It seemed like a landmark day when the New York City Council passed a law designed to benefit the 60,000 city residents employed in the food delivery industry. Ultimately, it screwed those workers — not benefited them.
Before the law’s passage, dashers were paid by the job. When the smartphone lit up with an offer, the display informed the worker exactly how compensation there would be.
That changed with the new law — legislation that determined dashers would be paid either roughly $30/hour while on a delivery — or $16/hour regardless of whether they were working or on shift idly waiting for the phone to summon them for a dash. The employer was given a choice as to which method of compensation.
Realizing that their dashers were idle more than 50% of the time, the big companies chose the $30/hour option. That was how it worked for the first three months, and it did greatly benefit workers, mostly because we got paid for waiting time (when restaurants didn’t have the food ready). That was a big problem for dashers.
The honeymoon ended abruptly when all of a sudden, our pay fell from $30/hour while on a delivery down to the $16 we were supposed to get whether we were dashing or lying idle waiting for the phone to chime with a job. Nowhere in the media or company internet guidance was an explanation offered. That signaled “backroom deal” to me.
Rather than pay the $30/hour initially cited in the new law, the companies somehow maneuvered the situation by alternately offering its superior dashers a bonus at the end of the week if they kept certain metrics.
That would have worked for the good dashers (like me). With those high metrics, we were labeled “top dasher” by the company and were allowed to work anytime we wanted simply by turning on the phone app. Thus, it wasn’t that difficult to make the 50 weekly deliveries required to reach platinum level and score the big bonus, a bonus that lifted us up to the original $30/hour.
The fly in the ointment came in the form of DoorDash eliminating its “top dasher” program. Once we couldn’t just log on and go to work, the whole ball game changed. Shifts not only had to be booked six days in front — but were hard to come by.
At 3 p.m. on any given day, those shifts would open up on the app for six days hence and within 15 seconds were all taken. And even if you logged on right at 3, most of the time you still got shut out. If the weather was favorable, it was not unheard of for me to sit idle for an entire month! Good thing I don’t need the job financially.
A “gold level” dasher need only complete 25 deliveries in a week (along with other metrics) to earn the gold bonus. As you might expect, shifts opened up in the past two weeks owing to the snow ice, and cold — and increased demand from people who didn’t want to leave the warmth of their apartments.
I went out in the freezing weather, was reprimanded for two deliveries without explanation because the system couldn’t explain the violations fully, and was screwed out of my money on one long and arduous dash. I stopped working for three days because with the aid of stress, aggravation, and cold weather, I caught a bug that gave me an actual body temperature of 105.6.
But even though I was off for three days recovering, I managed 45 deliveries. Today, I received my bonus. And that’s where the rubber met the road for this story. My gold level bonus increased my earnings by a meager $3.50/hour. I did not earn the $30/hour the Council designed the law to provide. It only raised my compensation to $23/hour.
Given the difficulty of the job during that week — and the need for New Yorkers to have their food delivered — that’s some pretty poor compensation.
And mind you, I’m on probation with barely a rational explanation for busting my ass on behalf of the company, my customers, and my pocket.
Delivering food is not a job for the meek or mild, that I can assure you. I’d like to see some of the MAGA people (especially their fearless leader) do it for even a week — let alone for a living before they evict the only people within our borders who will take the work in the first place.
Mersey is a freelance writer.