The Californian app-based food delivery company DoorDash recently settled $131.5 million with New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) following an investigation into the company underpaying its New York City workers. This follows lengthy claims by the city and the Mamdani administration against delivery companies like DoorDash for unfair treatment of workers. This marks the largest worker settlement in New York City history and the largest involving food delivery workers in the United States.
“When a worker earns a wage, they deserve to be paid that wage — not tomorrow, not after a lawsuit, but on time and in full,” said Mayor Mamdani. “DoorDash underpaid more than 260,000 workers, and today we are getting that money back. This is what it looks like when City government stands with working people: We find the violations, we enforce the law, and we make sure workers get what they’re owed.”
According to the agreement, the DCWP will receive $16.7 million, $83 million to resolve a dispute on the calculation of pay for time workers spend online between deliveries but not actually making deliveries, and 12.3 million for missed or delayed payments.
“Simply put, we screwed up,” said DoorDash in a statement. “Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late. While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay. We pride ourselves on operational excellence at DoorDash − and this was not excellent, nor was it acceptable. Dashers should be paid in full, on time, every time. We are sorry to the Dashers we let down.”
Following this success, the DCWP is working to develop a worker-driven compliance system in partnership with Workers Justice Project and the Workers’ Algorithm Observatory that allows workers to share their DoorDash trip and earnings data directly with the agency. This program hopes to ensure companies like DoorDash follow the law going forward and give their workers a direct line to the City to identify problems before they fester.
