minimum wage law

A recent minimum wage law that Uber, DoorDash, along with Grubhub believe would harm the delivery business is being challenged in court by the city of New York.

A law approved by Eric Adams this past month mandates that delivery employees in New York City start receiving a minimum pay of around eighteen dollars per hour on July 12. Although several advocacy organizations welcomed the decision, the delivery services contend that the employees who are regarded as independent contractors are going to suffer.

At present, drivers receive a base wage plus a gratuity from every client for each journey. According to the new minimum wage law, delivery services have to pay drivers $17.96 every hour they are actively using the app or around fifty cents for each minute of each trip.

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In a message to the Dept. of Consumer and Worker Protection, the organization in charge of determining the minimum salary, DoorDash warned that establishing this minimum might undermine the flexible nature of delivery employment, which serves as one of the primary reasons why numerous individuals depend on the gig economy.

And some motorists concur. Two decades of delivery experience have led Alberto Mendes to conclude that the legislation offers delivery businesses more freedom to choose the schedules of their employees.

“They shouldn’t have done this,” Mendes told Insider. “Now they’ll make us work whenever they want. Even though we’re not employees, they’re going to schedule us.”

Source: businessinsider.in

However, a lot of drivers, notably the labor union Los Deliveristas Unidos, fought for minimum pay and supported recent rules that let couriers use restaurant facilities and establish delivery boundaries. To pay for the expenses of gig employment, such as car repair, petrol, tolls, and injuries, they support greater remuneration. According to a city report from 2022, workplace injuries among delivery personnel are common.

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A DoorDash spokesperson gave Insider the following comment: “Bad policies cannot go unchallenged, and we will not stand by and let the harmful impacts of this earnings standard on New York City customers, merchants, and the delivery workers it was intended to support go unchecked.”

Source: businessinsider.in

From New York City, the press statement claims that the average hourly wage for food delivery employees is presently $7.09. The city employs over 60,000 individuals who transport food, as stated by the municipal administration.