When Gustavo Ajché saw that there were not dozens, but hundreds of food delivery people with their bicycles who gathered at a protest in New York, he remembers that he felt very excited.
It was October 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic was at one of its most complicated moments.
Many Latino migrants They couldn’t stay at home to workAs ordered by the authorities, they had to risk their health on the streets of the Big Apple to sustain their economic situation. And the food deliverers were going through difficulties beyond health ones.
They were protesting the insecurity of which they were being victims in the deserted streets of New York as a result of the confinements. Their electric bicycles costing more than $2,000, and their batteries costing a few hundred dollars more, were targets of criminals.
“There were many assaults on the desolate streets during the pandemic,” says Ajché, who migrated from Guatemala in 2004 and since then has dedicated himself to food delivery and construction.
“In less than a week we organized our first demonstration in New York City. I expected 60 or 70 workers, but about 400 arrived. I said ‘wow!’, the work we did had an impact,” he explains to BBC Mundo.
After that large demonstration, these workers – mostly Latino, but also from black and Asian communities – caught the attention of the authorities and achieved something that is very difficult for migrants in the United States to do: form a rights defense group that functions almost like a union.
They call him “The United Deliveristas”appropriating the term in English delivery (“delivery”) for your name. And from being a few hundred they became more than 60,000 members currently.
“During the pandemic, a brotherhood was created among workers. The Latin community that does this work is very supportive and that is what makes the difference in the city,” Ajché says proudly.
And since then they have achieved the unthinkable for other Latinos, many of them limited by being undocumented: that the government guarantees them labor rights as basic as having a minimum hourly wage, access to bathrooms and guarantees that they get their tips.
And now they’re in the middle of a battle with big food delivery apps, like Uber Eats and DoorDashto those who demand that there be more transparency and respect for their achieved labor rights.
These platforms, however, warn that recent changes – such as the minimum wage that came into effect at the end of 2023 – are negatively impacting costs for customers, restaurants and, in the end, delivery workers.
The revolution of apps
Food deliveries have been a part of New York City life for decades.
But the arrival of mobile applications to place online orders triggered this type of commerce. Customers could more easily order from restaurants farther away than the neighborhood pizzeria.
And the delivery drivers could access a flexible employment: “If you wanted to work, you worked, and if you didn’t, you didn’t. There was great flexibility,” Ajché recalls.
However, it is a more difficult job than it seems. Delivery drivers who ride bicycles are exposed to the risk of being hit by cars and trucks on the streets, or to the heat or intense snowfall of each season.
“The ones who are always praised are the firefighters, the police, for being there on days with strong weather. And I said ‘why not the delivery workers, if they are there every day bringing food to people,’” says Ajché.
Another radical change to the business came in 2020 with the approval of the circulation of electric bicycles in the city, which allowed them to go further than they can pedal with their legs.
It was a crucial moment, the pandemic also arrived and many office workers in the city went to work from home and order food at home.
But the delivery men they had no choice more than staying on the street.
At that time things began to get complicated, because with the city streets empty, they began to be targeted by criminals who stole their bicycles.
The birth of the United Deliveristas
Gustavo Ajché left Totonicapán, a department in western Guatemala, at the age of 20. He arrived in New York in 2004 and quickly got a job at a pizzeria, where he did “everything,” including delivering food.
Like others, he saw an opportunity to improve his income with apps in the middle of the last decade, and then became interested in participating in an organization called Labor Justice Project.
There he learned about labor rights, which are often something that undocumented migrants are unaware of because they avoid encounters with authorities.
“The leadership training and orientation empowered me as a person and I said ‘no, it’s true, you don’t have to be afraid, it doesn’t matter if you are an immigrant or wherever, you can fight, fight and not be afraid’” says Ajché.
That is why, in October 2020, when there was a small protest by delivery workers, Ajché decided to actively help shape a very large group of workers who “suffered injustice.”
“Workers get accidents, workers get sick, there was no one to advocate for them,” he remembers.
