers could get second vote on forming unionRead moreThough the bill applies to all warehouse jobs in California, its passage has called attention to Amazon, where workers have described brutal conditions under which productivity metrics are key and every move is surveilled. Some have even reported having to urinate in bottles on the job to avoid being penalized for taking time to use the bathroom.“Amazon is really kind of an outlier at this point in terms of the sophistication of their technologies,” said Beth Gutelius, a research director at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development.Workers at the tech behemoth live in fear of being fired for being marked as having too much “time off-task” or working too slowly, said Yesenia Barrera, a former Amazon warehouse worker who now organizes with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a non-profit workers’ rights group“It is really stressful and physically demanding to keep up,” she said. “They never tell us how much we are doing, you are never really sure how well you are doing – we are just told to keep going.”She said she first found out she was being tracked when she injured herself on the job and her manager was able to see through the scanning technology that she had stopped working. Amazon has a rate of injury that is 80% higher than that of non-Amazon warehouses, according to a recent report by a coalition of labor unions.“This bill would show workers how much they are doing and create a standard that is going to lessen injuries,” Barrera said.The bill is a “good start” in addressing the new paradigm of labor and surveillance, said Christian Castro, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Allowing workers to see their own productivity statistics “puts the power back into worker hands”, he said.“At the end of the day, this is about safety,” he said. “People should be able to go to work and come home safely.”The law comes as Amazon is increasingly facing pressure to address concerns about its warehouse conditions. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest US labor groups, voted in June to make unionizing Amazon employees one of its top priorities after a separate unionization effort in Alabama failed after intense pressure from Amazon.Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, has in the past acknowledged some of the criticisms, saying in a letter to shareholders in April, “We need to do a better job for our employees.” Amazon did not respond to request for comment about the new law.Gutelius said that if the law is passed, she believed Amazon would only apply the changes to its California warehouses. But she was hopeful the law would put pressure on other states and federal legislature to do the same.“This is something that should really should be addressed across the country,” she said. “This bill will put pressure on our national policymakers to address the question of how we’re guiding workplaces into the 21st century.”TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsAmazonWorkers’ rightsnewsReuse this content More