DoorDash & GrubHub Get Temp Injunction To Block Wage Hike For Deliveristas
A minimum wage hike for delivery workers of up to $17.96 an hour–announced by Mayor Eric Adams last month and originally set to go into effect on July 12th, before rising to $19.96 in 2025–has been blocked from taking effect after a judge issued a temporary injunction, which was sought by DoorDash and GrubHub after they filed a suit to stop the hike.
| 10 Jul 2023 | 04:13
Eric Adams announces a minimum wage hike for delivery workers on June 11th. It would amount to a tiered raise, starting with a hike to $17.96 on July 12th--and $19.96 in April of 2025. Now, major ride-share companies have successfully sued to block the pay boost from taking hold...for now. (
)
Two of the biggest employers of deliveristas–Grub Hub and DoorDash– have gone to court to block a wage hike that was slated to go into effect on July 12. On July 7th, Judge Nicholas Moyne granted their wishes, with a temporary injunction blocking the wage hike for now.
The two delivery companies are due back in court for their battle with the city government on July 31st.
The delivery service companies claimed that the boost would have an adverse impact on their business model. “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 spokesman told Straus News.
He went on to to say that “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.”
That stance has angered some of the wage boosters, including City Comptroller Brad Landers, who initially felt that the hike was a Trojan horse. He had helped spearhead it in its original form as Local Law 115, back when he was a City Councilmember–yet when the bill was signed, he suggested feelings of betrayal in a Twitter thread. He claimed his office had data that would pin it at $13 in actual wages, and said that “City Hall acquiesced to the lobbying of billion $ [sic] app companies, delaying raises owed to deliveristas & padding corporate profits off the backs of some of NYC’s hardest working NYers.”
Lander is now slamming the companies for the suit. “No surprise that @GrubHub, @DoorDash, & @Uber are out to squeeze every last penny they can from delivery workers,” he wrote in response to a Wall Street Journal report on the lawsuit.
Los Deliveristas Unidos, a group representing delivery workers, was equally harsh on the topic of the lawsuit. In a statement, they claimed that “After a 7 month delay in implementation of a minimum pay rate, it’s unconscionable that multi-billion dollar companies would now turn around and continue to do everything in their power to prevent New York City’s more than 65,000 app-based delivery workers from earning a livable wage.” They added that “this latest legal maneuver to prop up their business model comes at the expense of workers who can barely survive in a city facing a massive affordability crisis.”