From that massive protest on October 15, 2020, The United Deliveristaswhich initially were just a few who communicated via WhatsApp to give each other warnings, support or advice on the routes.
Ajché highlights the fraternity of the Deliveristas. Even migrants of African origin who speak French, or those from Southeast Asia, have joined the group to take care of each other.
“It’s nice to see the city from corner to corner. One even guides tourists. Sometimes we have the opportunity to climb skyscrapers without paying, like tourists. And we took a little time to admire the city from above,” she highlights.
“There are good moments, but also bad ones. Discrimination against workers. Or that platforms sometimes make it seem that the worker is to blame for many things, but one is the intermediary. You get stressed as a worker. The consumer does not know and begins to put pressure,” he says.
“Sometimes they say the order is ready when they haven’t even started cooking it. “It’s things like that that frustrate the worker.”
The conquests of Deliveristas
The pressure and efforts of the group in favor of their labor rights led the authorities of the New York City Council to open a hearing process in their favor.
Thanks to the fact that the Deliveristas Unidos continued to grow in number and formed a large group of delivery people, they conducted a survey to find out what needs they had.
Until then, they were not allowed to use the bathrooms in the restaurants they served. They also did not have thermal bags to protect the food. The delivery of tips from app customers was not transparent. and think about a minimum wage per hourlike every job in the US, was an illusion.
It was those demands that were precisely raised and, to the surprise of the “deliveristas”, they were heard by the Municipal Council.
ANDIn October 2021, they approved these demandsincluding a minimum payment per hour worked of US$17.89, a figure higher than the New York state base salary.
“The legislative package was a reality, in record time,” says Ajché proudly.
The city has also created or expanded lanes for cyclists in general, which has made their work easier by not exposing themselves to the traffic flow that causes fatal accidents.
“We have classified it as a high risk job since during the last three years we have had the data that Around 20 workers die annually, mostly Latinos“explains the group leader.
“When the platforms hire you as an independent worker, they clean their hands of everything. If something happens to you, you are on your own with the expenses, the recovery. That is why we are fighting so that one day this work is treated for what it is. It is fair that people are treated with dignity,” he argues.
Despite the achievements they have achieved, they have not yet been able to claim the victory they would like.
The conflict with the giants
The group considers that platforms such as Uber Eats or DoorDash have not complied with some new regulations, despite the fact that post-pandemic commerce has returned to its regular course.
“They have not given in,” complains the leader of the Deliveristas Unidos.
The main question is about the schemes and algorithms that applications use to count work time and how it translates into minimum hourly pay.
“Using the calculator, it simply doesn’t add up” the work time with the payment received, says Ajché.
“The minimum wage came into effect on December 4, 2023, but companies do not give in easily. Payment methods are changing. They are being hostile to make people believe that the minimum wage is something that does not benefit the worker,” he complains.
Uber Eats and DoorDash noted that groups like Deliveristas Unidos haven’t grasped how hourly pay works.
“Individual workers are not compensated for on-call time.” [sin pedidos]. Workers are paid individually for travel time, only collectively are they compensated for on-call time,” said an Uber Eats spokesperson in a statement sent to BBC Mundo.
DoorDash assured that there have been a “damaging impact” from “extreme minimum payment rules” that are affecting users, workers and restaurants.
According to the company, there have been 200,000 fewer orders in recent weeks.
“We look forward to finding a path forward with responsible politicians that will allow us to continue to better serve New York City communities,” a DoorDash spokesperson said.
Given this, Ajché says that it seems illogical that there are losses, considering the profit reports that these companies make each year.
“The applications have been in decline due to the type of algorithm they use, which benefits only them and not the worker. It is an algorithm that is broken, I would say,” she points out.
Even so, he celebrates that some workers who seemed invisible until not long ago, and that they carried out a job without minimum guarantees, now be organized and fight for their rights before local authorities and large US corporations.
“We look like a union, but we are not a union. We have achieved many things because of how we have moved,” Ajché says proudly.
“That is why we are fighting so that one day this work is treated for what it is. It is fair that people are treated with dignity.”
Click to read more stories from BBC News Mundo.
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