Los Deliveristas Unidos
Los Deliveristas Unidos (LDU) organizes and advocates for app-based delivery workers in New York City. NYC’s 65,000 app-based delivery workers transport billions of dollars of goods each year yet do not benefit from minimum wage or workplace safety protections because they are classified as independent contractors.
LDU is innovating models to ensure fair wages, safe working conditions, bike and micro-mobility infrastructure, education, and pathways to unionization for these workers who power this growing segment of NYC’s economy. Through these efforts, LDU aims to build a strong and united community of delivery workers, where their voices are heard, and their contributions are valued. We strive to create a more sustainable and fair delivery industry that respects the rights and dignity of all workers involved.
Minimum Pay
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery app workers found themselves continually exposed to dangerous working conditions including hazardous weather, traffic crimes, and unsafe roads, all while providing essential groceries and medicine to New Yorkers forced to shelter in place. Unjustifiably low pay rates (averaging $7.09/hour at the time) for such work galvanized workers to organize and fight for more.
Over the summer of 2023, we started our Customers Delivering Justice campaign with a More Perfect Union. Our goal was to highlight the struggles of delivery app workers, let New Yorkers know there was a socially responsible way to order from delivery apps, and pressure the Adams Administration to pass a minimum pay mandate for workers. As a result of this outreach, over 1,600 customers, supporters, and allies sent letters in support of minimum pay implementation to Mayor Eric Adams. The Mayor couldn’t help but respond to our pressure, eventually passing a historic minimum pay mandate in June – the first of its kind in the country!
Under the new minimum pay law, app delivery companies must pay delivery workers in the city at least $17.96 per hour plus tips.
In response to our victory, UberEats, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Relay filed a lawsuit against the City of New York with the goal of reversing the minimum pay mandate, putting implementation of the law on hold and preventing workers from earning a livable wage.
On August 3 our trial against the apps kicked off with a rally organized by WJP. It took several months, an attempt by the app companies to appeal an initial ruling in our favor, and the help of our allies to submit an amicus brief demanding immediate implementation, but we secured minimum pay for Deliveristas in November 2023!
WJP’s research
Published in 2021, this report contains the findings from a research project examining the conditions of delivery workers engaged by digital platforms to deliver restaurant food orders in New York City. The research was conducted in partnership between the Workers’ Justice Project and The Worker Institute of Cornell University’s ILR School.
Published in 2024, this report details the ongoing struggle of App-based delivery workers and their vital role in New York’s restaurant industry. It contains a number of recommendations for road safety, pay and tip transparency, data security, and expanded labor protections for app-based workers.