Law grants rights to home food distributors in New York

New York City approved a legislative package that recognizes a minimum wage and other rights to food home delivery.

The measure was approved this Thursday, September 23, 2021 for the benefit of those working for mobile applications, and that are the key pieces of a business that shot with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The law, approved by the New York Council, imposes the distribution companies in the city, such as Grubhub, Dordash or Uber Eats, which guarantees minimal conditions for home workers, many of which are immigrants of Latin American origin.

The new standard does not allow these companies to charge the “deliveryists”, as they are known in the Latin community, a rate to collect their salaries, or that force them to run with the expenses of the isothermal containers.

In addition, it guarantees that the distributors have access to the bathrooms of the restaurants where they collect the food they will deliver and force the companies for which they work to report on their tips policy.

The new law also allows these workers to establish certain distance restrictions or avoid distribution areas in their itineraries, without reprisals.

Satisfacción de los repartidores

"This law is a lot, we have many feelings tied here in the stomach, but the main thing is that there will be many changes, we will feel better, we will start to notice it," said Manny Ramírez, who has been working forfour years as a delivery man.

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Ramírez, who lives with his mother, his wife -also distributing -and his five children, explains from the City Council where he celebrates this victory, which currently works seven days a week.

"I leave my house at 8:30 in the morning and return to my house around 11 p.m.," he says after explaining that in January he had an accident while distributed a commission that left him prostrated four months and thatHis wife stopped distributing when in March gave birth.

Ramírez emphasizes that until now they could not even enter the bathrooms, that each company imposed its minimum for delivery that changed without prior notice and that there was no limit in the distances traveled.

“It is a battle between David and Goliath, the very small against the Giganto, because he has millions, lawyers, businesses, connections and we are small below, but we are raising his voice.It is a great victory even if they have been baby's step, ”he says, before remembering that when he was in the ambulance after suffering his work accident and called the company he worked for, the only concern on the other side of the phone was if he had deliveredThe order, "if the order was fine."

On the other hand, the Director of Public Policy of the organization "Los Deliveristas", Hidalyn Colón, insisted that guaranteeing a minimum wage, to use the bathrooms or the issue of distances "is a large step in an industry totally without regulations".

However, for Columbus, the law, which has been approved unanimously, "is the first step of many", because other key issues such as accident compensation insurance are still pending.

"Immigrant distributors have demonstrated the power to organize and ask the Municipal Council to act so that companies that develop applications pay accounts," said local legislator Carlos Menchaca, one of the councilors who supported the initiative on their Twitter account.

For her part, also the New York councilor Carlina Rivera showed on social networks her satisfaction for the recognition of these rights and expressed her desire that "this is just beginning."