News reports last month indicated that some DoorDash customers were receiving a warning at checkout: if you don’t tip on the order, you should expect slower service. It seemed outrageous that this company had found yet another way to offload the responsibility to pay its workers a respectable wage. I wrote a piece for CNN about how DoorDash’s message challenges the common understanding that tips are both voluntary and a reflection of the customer’s appreciation after services are rendered. It’s basically blind-bidding for food delivery.
It’s also another example of this employer’s success at outmanoeuvring labour standards — the company is telling its massive workforce that its compensation must come from tips.
I received a deluge of messages from DoorDash couriers (whom the company calls “dashers”) detailing just how precarious and unprofitable their work can be. Here are some things couriers say they wish customers understood: Roughly half of customers don’t tip at all. Couriers can choose to be paid hourly or by delivery, but in some areas the company pays as little as $2 per order. They sometimes cannot see separate tip amounts before accepting orders.
Last year, DoorDash lost USD$1.36 billion. And yet it is still lobbying our governments to change labour laws to fit its structure of employment: the “independent contractor” hustle that leaves couriers without proper benefits, insurance, or a livable wage. Now, DoorDash is doubling down on its absurd business model.
The “independent contractor” framing was shot down in 2020, when the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled that Foodora couriers, seeking to unionize, were dependent contractors and that the app was the marker of dependence. Shortly after the ruling, Foodora exited the Canadian market.
(That’s at least a better outcome than the one in The Killer, David Fincher’s new movie. In it, an independent-contractor assassin, after making a mistake on assignment, is targeted for elimination because — spoiler alert — the client is so far removed from the service provider that punitive action against a worker is just another option on a menu. It’s a dark, extreme example of how inhumanely we can structure our worker relations when we take humans out of the equation and twist the meaning of language.)
No one is saying not to tip couriers. I’m saying that this entire business is an exploitation of workers and that labour laws, while not perfect — or perfectly modern — were created through great struggle and with concern for the lives of working people.
Why does a food deliverer need to calculate the cost/benefit of every order or strategize to avoid losing money on their upfront costs (gas, car payments, insurance, repairs, etc.)? Why can they not rely on an employer that pays them to bring people food?
The jobs these companies create are terrible and come with precarious employment terms. This legal fiction and the skirting of worker protections are what needs to change — not the definition of a tip.
Efforts to regulate the gig economy in the United States have been met with either the lobbying power of these companies or with litigation. For example: New York City was sued by Uber, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Relay while attempting to institute a minimum wage for food delivery workers. DoorDash and Grubhub sued San Francisco in response to its permanent fee cap on commissions. Following California’s passing of AB-5, which would have reclassified gig workers as employees, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and others spent more than $200 million on Proposition 22, which successfully overturned the law.
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller who sponsored his city’s bill to establish a minimum wage for food-delivery workers, told the Guardian that these companies are “skilled political players. They make a lot of campaign contributions. They hire the right lobbyists.” He said anyone taking them on must “suit up for the backlash.”
The social costs of these decisions are felt by working people everywhere, from couriers to restaurant workers and beyond. Ontario’s Ministry of Labour recently made promising moves in terms of hospitality workers — a forthcoming update to the Employment Standards Act bans unpaid trial shifts, prevents workers from being financially responsible for dine-and-dash bills, and requires employee approval for digital tip distribution.
But the ministry has avoided challenging the gig-economy companies. The previous minister, Monte McNaughton, even appeared in a promotional DoorDash video. That might make DoorDash and its peers seem invincible, but a framework exists for fighting for labour protections.
A report by Brian Topp and Theresa Lubowitz recommends that the federal and provincial governments combat precarious gig work by defining, tracking and evaluating “vulnerable workers” and “precarious workplaces”; establishing new standards to ensure equal pay for equal work; establishing a regular labour-review process; and developing a portable benefits bank. Given that Topp served as a strategist for the successful campaign of newly elected Manitoba premier Wab Kinew, it’s possible that province now possesses the political will to do what Ontario won’t.
British Columbia is proposing amendments to its Employment Standards Act and its Workers Compensation Act that would include minimum wage and workers’-compensation coverage for gig workers. The effort falls short of what is needed, but it’s at least something.
Not long after Lander’s comments, a judge ruled in favour of the city, clearing the path for a wage increase for couriers. It is possible to protect workers from predatory gig-economy practices. But to do so, Ontario would actually have to try.
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