Testimony of the Bureau of Labor Law in the Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander at the New York City Council Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection in Support of Protections for Contracted Delivery Workers

We submit these comments on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Law in the Office of the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. Comptroller Lander has championed labor protections for app-based delivery workers and has helped secure many of the standards in place today. At the Bureau of Labor Law, our mission is to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation, and we submit these comments in that spirit. 

Int. 1133 and 1135 expand coverage of the existing delivery worker protections (herein referred to as “Delivery Worker Laws”) to grocery store delivery workers employed by third-party entities and all other delivery workers who deliver goods for a delivery service that are not currently covered by the Delivery Worker Laws. The Delivery Worker Laws have had significant successes, as they have boosted workers’ pay and increased the number of deliveries. This has increased the economic well-being of delivery workers while also increasing access to delivery to New York City residents.  

Data from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) support this: 

• DCWP found that in Quarter 2 of 2024, from April to June, delivery workers earned an average of $22.48 per hour, a 112% increase from the same quarter in the previous year, prior to the implementation of the Delivery Worker Laws.  

• In Quarter 1 of 2024, shortly after the minimum pay rate was implemented on December 4, 2023, delivery workers earned an average of $19.26 per hour, a 56% increase from the previous quarter and a 64% increase from Quarter 1 of 2023. 

• DCWP found that in Quarter 1 of 2024, delivery workers made 2.77 million deliveries per week, a 5% increase from the previous quarter and an 8% increase from the same quarter a year prior. In Quarter 2 of 2024, delivery workers made 2.64 million deliveries per week, a 5% increase from Quarter 2 of 2023.  

• DCWP also reported that following the implementation of the minimum pay rate, delivery workers spent more time on delivery trips and less time on-call waiting for orders.  

Accordingly, expanding the Delivery Worker Laws to include grocery and other delivery applications would help increase delivery workers’ earnings and improve customer access to grocery stores, restaurants, and other businesses.  The bills also level the playing field between delivery apps since delivery apps not covered by the existing laws, such as Instacart, have a competitive advantage over delivery apps that are covered. In addition, these bills provide a legislative fix to address the fact that Relay was carved out of the minimum pay requirements by a court order.  

Beyond setting a minimum pay rate, Int. 1133 would improve the working conditions of delivery workers. By allowing workers to set a maximum distance per delivery trip and to have information about the delivery prior to a trip, this legislation would help delivery workers avoid travelling long distances between deliveries, which can decrease earnings. As detailed in Comptroller Lander’s recent Report, Street Safety in the Era of Micromobility, algorithms used by delivery app companies pressure workers to make multiple long trips within a short timeframe. This frequently results in speeding and reckless driving on e-bikes and mopeds, as workers rush to complete deliveries. Int. 1133 would also require the apps to provide fire safety materials identified by DCWP and the Fire Department, addressing another safety issue identified in the Comptroller’s report. 

Maximizing the effectiveness of these provisions of Int. 1133 requires protecting workers from deactivation. As detailed in the Street Safety in the Era of Micromobility report, workers must complete high volumes of orders as quickly as possible under duress of deactivation. Workers who fail to do so, or decline order requests for any reason, risk losing their accounts on the app. As a result, delivery workers may engage in unsafe practices to meet their quotas or risk losing work. It is essential that legislation seeking to improve safety among delivery workers include protections against arbitrary deactivation. 

Int. 1133’s provision allowing delivery workers bathroom access will help to mitigate occupational health risks that delivery workers face in extreme heat. This past September, Comptroller Lander released a report, Safeguarding Workers in an Outdoor Climate, that details the impact of extreme heat on outdoor workers. Through discussions with delivery workers, the Comptroller’s report found that many workers drink an insufficient amount of water while on the job due to a lack of bathroom access, contributing to an increased risk of dehydration in the warmer months, among other occupational health hazards. 

We strongly encourage the Council to add further protections that would strengthen working conditions for all delivery workers, both workers covered under existing laws and those for whom coverage would be expanded under Int. 1133 and 1135. There is an opportunity to address the challenges that are currently facing app-based restaurant delivery workers and to ensure that workers covered under the new bills won’t face the same issues.  

As stated above, in addition to protections against deactivations, the Council should include standards related to pay transparency and tipping in Int. 1133 and 1135 and pass previously introduced legislation that addresses these issues for app-based restaurant delivery workers.  After the Delivery Worker Laws went into effect, some apps changed their tipping structure so that customers could only tip after the order was placed or delivered. This resulted in fewer overall tips to workers on those platforms. In addition, restaurant app-based delivery workers still do not have transparency about how their pay is calculated. Three bills were introduced by Council Member Shaun Abreu earlier this year to address these issues. We encourage the Council to pass these alongside Int. 1133 and 1135, and to expand Int. 1133 and 1135 to include similar provisions. These include:  

• Int. 0859,viii which would require the apps to disclose the method used to calculate food delivery worker pay at the outset of each pay period and provide workers with a running tally of their trips, on-call time, and tips for any given pay period.  

• Int. 0738x and 0737xi, which together would require the apps to both solicit tips from customers at a minimum of 10% of the cost of the order and ensure that this occurs before or at the same time an online order is placed.  

In conclusion, the Comptroller’s office supports Int. 1133 and 1135 as they expand the benefits of the Delivery Worker Laws to more workers, but we strongly encourage the Council to simultaneously include provisions and pass legislation that protects all app-based delivery workers from deactivation, provides pay transparency, and standardizes tipping.  

Respectfully submitted, 

Claudia Henriquez
Director of Workers’ Rights
Bureau of Labor Law
Office of the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander 

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