25 September 2021

One Thing That de Blasio Has Done Right

The soon to be former mayor has been supporting a bill to provide additional benefits and protections to food delivery workers, which has now passed.

In addition to the mundane, restaurants must allow food delivery workers to use their bathrooms, it also provides regulations, benefits, and wage guarantees.

About f%$#ing time:

The New York City Council on Thursday approved a slate of bills improving working conditions for app-based food deliverers — becoming the first major U.S. city to set minimum protections for people toiling in the gig economy.

As first reported by THE CITY, the Council’s six-bill package — which includes granting couriers access to restaurant bathrooms, mandating minimum payments per trip and ensuring that tips get to workers — is expected to be signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Outside City Hall, dozens of delivery workers cheered as they heard the news, gathering ahead of the vote to distribute helmets to other couriers and help with bike tune-ups.

………

The minimum pay rate approved by the Council in a 40-to-3 vote marks the first time a major U.S. city will standardize the working conditions of people toiling for the app-based delivery industry — setting a precedent as some major tech companies embark on a national campaign to clamp down on government regulations.

The bills also included measures that will put limits on how far workers can be asked to ride — an issue that came to the forefront when some delivery people were sent on interborough trips as remnants of Hurricane Ida pounded the city earlier this month.

The delivery companies are gong to file lawsuits against this, and other, reform measures, but absent the Supreme Court returning to the Lochner Era, where the "Freedom to Contract," trumped the ability of the government to regulate wages and wage conditions.

Of course, given the current makeup of the court, packed as it is, the return to the Lochner era is a distinct possibility.

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