Advocates for delivery workers rallied on Thursday in support of two pro-delivery worker bills — but workers themselves opted to stay home as the Trump and Adams administrations cooperate on stepped up immigration enforcement, advocates said.
"As you can see, there is a bit of a dearth of workers," Ben Pierre of the Haitian American Caucus told Streetsblog at the May Day rally.
"Everyone that I’ve spoken to weren’t sure if it was safe. They were concerned with who would see them [out at the rally] and how that could possibly affect their employment or whatever else they have going on."
Advocates rallied with Council Member Carmen De La Rosa (D-Inwood) to support two bills, Intro 1133 and Intro 1135, that would close the so-called "Instacart loophole" and expand the hard fought delivery worker minimum wage to all sectors of the delivery industry.
Only one worker's voice was heard: Amadou, a grocery delivery worker from Guinea and a member of the group Afrikana, wasn't present, but shared his story through Husein Yatabarry, the executive director of the Muslim Community Network.
"The reality is that Amadou did not want to be here today because of the hostile immigration climate. The people that keep the city moving can’t advocate for themselves," Yatabarry said.
Amadou's remarks described a life of hard work, low pay and confusion.
"When the city introduced new delivery pay rules, I thought I’d be making a lot more money. But that hasn’t been the case. Sometimes when I am doing grocery deliveries, the pay changes depending on what app I’m using," he said.
As Streetsblog reported in December, Instacart workers, who are mostly recent arrivals from Africa, are not covered by the city's landmark delivery worker minimum wage law, which only applies to restaurant workers. As a result, Instacart delivery workers do the same job as someone who delivers for an app like Doordash, but without a guaranteed living wage.
The delivery worker minimum wage has been a boon for the industry's already marginalized immigrant workforce, many of whom have few other options to make a living. Per the law, which passed in 2021, restaurant delivery workers earn a guaranteed $21.44 per hour of active time on the app, before tips.
The minimum wage victory came out of the momentum of the pandemic. Delivery workers represented the ultimate "essential worker" at the time, but lacked basic labor rights. When the law passed, the community was largely made up of Latino immigrants organized under the group Los Deliveristas Unidos, which still advocates for workers today.
But since the minimum wage law was written, the delivery industry has grown to include many other app-based services like Instacart, which only started letting workers deliver groceries by bike or moped in 2022. The latest crop of workers came to the city from Africa and turned to delivery work, as many have before.
"We’ve seen the New Yorkers we serve use delivery apps as a vital first step to earn a living, for many, it’s their first job in the U.S. We’ve also heard from many of our members that the city’s minimum pay rule doesn’t apply across all delivery platforms, and that’s confusing and unjust," said Adama Bah, Afrikana's founder and director.
The absence of immigrant workers from the rally reflects their heightened vulnerability amid Trump's aggressive deportation policies.
Although Mayor Adams has insisted that the city will not assist the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement in civil cases, keeping with local "Sanctuary City" laws, he has cozied up to Trump "Border Czar" Tom Homan, who has praised Adams's "cooperation."
Adams, who had federal corruption charges dropped by the Trump administration, has been accused of exchanging his cooperation to get out of those charges.
Adams has insisted that there was no "quid pro quo." Regardless, advocates at the rally said their immigrant members are afraid to show up to places that were previously seen as safe, like churches. Many confabs have moved to Zoom.
"In this type of work, a lot of times workers are in the process or on the path to citizenship. Especially in this particular climate, they’ve had to move very carefully now, more so than before," said Pierre.
The two bills pushed by De La Rosa at the rally have already had a hearing at at the committee level.
The first bill, Intro 1133, introduced by Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez (D-Bushwick), has 12 sponsors, including De La Rosa. It would require the city to expand the current minimum wage beyond mere grocery app workers, but to all “contracted delivery workers who deliver goods for a delivery service.”
The second bill, Intro 1135, introduced by Council Member Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) would specifically require “third-party grocery delivery services,” like Instacart, meet or exceed the minimum pay rate guaranteed to those who use restaurant delivery apps.
"These workers are already being discriminated against and marginalized in our city. Let’s not make their lives harder by allowing a loophole in the law to take money out of their pockets," said De La Rosa, who heads the Civil Services and Labor Committee. "I put my stamp of approval on these bills and I'm looking forward to standing with my colleagues to demand equity."
The City Council also passed a bill that raised the cap on fees delivery apps can charge restaurants on Thursday.
The move comes after four companies — Grubhub, DoorDash, UberEats and Relay — agreed to drop lawsuits against both the fee cap and minimum wage laws in exchange for the Council passing the fee-cap bill, Crains reported on Thursday.
Workers for Relay, who were cut out of the original law after a legal battle, will now be paid the $21.44 wage once the fee-cap bill takes effect.
