(Washington Insider Magazine) – With the news that even marijuana can be sent to homes legally and hundreds of new immigrants entering the “race” of deliveries, this workforce will have a minimum wage this year.
If in this 2023 a business structure will continue to grow in the Big Apple, it will be the requirements of shipments to digital order. Which will result in the need to employ more and more deliverists. New Yorkers increasingly want everything delivered to their doorstep. With the novelty that this year, even marijuana, may be dispatched to adults legally to their homes.
At the center of these immense business structures for shipping food, medicine, all kinds of merchandise, and now cannabis, is a labor force that is still trying to “pedal” for better salary benefits, which by law must be applied in the next few weeks. weeks.
Restaurant and prepared food deliveries alone have increased by 12 percent in New York City, after the worst of the pandemic.
“We started a year with many challenges. The industry is growing. Sectors where deliveries were not traditionally made, now they are. That is why we are fighting so that this also implies a recognition of more dignified income. And that happens by better monitoring what the large digital corporations do with tips and commerce in general,” said Ligia Guallpa, president of the Labor Justice Project.
By next February 15, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection of the city of New York (DCWP) after weeks of sessions and hearings, must establish the minimum hourly payment to deleveristas, which will begin to apply at no later than March.
The new income scale that will be made mandatory, by a local law approved in 2021, requires a minimum wage for workers of digital ordering applications such as DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEats and Relay, which until now only earned a percentage at the time. of delivery and tips.
According to the draft, released by the City, the minimum wage would start at $17.87 in 2023 and increase to $23.82 on April 1, 2025.
But this proposal was flatly rejected by the movement that supports more than 65,000 workers grouped in “United Deliveristas”, who, in addition to a starting point of $20 dollars minimum income per hour, aspire to an additional fee of $5, to cover costs of security equipment like their GPS services.
“We have had good numbers to start with, but we are going to continue promoting that given the inflation and the challenges that these workers have, the original proposal must be reviewed to achieve a fairer salary,” said Guallpa.
Right now, outside of tips, they earn between $2 and $5 per delivery trip, depending on the company.
Looking For Cargo
The Guatemalan deliverer, Jon Casado, 25, assures that they come from a very “positive” December season, because due to the cold wave, the food requirements in sectors of the Upper East Side of Manhattan skyrocketed.
“I actually had very good tips. Now we have a lot of problems, because with the news that the batteries that charge the bikes explode and cause fires, then my landlady forbade me even to have my work tool near. I have to pay for parking ”, she highlighted.
According to the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), these loading equipment was associated with 200 fires and six deaths in 2022, which means a figure that doubles this type of fatality, if compared to 2021.
Fire authorities in the Big Apple have insisted that most electric bikes and skateboards, as well as hoverboards, are powered by powerful lithium-ion batteries that store more energy and are more likely to catch fire than a typical battery.
The problem Jon faces extends to thousands of his colleagues, who often find themselves limited in finding places to safely charge their devices.
Waiting For Rest Centers
Precisely to give some “oxygen” to these workers, this year the Labor Justice Project plans to follow up on the “Street Deliveristas Hubs” project, which are nothing more than rest centers for deliverists. There they will be provided with the possibility of safely loading their equipment.
This project, which would use newsstands that are no longer in operation, was announced in October by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) and the city’s mayor, Eric Adams.
The proposed new sites, in Verdi Square (Upper West Side) and in Fordham Heights (The Bronx), would join an already announced site in City Hall Park, to turn empty newsstands into charging and resting stations.
These ‘hubs’ will be located and designed in high traffic areas. And they would be the first of their kind in the entire country. These rest stops will also provide other services for the workers, including the repair of their means of transportation.
Initially, these facilities will be pushed forward with the help of a $1 million federal grant. This money will also be used to help improve an existing service center in Williamsburg for delivery drivers.
“Our idea is that we can expand the services and include a health and safety training center in Brooklyn,” said Guallpa.
Hundreds of New Deliverers
Of the estimated 65,000 deliverists on the streets of New York City, almost all are immigrants and a large proportion are Hispanic.
With the new wave of immigrants that arrived in the Big Apple since last spring, there are also new groups of recent arrivals, mostly South Americans, who find in this industry the only immediate option to generate income.
In this scheme of hundreds of new cyclists and motorists, there are also new challenges for those who make a living from the delivery business.
For example, Mexican delivery driver Miguel Padrón, 32, has worked for a restaurant in Upper Manhattan for seven years now. Given the arrival of hundreds of “new colleagues”, he fears that more “accidents and problems” will begin to be recorded, which will cause a “bad image” for everyone.
“Everyone has the right to work. Unfortunately we are seeing how the new ones do not know the minimum rules of how to conduct themselves. They are crazy to comply quickly. They skip the sidewalks. They drive off the bike lanes. And that affects us all. For many newcomers, the police have had to fine them and retain their bicycles”, commented the immigrant.
Given this panorama, this union has drawn up that in addition to continuing to fight for better wages and job security, they intend to expand their education programs, so that in general, these workers can have useful information that ultimately becomes more security for all.
For spokespersons for the Labor Justice Project in this industry, in recent months they have been actively hiring new deliverists, many of them vulnerable, because they remain “trapped” in the need to survive, even if the work is precarious.
“It will be vital for us, in this circumstance of growth in the industry, that we manage to massify the work of education, not only of the new salary rights, but of the basic principles of road safety to avoid accidents”, remarked the activist.
‘Deliveries’ of Marijuana With Limits
Whether by bike, car or scooter, New Yorkers will soon be able to have cannabis products delivered to their doorstep, under a new delivery model recently regulated by the New York Office of Cannabis Management.
The state’s first retail dispensary licensees interested in making delivery sales can now receive agency approval to transport marijuana products from New York to customers.
In this case, they will be required to verify that the purchaser is 21 years of age or older. Customers must also show identification confirming their age at the time of delivery.
Deliveries will only go to locations within New York. While deliveries may be made to customers in residential properties and businesses, deliveries to public buildings, public spaces, community centers, school grounds, day care centers, and places of worship are not permitted.
The distributors can travel on foot or by bicycle, skateboard or vehicle, according to the regulations. Each licensee may not employ more than 25 full-time drivers.
The long road to a minimum wage
In the midst of a career of difficulties that worsened even more during the pandemic, these workers created the ‘United Deliveristas’ movement, achieving the support of the Municipal Council, which in September 2021 approved a legislative package that is already entering its 2023 third phase.
This has meant that corporations that own online food ordering apps like Uber Eats, Seamless, Grubhub, and DoorDash have had to change how they engage with this workforce.
Since last January 24, licensed applications must inform workers of the tip for each delivery, the total payment and the tips of the previous day.
And since April 22, the applications are required to offer options and facilities for deliveries, to avoid long delivery distances, in addition to minimum payment standards, without commissions, for withdrawing your money and the restaurants that work with the Apps must allow them to use their restrooms.
Now as the last stop on this tour, this workers’ organization will stand strong, to demand a minimum income that starts at $20 per hour.
Deliverers in NYC:
65,000 delivery people according to the latest records are estimated to be in New York. this figure may have risen in recent months.
85% of this workforce is dedicated solely to this activity, according to a recent survey conducted by Cornell University.
$15 an hour is the minimum wage in NY, but many deliverers earn on average less than $7.87.
54% of deliverists have experienced theft of parts from their vehicles.
30% have been stripped of their electric motorcycles and bicycles.
42% of the deliverists state that they do not have confidence in the payments of the Apps.
This article is authored by Fernando Martinez.
