Would you kick in an extra 10 cents on a DoorDash order to make sure the delivery worker is getting paid what they’re legally owed? Most customers of platform services would probably be happy to spend that dime. After all, all we’ve done is press a button on a phone in order for someone to bring whatever we want to our doorstep, no matter the weather. For people who are elderly or have disabilities, these services are a lifeline; for most customers, it’s an incredibly privileged position. And a worker makes it happen.
It’s somewhat astonishing, then, that gig companies appear to be fighting a proposed Seattle ordinance that would impose a 10-cent fee on app orders to cover enforcement of the city’s groundbreaking laws protecting gig delivery workers. The proposal is on the agenda of the Seattle City Council’s Select Budget Committee on Wednesday, along with a raft of potential amendments generally aimed at weakening the bill.
For starters, it’s worth asking: Have these companies examined their own receipts? DoorDash and its peers are no strangers to far higher (and genuinely mysterious) fees. The last time I ordered from Instacart, for example, there was a $4.56 “service fee” that “helps support the Instacart platform and covers a range of operating costs including insurance, background checks, and customer support.” In short, the “service fee” was basically … some extra money for Instacart, totaling more than 45 times the dime that would be charged for the wonky, critical, and nonmysterious work of enforcing gig workers’ rights. Instacart and DoorDash have cited inflation and the rising cost of living as the basis for their opposition to the 10-cent charge, expressing concern for customers’ pocketbooks. Of course, struggling gig workers also face inflation; plus, the ordinance doesn’t require gig corporations to pass the fee on to consumers.
The enforcement of workers’ rights is generally severely underfunded, both at federal and state levels, and if rights are not enforced, they are illusory, especially for low-wage and precarious workers such as those who toil for gig companies. Enforcement also involves extensive work educating workers about their rights: Studies and surveys have repeatedly shown that many people, especially low-wage earners, do not know about their rights at work.
Adequate funding for enforcement is clearly needed in relation to gig corporations, which have in many instances violated workers’ basic rights. There is, first of all, the big-picture question of whether these corporations are violating the law by treating workers as independent contractors rather than as employees with a full suite of workplace rights. A few examples: the offices of both the D.C. and Minnesota attorneys general have sued gig delivery company Shipt for misclassification; the Massachusetts attorney general’s office issued more than $6 million in citations against Gopuff for misclassifying workers; the San Francisco city attorney sued Qwick for the same; and the New York State Court of Appeals upheld a labor department decision that Postmates workers are employees entitled to unemployment benefits.
Setting aside the question of classification, though, gig businesses have repeatedly been caught violating other laws related to workers. For example: DoorDash, Grubhub, and Gopuff have already agreed to pay millions of dollars to their workers after failing to provide basic sick-leave protections required by Seattle’s labor standards, while Uber Eats paid millions to its workers after failing to pay wages owed under the city’s labor standards. In addition, the D.C. attorney general’s office has recovered $2.5 million from DoorDash after suing the company for retaining tips that customers intended for workers. The D.C. AG’s office also recovered millions from platform companies Instacart and Drizly over worker tip issues, as well as companies’ failure to pay all sales taxes owed.
Gig corporations are no fans of enforcement; consider a bill that ride-hail companies are backing in Massachusetts that purports to give workers rights: It has literally no provisions at all about how those rights would be enforced. The history makes it clear that platform companies need serious monitoring to ensure that they don’t violate the few yet important protections their workers enjoy. Yet monitoring these enormous multinational corporations with nontransparent operations involving tens of thousands of individual workers is not something that can be done for free. A 10-cent charge per order to fund enforcement is a reasonable approach that ensures protection of rights granted by the city while also not drawing on public funding and burdening taxpayers with the responsibility. The fee is expected to generate between $2.1 and $3 million a year.
One of the amendments seeking to weaken the proposal takes aim, oddly, at a long-standing program at the Seattle Office of Labor Standards in which the agency contracts with nongovernmental organizations, including both worker and employer groups, to help educate the community about workplace laws. These kinds of community enforcement programs are increasingly being used by a range of government agencies to help reach community members who may be linguistically isolated or otherwise hard for the government to reach. Community groups provide navigation or outreach and education services involving everything from SNAP benefits to Affordable Care Act enrollment to unemployment insurance to people’s rights at work. These programs enable the government to reach many workers who would otherwise be marginalized and lack access to government services.
Seattle has been a national leader in establishing and enforcing workers’ rights. The proposed ordinance is a chance for Seattle to lead once more, and other cities should follow suit. When it comes down to it, a dime per order to enforce workers’ rights is a downright bargain.
