As if New York didn’t have enough angry citizens on its hands following its proposed regulation on coal- and wood-burning ovens, City Hall is hearing it over a new law that would raise the minimum hourly wage of food delivery workers to $17.96.
Three delivery services — DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber — are suing the city over the law, which would go into effect on July 12, followed by a second mandatory minimum rate hike — to $19.96 — by April 2025.
In their legal filings, the companies state that they are not opposed in principle to paying their delivery workers more. But the dollar amounts written into the law, they argue, would force them to pass costs on to consumers, which would ultimately drive away business.
The news website THE CITY quotes lawyers for DoorDash and Grubhub as having charged in court papers, “For New York City consumers, it will mean — according to DCWP’s [the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection] own analyses — a $5.18-per-order average increase in charges across the industry, representing a 15% increase on current costs. For New York City restaurants and other merchants, it will mean losing access to valuable delivery services that merchants — particularly small and independent merchants — cannot replace on their own.”
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