For years, delivery workers in New York have improvised solutions like the bridge patrol to make their jobs feasible. These methods have been remarkably successful, undergirding the illusion of limitless and frictionless delivery. But every hack that made their working conditions tolerable only encouraged the apps and restaurants to ask more of them, until the job evolved into something uniquely intense, dangerous, and precarious.
Take the electric bike. When e-bikes first arrived in the city in the late 2000s, they were ridden mostly by older Chinese immigrants who used them to stay in the job as they aged, according to Do Lee, a Queens College professor who wrote his dissertation on delivery workers. But once restaurant owners and executives at companies like Uber, DoorDash, and Grubhub-Seamless figured out it was possible to do more and faster deliveries, they adjusted their expectations, and e-bikes became a de facto job requirement.
Delivering Justice: Food Delivery Cyclists in New York City
Do Lee, Queens College Urban Studies
https://twitter.com/dosik
Last night at 10pm, DRUM member Borkat Ullah was killed while working and making food deliveries
Borkat was a DRUM member for a year and a half. He fled Bangladesh after encountering political repression & targeting there and came here as a border crosser and was seeking asylum.
Do Jun Lee 이도준 Retweeted
Gig workers demonstrating in NYC–calling for change in gig economy after Francisco Villalva Vitinio, doordash driver, was robbed & killed few weeks ago.
Gig companies know risk transferred to workers. We are backbone of these companies–they are all being reminded of that today.
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