Most college students have never heard of the Deliveristas’ Rights movement. Soren Miner ’28 wants that to change. This summer, he will be working with Los Deliveristas Unidos, an organization devoted to advocacy for New York City’s app-based food delivery workers. Miner first learned about LDU in the fall of his senior year of high school. Before then, he says, he had not fully considered the struggle that the deliveristas — Spanish for “delivery workers” — face.
“[Deliveristas] have become such a consistent part of the daily cityscape,” Miner said. “If you’re walking past a food spot, there’s not a chance you’re not going to see someone waiting outside with their e-bike, and yet they’ve become so completely invisible to other people. There’s just a lack of human connection that happens there — it becomes something you don’t think about.”
The movement first caught Miner’s attention when he stumbled upon a flyer for an LDU rally in support of a minimum pay system for the deliveristas. Over the past year, he had become increasingly interested in historical workers’ justice campaigns. In LDU, he saw an opportunity to become involved in this kind of work himself.
“I was just starting to become the person that I am — gaining my political identity, as it was,” Miner said. “I had a history teacher who kind of became my mentor, and he showed me the importance of labor organizing as a pivotal part of social movements as a whole. Seeing [the flyer], I was like, wow, these really are ongoing issues.”
When his history teacher announced that students’ final research projects could address any contemporary political issue of their choice, Miner knew exactly what he wanted to cover. He spent the final months of his senior year tracing the Deliveristas’ Rights movement to its social, political, and economic roots. He found that while the first digital platforms resembling DoorDash and GrubHub came about during the late 2000s, the food delivery apps as we know them today are essentially a post-COVID phenomenon.
During the global pandemic, Miner explains, two crucial shifts took place simultaneously. The first was that employment plummeted across the board, with blue-collar, non-Zoom-friendly jobs taking the greatest hit by far. The second was that everyone was ordering food — all the time. As daily delivery orders skyrocketed, the services fulfilling these orders were in need of an equally dramatic increase in their labor force. Naturally, for the countless low-income workers who had recently found themselves jobless, this seemed to present a golden opportunity. It was not long before the delivery apps had more drivers at their disposal than orders to fulfill.
“It was massive, and a lot of it actually came from undocumented people,” Miner said. “When you’re dealing with uncertain immigration status on top of all the COVID hiring complications, it’s just really hard. This was the one area where a lot of people thought they could find jobs.”
Suddenly, the companies behind the delivery platforms had gained access to an overwhelming surplus of disenfranchised workers with nowhere else to turn. Exploitative practices soon became commonplace; Deliveristas faced unregulated working hours and payment, a complete lack of access to restrooms and shelter from dangerous weather, and exposure to serious safety hazards related to the battery-powered scooters they were required to purchase for transportation.
For anyone familiar with the economic history of the United States, this is likely unsurprising. It is an age-old American story: vast corporate monoliths attract desperate immigrant laborers with promises of steady pay and upward mobility, and proceed to squeeze this new workforce for as much profit as possible. Miner emphasizes, however, that while the story of the deliveristas echoes that of the 19th century’s railroad workers (the majority of whom were Chinese immigrants) or the 20th century’s textile manufacturers (primarily European groups like Italians and Irish, then considered “non-white”), their exploitation at the hands of the digital delivery giants is in many ways unprecedented.
“[Deliveristas] are seen as gig workers, not direct employees of these companies,” Miner said. “The idea is that you get to be your own boss, you get to decide how many hours you work, you get to be in control of all this stuff with the push of a button. But you get none of the benefits that you would as a direct employee (e.g. minimum wage, the ability to unionize) and you end up working even worse hours.”
Unlike contract labor in the pre-Internet era, which was openly understood to be conducive to exploitation, the digital gig economy presents itself as empowering to the individual worker. The online platforms serve as faceless intermediaries between deliveristas and the companies that control their hours and pay, sustaining the illusion of a fair system while allowing for rampant manipulation. The algorithm that provides workers with delivery orders purports to function as a lottery; recent investigations by New York City’s local government, though, have revealed that this is not exactly the case.
“The algorithm is able to bump lottery numbers up or down, which means that it can incentivize people to work longer hours and to get their deliveries done in shorter periods of time,” Miner said. “The more jobs you work, the more jobs you can access.”
This feature of the algorithm poses a major threat to the safety of deliveristas and the general public alike. As deliveristas have been pressured to complete orders more and more quickly, New York City’s streets have filled with e-bikes travelling at dangerous speeds. Even more insidious, though, is the algorithm’s negative incentive system.
“Let’s say someone is sick or someone’s bike broke down and they’re unable to work for a few days. When they get back on those apps, it is much harder for them to get jobs,” Miner said. “And sure, you can file a complaint online, but that doesn’t do anything. It goes into the ether. It just disappears.”
This lack of communication is central to the plight of the deliveristas. In the days before digital platforms allowed for the automation of daily interactions between workers and employers, members of the labor force inherently possessed some recourse to self-advocacy.
“The big thing about gig work is that it severs that connection. It severs the relationship that allows workers to be able to organize,” Miner said. “It’s a vital thing, to have a relationship with their bosses, with the people that are paying them. And it just doesn’t exist.”
The problem is not only the disconnect between deliveristas and delivery companies; deliveristas are cut off from the restaurants they serve, and from their fellow New Yorkers. Often, Miner explains, restaurants will prevent deliveristas from entering their property to access bathrooms, electricity, and Wi-Fi — all for fear of making customers uncomfortable. In the age of contact-free delivery, too, patrons are able to avoid direct interaction with the people who bring them their food. As a result, many feel less compelled to tip, or to consider dangerous weather conditions when placing orders.
The goal of organizations like LDU is, fundamentally, to bridge these divides, whether through local outreach programs, municipal policy campaigns, or (as has been proposed in recent years) the establishment of neighborhood hubs for deliveristas to shelter from harsh weather, safely charge their bikes, and discuss future lobbying efforts. Soren feels that this particular sort of activism — work aimed at fostering community — is more important in the age of the Internet than ever before.
“People feel isolated, obviously, in their personal lives, but also in their jobs. I think of unions and these movements of solidarity as ways to rebuild those connections. [Organizing] helps people feel like they’re part of something, and makes people feel like their own lives and struggles are connected to the plights of other people. It reminds people that they need to fight side by side to be able to impact their own lives. I think that’s crucial, now more than ever.”
