"Los Deliveristas Unidos" Say They're Keeping New York City Fed, And They Want To Be Treated Accordingly

One of the perks of New York City's food scene is that customers can have almost anything delivered at nearly any time of day. But since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, delivery workers have become increasingly important to both those spending more time at home, and to the restaurant industry as a whole. Now, a group calling themselves "Los Deliveristas Unidos" wants to use the moment to push for better pay and more workplace protections from the restaurants and delivery apps that they are caught between.

While restaurants used to employ their own delivery drivers, that cost has been increasingly outsourced to third party delivery companies like Seamless, GrubHub, Postmates, and Relay. Claudia Irizarry-Aponte, a reporter for the news site The City, says that's left delivery workers with more work, less money, and fewer protections like safe places to wait between runs, or even restrooms.

"A common sentiment that I heard was 'when the restaurants were closed and the city was locked down, we were the ones carrying the industry on our backs, we were the ones feeding the city, we were the ones going to hospitals and delivering food to essential workers,'" Irizarry-Aponte told WNYC host David Furst. "'And yet, because of the way these apps work and the way the law is currently written, we're not acknowledged as employees of these companies, and therefore we're not entitled to certain protections.'"

For the full conversation, click "listen."