The mayor’s office and City Council are finding themselves in another dustup, this time over legislation that would set minimum pay standards for app-based grocery delivery workers — a largely immigrant workforce once hailed as essential.
Many of the city’s delivery workers, or “deliveristas,” are young men from Central America, South Asia, and West Africa. They are considered independent contractors who use third-party food delivery apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Seamless, Grubhub, and Caviar; or grocery delivery apps like Instacart, Shipt, and FreshDirect, to make a living.
Councilmember Sandy Nurse introduced a bill (1135-A) last year that would require grocery delivery services to pay their deliveristas a minimum rate set by the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP). Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez also introduced bill 1133-A, a complementary piece of legislation that would require worker protections like access to bathrooms, distribution of fire safety materials, and insulated delivery bags.
Adams, in a letter this August, vetoed and disapproved both bills. The move seemingly shocked City Council members considering the mayor’s previous “steadfast” support of similar bills in 2023. He asserted that passing these bills right now would spike grocery prices for people who use delivery services in this time of economic uncertainty. According to city data from 2024, consumers paid a 36% increase in fees for delivery apps while stores paid a 10% increase in fees to delivery apps when DCWP began enforcing the minimum pay rate.
“At a time when New Yorkers are especially focused on affordability and when national and international economic forces have raised the cost of many daily essentials, including groceries, my administration is focused on reducing costs for everyday New Yorkers and allowing them to afford to put fresh and healthy food on their tables,” said Adams in the letter. “To be crystal clear, I continue to believe that all New Yorkers deserve a fair wage.”
More than 60,000 deliveristas currently operate citywide, which is a boom in the industry since the COVID crisis. “As the delivery sector continues to grow, it remains critical for our city to expand protections for delivery workers that protect them from exploitation in order to have a sustainable industry,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in a statement. “All contracted delivery workers provide essential labor, and they deserve fair workplace safety and pay standards.”
In 2021, the City Council passed Local Law 115 (LL115), which gave minimum pay protections to restaurant delivery couriers who were excluded from the city’s standard minimum hourly wage of $16.50. A DCWP report published in 2022, found that food delivery workers earned on average $7.09 per hour without tips.
The nation’s major delivery apps sued the city in 2023, attempting to stop the minimum pay rate, which is currently $21.44 per hour without tips, from taking effect. The case went all the way to the New York State Supreme Court and the judge ruled in the city’s favor. The app companies tried to appeal the court’s ruling but were denied.
At the time, Adams was proud to stand with council members and advocacy groups, like Los Deliveristas Unidos, to announce the law’s implementation. Now, many of them feel the mayor is being hypocritical and have vowed to override his veto.
“Mayor Adams’ veto defends the exploitation of grocery delivery workers and is a step backwards for workers’ rights in our city,” said Nurse in a statement. “The Mayor has aligned himself with Instacart, a multi-billion-dollar company that refuses to pay their workers fairly and instead is spending countless dollars on lobbyists and ads to spread lies. Together with my colleagues at the Council, we will override this veto and ensure that Intro 1133 and 1135 [go] into effect.”
Her bill does not change the price of groceries, said the City Council. App-based grocery delivery services charge additional delivery and service fees that are separate from the cost of groceries.
Gutiérrez added that “for a mayor who claims to champion working-class New Yorkers, vetoing 1133 and 1135 is more than disappointing — it’s a betrayal. These bills were designed to protect the very delivery workers his own administration once said they wanted to help. The fact that this commonsense idea came from City Hall in the first place makes this reversal all the more cynical.”
A joint statement from the Worker’s Justice Project and Los Deliveristas Unidos echoed this sentiment of “betrayal” of the city’s essential workers. “Mayor Adams’ decision to veto Int 1135 and 1133 is a huge step backward for New York City,” they said. “An attempt to advance the interests of wealthy tech corporations under the false banner of serving Black and Brown communities. In truth, this decision undermines workers’ rights, weakens community well-being, and accelerates the consolidation of political power by corporate interests.”
A spokesperson for Instacart said that when the wage law went into effect in 2023, tens of thousands of workers were locked out of their dashboards, in some cases midshift, for both DoorDash and Uber. Many turned to Instacart to replace the lost wages and declining tips. He said that grocery delivery apps were exempt from the 2021 wage law because they aren’t a “luxury service” and their workers tend to be part-time.
The spokesperson also said that grocery prices would go up if the laws passed.
“With food prices already straining household budgets, and with 84% of New Yorkers saying even a $10 increase in grocery costs would be a burden, we continue to stand with the thousands of Instacart customers and shoppers in New York City who have spoken out against this bill,” said the spokesperson. “We strongly urge the Council to reconsider this legislation. Instacart has consistently supported an hourly standard, but it must be paired with realistic, commonsense rules that ensures [deliveristas] can earn fair, dependable wages while preserving the flexibility that drew them to grocery delivery work in the first place.”
Working from home has become increasingly popular, providing employees with the freedom to create a workspace that suits lax their needs. It allows for a better work-life balance, reduces stress from commuting, and can lead to higher job satisfaction