Welcome back to Cheddars, news wrap.
Since the start of the pandemic, more Americans are ordering their food online,
the food delivery market making up 9% of the total market before the pandemic
now projected to grow to 21% by 2025 or
$42 billion. And behind every order there is a delivery worker that brings the food
sometimes under harsh conditions for very little pay here in new york city.
Landmark bills were passed that will create basic rights for the 65,000
app based food delivery workers
joining me now is new york city comptroller brad lander controller.
Well, welcome to the show. Such a pleasure to talk to you sir.
Can you walk us through some of the key protections this new law will provide
for the workers and why it's so important to provide them in the first place.
Absolutely Hannah, thank you so much for having me.
Oh, this is my first time on cheddar. So I'm really honored to be here.
As you said during the pandemic, there was a dramatic expansion,
more than doubling of food deliveries and
that means that those delivery workers who
in new york city are riding bike 65,000 of them working at least five,
many of them six or seven days a week were frontline essential workers,
but they had very little pay or protections,
they weren't allowed by many restaurants to use the bathroom,
I don't even know how much they're getting in tips, don't even get the minimum wage.
So new york city council passed a package of laws, they go into effect some this week,
some in april and the big one for minimum pay. Next january.
Um so this week,
what that means is food delivery workers can use the
bathroom in any restaurant so they can at least,
you know,
have a little bit of dignity and they start seeing how much they're getting in tips.
You know, you might have tipped that delivery worker,
but they might not never have known that it was coming to them.
So that changes this week.
So it's a really strong package of laws, as you said,
it's not always easy for us to remember that there are
human beings behind the food that gets delivered to our doors,
but we must make sure that they've got
a living wage and the protections that all workers
and especially essential workers in this pandemic really
need and deserve controller just using the bathroom.
I didn't know that was an issue. These are basic human rights.
I'm so glad we're talking about this.
As you well know, New york city is the largest food delivery market in the country.
How are these new regulations received both by
the workers and those food ordering companies?
The giants like Grubhub and Doordash.
Yeah, well the workers are the ones who organized and fought to win this.
I think a lot of new Yorkers didn't know just like you and when I started,
just like me didn't even know this was happening, but they organized a big union,
an organization called last delivery stas unidos?
And then they said, look at us, we're human beings,
we're out here in the freezing cold in the rain, we're delivering your food,
we're not being treated well or fairly.
And it was an amazing movement.
They led a march from Times Square down to City Hall
on the day of our hearing at the city hall.
They rode on their bikes around the city hall six times for the
six bills in the package that they were pushing us to pass.
And so they are of course thrilled.
We had a big celebration over the weekend with Senator Schumer and AOC and
the bill sponsors on your question about how the apps themselves are reacting.
Um,
I have to say it's a mixed bag grubhub
actually welcomed the legislation and said they recognize they need
to do better by their delivery stas but doordash
unfortunately has actually been pushing back against the legislation.
You know, what that says to me is if we put regulation in place,
we can have innovation and convenience,
but also have basic pay and protections and dignities for workers and what
we want are those companies that are going to step up and do it
as both of us alluded to.
We know food delivery companies did record breaking business during the pandemic.
According to the Wall Street Journal and you mentioned this before,
they're not making any money.
Sometimes they don't even know they're being tipped.
How do you make sure they're not cutting corners because of these new rules
to negatively impact the delivery workers in the future moving forward here.
So in new york city we have what's called the Department of Consumer and
Worker Protection and that's the agency that is authorized to enforce these laws.
So now all app companies that do food delivery doordash of seamless Uber eats,
they have to get a license from the
Department of Consumer and Worker Protection for it
to be legal for them to operate as a food delivery app in New york city.
And the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection then has the
ability to enforce this whole set of laws and make sure,
you know,
if you're a worker now who doesn't get transparent information about your tips,
the Department of Consumer and Worker protection is on your side, your company.
You know, if that's doordash that's not giving you what you do, um you know then D. C.
WP if necessary,
could hold doordash is licensed to do business in
new york city if they don't follow our laws.
So that's how we believe the workers will be able to not just pass these laws,
but when real protection,
how do these new regulations affect customers ordering the food on these apps?
Yeah, it actually doesn't affect customers all that much.
You know, you can still use the app you of course,
you know you put a tip in and of course it's great if you do.
I know all your viewers will want to make sure that
the human beings behind their orders are being treated well.
So you'll tip just like you do now and what you
can do is know that that worker is being tipped.
There are some changes on the back end.
One of the laws that goes in place in april allows
delivery workers to say what area they will deliver in,
but that doesn't affect you.
You're going to go ahead and place your food
order and that's going to mean that part of
what the apps will have to do is match your order to a worker who zone you're in,
but it's already doing that for whether you're in the restaurant.
So you know, that's something that code can easily handle,
there have to be a little bit of updating of the software,
but this is something that brings innovation into
supporting workers in addition to convenience for customers.
Do you think new york city is setting a precedent for other
cities to follow suit here when it comes to our delivery workers.
Absolutely.
You know, we did this for Uber and lyft drivers,
we were the first city in the country to pass
a minimum pay law for Uber and Lyft drivers.
I was proud to sponsor that. Um and other cities are doing something similar.
I really believe that will happen here.
We can make sure that the economy we build out
of the pandemic really protects a wider range of workers.
This is a good time to do it.
Workers are demanding more,
and I think the cities that get on board
will become better and better places to do business
and I hope we're just getting started.
Mr Landrieu said, this is your first time on cheddar news. We hope you come back.
Such a pleasure talking to you, sir, brad Lander new york city comptroller.
We appreciate your time. Thank you.