On Friday afternoon, deliveristas and their allies rallied in support of a bill that would provide protections against wrongful deactivations.

Intro 1332, sponsored by New York City Council Member Justin Brannan, would create just cause and deactivation protections for the city’s 80,000 deliveristas, who have faced the deletion of their accounts—and the end of their livelihood—at higher rates since New York City passed a minimum wage law in April of $21.44 per hour for delivery workers, speakers at the rally said. 

Intro 1332 would guarantee due process for fired workers, making it easier for them to get their jobs back if their accounts are unjustly deleted. Algorithms rule the lives of delivery workers by rewarding deliveristas who speed or accept many deliveries, incentivizing reckless driving by workers, who fear if they are delayed in dropping off or picking up an order, they may be fired out of nowhere, making it a public safety issue as well as a labor one.

Deliveristas, organizers, and their supporters gathered on the front steps of City Hall before a city council hearing for Intro 1332, where deliveristas gave testimony in favor of the bill. Emily Vargas is one of the deliveristas who rallied there, after her account got deactivated out of the blue three weeks ago.

Through a translator, Vargas told The Indypendent she spent 10 months working as a deliverista, working eight hours a day. “It’s my only source of income, it was very difficult, because I came here without work. It was very hard to find work. I got rejected a lot from employment opportunities.”

Vargas also said that she has a baby who she needs to provide for, and with her account deactivated, she has no steady stream of income to do so. Still, Vargas said that being at the rally was “my first time doing anything like this, and it made me feel so much unity.”

Jose Luis Diaz Neri, another worker whose account was deactivated out of nowhere, also spoke at the rally. Neri has lived in New York City for the past 20 years and has been a delivery worker since 2009.

“I worked all through the pandemic, serving New Yorkers, working long hours despite the risks, and even getting into accidents while navigating the dangerous streets of this city. During that time, I saw how deliveries got harder. The distances kept getting longer—sometimes 9 miles for just one delivery,” Neri said in his testimony.  “The problem with long trips is that food often arrives cold, and then we are the ones punished or blamed for delays that are completely out of our control.”

Intro 1332 would stop delivery companies from deactivating a worker’s account (after a probation period of 30 days) without “just cause” or a “bona-fide economic reason.” Companies would only be able to fire or lockout workers with a reason which must be shared with the worker, and some other type of disciplinary action must be given prior to deactivation. 

“Labor exploitation and the constant threat of deactivation force delivery workers to accept dangerous conditions to satisfy platform demands for speed and profit. We cannot continue to allow workers’ lives and the safety of our streets to be sacrificed in the name of corporate greed,” said Ligia Guallpa, Executive Director of Worker’sJustice Project and Co-Founder of its Los Deliveristas Unidos organizing campaign in a statement. “By protecting workers from exploitative app companies, Intro 1332 will also make our streets safer — because when workers can prioritize their own safety without the fear of deactivation, they can create safer streets for everyone.”

Earlier this week, a City Council supermajority overrode Mayor Eric Adams’ vetoes of Intro 1133 and Intro 1135 which expands minimum pay laws for food delivery workers to also include those delivering groceries. 

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