Mayor Eric Adams vetoed two bills on Wednesday that would’ve increased pay rates for nearly 20,000 grocery delivery workers.
Adams said setting minimum hourly pay rules for grocery delivery workers would ultimately raise grocery prices at a time when New Yorkers can’t afford it. In an interview with Gothamist, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro echoed that sentiment.
“This is not a time to raise grocery prices,” Mastro said. “The cost of delivering groceries would go up because the wages of the workers making the deliveries would go up.”
The legislation, passed by a majority of the City Council last month, required third-party grocery app companies like Instacart and Shipt to pay their workers at least $21.44 for every active hour of work.
That rate would match the pay received by restaurant delivery workers who work for apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats and GrubHub. In 2021, delivery workers secured minimum pay rates, the first in the nation.
The City Council criticized Adams’ veto in a statement and said it was considering its next steps. The council could override the mayor’s veto with a two-thirds majority.
“Mayor Adams is once again displaying hypocrisy – this time, by opposing common-sense minimum pay standards and protections for grocery delivery workers that his own administration negotiated with us to match existing ones for food delivery workers,” City Council spokesperson Julia Agos said in a statement.
“Without fair wages and protections for delivery workers, there is no sustainable industry, just exploitation. It’s disappointing but unsurprising that the mayor is once again prioritizing corporate interests over New Yorkers and parroting inaccurate talking points to justify his actions that hurt working-class people.”
Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Workers’ Justice Project, the main organization that pushed for the bills, called Adams’ veto a “fundamental betrayal of the essential workers he has at other times championed” and said he was bowing to the interests of wealthy tech corporations.
A spokesperson for Instacart, which had lobbied strongly against the bills, thanked Adams in a statement and urged the council to reconsider its support for the legislation.
“Grocery delivery is fundamental for many New Yorkers, including some of our most vulnerable residents, including seniors, people with disabilities, and those who receive SNAP and EBT benefits. We must always work to strike the right balance between delivering fair wages and making our city affordable for everyone,” Adams said in a statement.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
