Tech platforms Uber Eats, Fantuan and HungryPanda will pay millions of dollars in restitution to food delivery workers to resolve violations of New York City’s minimum wage rules, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Friday.
Uber will pay the bulk of the $5.2 million settlement, owing more than $3.1 million to roughly 48,000 workers citywide and $350,000 in civil penalties and fees, according to City Hall. Officials said the platform will also reinstate hundreds of workers who were wrongfully deactivated between December 2023 and September 2024.
Meanwhile, Fantuan will pay more than $468,000 in restitution to nearly 300 workers and $52,000 in penalties, while HungryPanda owes more than $1 in restitution to over 1,000 workers and $106,000 in penalties, according to the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
“When workers speak up and they are met with silence, retaliation, or automatically removed from the app — but no more,” Aboubacar Ki, a delivery worker and organizer with the Los Deliveristas group, said at a City Hall press conference on Friday. “The era of app impunity is over. We are 80,000 strong, and we’ll be holding you accountable.”
Josh Gold, a spokesperson for Uber, said the company is glad the matter is resolved.
“After the city notified us of the issue in August of 2024, we immediately corrected it, agreed to pay more than the amount owed and appreciate the new administration moving quickly to bring this to a fair conclusion,” he said in a statement.
Fantuan and HungryPanda did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
DCWP said its investigation found Uber failed to pay delivery workers for time spent on canceled trips, and that Fantuan and HungryPanda also violated minimum pay rules. The agency said it identifies violations by directly engaging with workers and examining the apps’ monthly reported data.
Officials said the settlement underscores a broader shift in how the city plans to regulate app-based businesses.
“The era of giant corporations juicing profits by underpaying workers is over,” DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine said in a statement.
The announcement comes a day after the City Council overrode one of former Mayor Eric Adams’ last-minute vetoes, enacting legislation that protects app-based for-hire drivers against sudden deactivation from platforms like Uber and Lyft. Workers and their advocates have compared the practice to being fired without notice.
The settlement also comes as the Mamdani administration increases enforcement of the city’s labor regulations, particularly for gig economy workers, even though some tech platforms are pushing back in court. The DCWP sued delivery platform Motoclick this month and issued warnings to more than 60 companies about complying with new worker protection laws.
A Manhattan federal judge last week denied DoorDash and Uber Eats’ request to block the city from implementing new tipping rules for delivery workers. Now, app customers must be given the option to tip workers at checkout, with a default of 10%, rather than after placing their orders.
The city’s minimum pay rate for app-based delivery workers will rise to $22.13 an hour on April 1, a 3.2% adjustment for inflation between the end of 2024 and 2025, according to DCWP. Another new regulation Monday extended minimum wage requirements to grocery delivery apps, such as Instacart.
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