Food delivery apps DoorDash and Grubhub filed suit Thursday seeking an emergency ruling to block a city-mandated wage hike for drivers set to take effect next week, new court papers show.
The controversial pay hike slated for July 12 is part of the City Council’s 2021 mandate on minimum hourly wages for food app delivery drivers.
Under a new plan pushed by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, drivers must get paid a minimum of $17.96 an hour — and by April 1, 2025, when the plan is fully phased-in, the minimum hourly pay will be $19.96 an hour. The apps can choose to pay per trip, hours worked or whatever formula that equals an average pay of the minimum wage,
But the food delivery apps argue the plan could amount to their drivers getting paid as much as $33.27 an hour for time spent on an active delivery; they’re suing the agency to block the hike from taking effect.
The apps called the pay raise “onerous” and said it “threatens to single out and punish” DoorDash and Grubhub — and also threatens the industry as consumers will likely have to pay $5.18 more per order, which will hurt restaurants and ultimately hurt the drivers who would wind up with less business, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit Thursday.
The hike would “reconfigure the nature of this industry, and squelch innovation and flexibility, by imposing onerous minimum-pay requirements in the name of worker protection — likely harming the very workers they purport to protect,” the suit charges.
The delivery services say the way the city calculated the pay raise was flawed, and also claimed it didn’t properly explain its reasoning.
“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,” a DoorDash spokesperson said.
“We – and others – clearly and repeatedly warned the city that using such a flawed process to underpin its rulemaking would have lasting and harmful impacts for all New Yorkers who use these platforms, but the approach that DCWP took was sadly not one that reflected this, and has left us no choice but to take our concerns to court,” the statement concluded.
The suit wants a temporary restraining order to block the July 12 hike from taking effect — at least until the entire case is decided. Ultimately the delivery app giants want to overturn the pay hike.
The suit says the food delivery apps are in support of fair pay for drivers but claim a new formula should be used to determine what the minimum pay should be.
“Delivery workers, like all workers, deserve fair pay for their labor, and we are disappointed that Uber, DoorDash, GrubHub, and Relay disagree,” Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga said in a statement.
“The minimum pay rate will help uplift thousands of working New Yorkers and their families out of poverty,” the commissioner said. “We look forward to the court’s decision and to apps beginning to pay these workers a dignified rate starting July 12th.”
https://nypost.com/2023/07/06/food-delivery-apps-doordash-grubhub-to-block-driver-wage-hike-lawsuit/
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