The photo of a deliveryman on a bicycle, pedaling with the water up to the handlebars and a bag of food in tow during the recent floods in New York, was one of the most viral of a tropical storm that claimed fifteen lives in the city. Tragedy aside, the image served to identify a forgotten group, the most precarious of all those that make up essential workers and a parallel phenomenon – its b-side, in every sense – to the emergence of the food applications business. domicile thanks to the pandemic. If before the health emergency there were about 15,000 deliveries (so they are called, in Spanglish, because the majority are Hispanic), now there are at least 65,000, although some sources raise their number to 80,000.
The deliveries They are the last rung of the urban evolutionary ladder – most are immigrants, and many are undocumented – but, thanks to a package of laws approved at the end of September by the New York City Council, they now have minimal legal support in the face of a market billionaire, dominated by algorithms and lacking interlocutors, given the manifest impossibility of negotiating with a app. The municipal initiative, the first in the US, may set a precedent to regulate a rapidly developing sector in which the lack of protection and rights – even that of going to the bathroom – is the norm. The political and administrative support also proves that the growing organization of many groups offers gradual results in a country so reluctant to the union struggle, although it enjoys the sympathy of President Biden. And also that Democrat New York is a laboratory for social outposts.
Nobody would say, seeing the delivery men buried under the weight of their backpacks and absorbed in their mobiles waiting for the manna from the orders, that these 21st century outcasts have been able to raise their voices, but “David in the end ends up defeating Goliath, against the prognosis, ”explains Hildalyn Colón, Strategy Director of the Los Deliveristas Unidos union. “The pandemic brought us out of the shadows and gave us public space. We are part of a production process in which technology is shaping new economic realities ”, he stresses,“ and of a debate on the value and consideration of work that is also taking place in Europe, a new scenario that has not yet ended. to draw ”.
The provisions approved by the consistory are a basic exercise of dignity. The first, the right to use the bathroom of the restaurants whose food is distributed, with fines for establishments that refuse; the second, a minimum amount per distribution, which will be established in the coming months. Also that the invoice informs the client of how much money goes to the delivery man, and to this one, of how much he will receive in tips. In addition, the deliverista You can decide the maximum distribution distance. Guatemalan Jonathan Ramírez, five years on the bike, explains the importance of delimiting the area: “If I have to travel 30 streets for the same rate [2,5 dólares la básica] that they pay me to walk five, it does not compensate me because I am going to lose time and money ”.
It all started shortly before the pandemic, when the Institute of the Worker of the Cornell University embarked on an investigation into working conditions in the so-called gig economy. “The debate about their job category (whether they are self-employed or not, what kind of relationship they have with their employers, if they really are or rather intermediaries) was already hot. We contacted the Los Deliveristas union and thanks to the funds we received, as a public university, from the State of New York, we published a report, which was the starting point of the law, ”explains Patricia Campos-Medina, director of the project. “Before the pandemic there were between 10,000 and 15,000, but the emergency left many precarious workers without jobs and they saw no other option than to get on the bike. Today there are about 65,000 in the city alone ”.
No margin to negotiate – ”are the apps and the restaurants are the ones who set the rules of the game ”-, with incomes of less than 10 dollars an hour after deducting expenses (bicycle, spare parts and breakdowns; mobile rate and the cost of backpacks or thermal bags) and forced to accept any Asked not to be penalized by some algorithms, thinking about days off and even more about paid leave is utopian at the moment. Seventeen delivery men have died in the last year in traffic accidents, but the City Council has no powers in this regard. “We must get to the next level, the state, which does have powers to regulate compensation for accident or death in a work-related accident,” adds the union leader.
The accumulated discontent of these lives in the open, in a city with an extreme climate, and the exacerbation of their precariousness due to the pandemic, came together at the right time, recalls Colón. “On rainy days we make more money, because the customer kind of takes pity on seeing us soaked and gives more tips, but it is very hard to pedal all day underwater,” says Edwin, a Mexican, a former kitchen boy who suffered from the pandemic turned into deliverista. On days of torrential rain, which are not unusual, pray that you don’t have to go through a tunnel or a bridge exposed to the wind. “About half of the deliveries that we interviewed, about 500, have had an accident at work, and 75% had to pay their medical expenses out of their pocket ”, recalls the teacher.
A market in full transformation – that of New York is the largest in the country, and the most voracious -, subjected to ruthless competition and in which the picaresque overlaps after the drain of responsibilities, until now allowed, for example, to pay by request or by time, indistinctly and randomly, depending on the benefit obtained by the business or the app. 42% of the delivery men who participated in the study charged less than promised, or even nothing. “The base is $ 2.50 per cast, but we have seen apps that pay 0.50,” recalls Colón. Jonathan and Edwin celebrate, above all, being able to go to the bathroom, that human claim that also put the workers of the giant Amazon on the warpath. “If I reject an order, I fall about 50 points in the ranking of the app ”, says disappointed Jonathan. “They have no decision-making capacity, they are captives; But they cannot even wait inside the establishments when it is raining outside or it is infernally hot! click hit. For this reason, the researcher stresses, what is in question beyond peremptory needs is the very relevance of the concept of work, or at least its traditional definition: “It is a model that seeks to eliminate the integration of the worker. If they cannot negotiate with the apps, then they cannot be called workers ”.