Uber Eats and other app delivery services must fork over a total of millions of dollars to their drivers to reimburse them for time wasted during canceled trips and other issues, according to a settlement with the city.
Uber Eats, Fantuan and HungryPanda will pay out a combined $5.195 million in penalties and damages to more than 49,000 delivery workers for violations of the city’s minimum-wage laws for delivery workers, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Friday.
“This settlement won’t just deliver real relief to thousands of New Yorkers — it draws a red line for corporate abuse,” Hizzoner said in a statement.
“If you break the law and profit from exploitation, you will be held accountable, swiftly and directly,” Mamdani said.
Uber Eats will pay $3,150,000 in restitution to more than 48,000 workers citywide and $350,000 in civil penalties and fees under the deal.
That translates to an average of up to $66 per worker.
The city’s investigation found that the delivery app failed to pay its workers the minimum pay rate between December 2023 and September 2024 for time spent on canceled trips.
Fantuan must pay more than $468,000 in restitution to 285 workers citywide and more than $52,000 in civil penalties and fees.
That averages to $1,642 for each worker.
HungryPanda will have to pay $1,068,672 in restitution to more than 1,000 workers citywide and more than $106,327 in civil penalties and fees, the agreement said.
For its workers, that means an average of up to $1,068.
Uber also agreed to reinstate workers whose accounts were deactivated between December 2023 and September 2024, which the mayor’s office estimates could impact up to 10,000 delivery workers.
The city originally passed minimum-pay rate rules for app-based delivery workers in 2021, which will kick up pay rates before tipping from $21.44 to $22.13 in April because of inflation.
The newly announced settlement is just the latest chapter in Mamdani’s war on delivery apps.
The city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection earlier this month announced a lawsuit against Motoclik — a Bolivian-based company that bills itself as a third-party delivery solutions service that can integrate with top apps such as Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub.
The city’s suit accuses the company of directly stealing from its workers by charging them $10 fees for canceled orders and deducting refunded orders from their pay.
The department released a report earlier this month accusing DoorDash and Uber Eats of stiffing workers of more than $550 million dollars by requiring customers to tip after delivery rather than before.
A new law now requires delivery app companies to prompt tipping before checkout, with a default rate of 10%.
Some services such as Instacart have added $5.99 “fees” in response to “burdensome” delivery-driver laws being enacted in the Big Apple.