With reporting by Shamaar Thomas – CHS Reporting Intern
The Seattle City Council is considering first the nation legislation that advocates say would eliminate “sub-minimum wages” for gig workers by guaranteeing a minimum payment amount for “engaged time” and “engaged miles” as the city’s 40,000 or so drivers and couriers make deliveries for the likes of DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats.
“We just need to feel like our job is stable, that there’s at least a minimum income that we can make,” Clark Allen, a supporter of the proposal and gig employee who depends on a mix of work from Uber Eats and DoorDash, tells CHS.
The “Pay-Up” legislation will come in front of the council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee and chair Lisa Herbold Tuesday morning as the body digs back in on the proposal that started its path through City Hall last summer.
Advocate group Working Washington says the proposal is “the result of months of stakeholder meetings championed by City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, as well as deep organizing & community engagement led by workers with Working Washington’s PayUp campaign.”
Under the legislation, gig employers in Seattle would be subject to a roster of requirements including paying gig workers at least the city’s minimum wage for time spent waiting on apps for job assignments.
The proposed legislation would also set a $5 minimum “payment per offer” to set a floor on smaller tasks assigned by the companies. The floor would be adjusted annually by inflation.
The legislation includes language around “transparency” requirements that would hold gig companies to standards of providing “information to make informed choices about which offers to accept and to verify compliance with minimum pay requirements.”
Open issues for the council include how long the city should wait to implement the policies and potential penalties for companies that fail to meet the requirements.
The new proposal comes in the wake of summer of 2020 legislation passed by the council that provided drivers with an additional $2.50 for each order completed in Seattle during the city’s COVID-19 civil emergency.
It would also fill in a gap in the city’s “$15 Now” minimum wage push that brought the city’s employers up to the higher wage requirements in segments over a seven-year period. In 2021, CHS reported on the final block of the city’s smallest employers finally reaching the milestone.
Gig worker and Pay Up supporter Allen says the stability of Seattle’s higher minimum wage should extend to the thousands of workers like him.
“I think with the added stability that we’re fighting for in the Pay Up campaign, that it would just make every gig worker kind of their own boss,” he said. “To know that our wages are not going to dip below livable and we are not going to suddenly lose our source of income.”
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It’ll be interesting to see how much higher yuppies are willing to go for cold take out that arrives 2 hours after its ordered. Rich people are the laziest people on the planet. “My money does all the work” lol #capitalism
I agree with you 100%. Gig workers get **** on by the people who are too lazy to patronize an establishment. They’ll concern troll that “covid” is why, despite places like Portland even getting rid of mask mandate in March.
As someone who used to work for grocery delivery apps pre-pandemic, yes there are a lot of rich people using the apps, but many disabled, and elderly folks depend on them as well. It would be nice to see some cost reduction assistance for those groups, but that would require real work by legislators, so I doubt it.
Totally. People that educate themselves, take risks, and work hard are so lazy.
I really hope this works out, most of those gig companies operate on exploitation. Not to mention this takes away from restaurants because of the fee and loss of delivery of their own. I’ve had multiple restaurants request I purchase through them directly. Is there a place to comment on this?
I always order delivery from the restaurant itself, not through an app, for exactly this reason.
But if people are willing to work for Doordash or Uber, et al, why is it the city council’s business how fees work?
At no point do I trust our Council to get it right, and there is no doubt this law, if passed, will have unintended negative consequences worse than the problem they’re attempting to address.
The permanently “enlightened” contingent in Seattle will continue to attempt to fix problems by passing laws that result in worse problems. That the rest of the nation can then learn from – by watching our negative example, and learning not to do the same.
More price controls? Those always work.
Seriously, have any of you ordered from the delivery apps recently? There is already a “Seattle fee”, and the fees and costs are often the same amount as the menu item.
People refuse to face facts: There is simply not enough economic value in these transactions to make the business model viable. Paying an adult American to drive somewhere, pick up a sandwich, and drive it to another adult American is not a sustainable business model. There is only so much anyone will pay for a sandwich, and there are too many mouths to feed in that value chain (food producer, restaurant, app, driver).
It might….might work with driverless cars (or better yet, with drones). Or with, you know, people doing it as a gig, not trying to have it be their full time job when it was never intended to be.
The last time I tried ordering off Caviar the various fees added close to $20 to the final bill. Delivery fees, service fees, the Seattle fee – I didn’t finish the order.
And don’t forget the tip.
They’ll just keep passing laws to “make it better” until they kill the business altogether. Thank you from Council’s Working Washington committee. They may not have one, but it sure seems like they do, They get everything they want from Council, no matter how ridiculous the ask.
Seattle is a great market for Gig work! If we keep imposing fees, there
will be less business for everyone. However, I believe in full transparency, the apps have to telling us what kind of order it is: address distance/time…etc. Lets get off this dependency, as if the companies have to take care us. I make more then $15 hr, doing these apps.
Lots of businesses that don’t have their own delivery are dependent on the apps like Door Dash…95% of my deliveries are businesses that dont have delivery. For the most part delivery of food is a luxury and people should pay the premium for it..they should tip and drivers should be compensated well. There are apps for grocery delivery that don’t charge and I know people who get free food delivered for those who are income challenged. At least 40% of a drivers pay goes to gas/taxes/car …if you don’t pay them enough …delivery in Seattle is just going to get worse with longer wait times.