New York City says thousands of delivery workers were shortchanged when orders were canceled—time worked, but not time paid. In a Jan. 30 announcement alongside DCWP Commissioner Sam Lavine, Zohran Mamdani outlined a settlement requiring Uber Eats, Antoine, and Hungry Panda to pay more than $5 million in penalties and restitution to 49,000+ workers, including $3.1 million from Uber and potential reinstatement for up to 10,000 accounts allegedly deactivated under an automated cancellation rule.
I’m proud to be joined today not only by our elected officials, but also by the Commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Sam Lavine, as we announce more than $5 million in penalties and restitution that will be paid by Uber Eats, Antoine, and Hungry Panda to more than 49,000 delivery workers across our city.
All three companies did essentially the same thing: when deliveries or trips were canceled, they failed to pay workers for time they had already worked—even though the law requires it.
Uber went even further. It used an automated cancellation rule to lock workers out of the app even when the cancellation wasn’t the worker’s fault, cutting them off from their jobs and their income. That’s why Uber must pay $3.1 million in restitution to 48,000 workers. Uber will also reinstate workers who were wrongfully deactivated during the same period—potentially as many as 10,000 New Yorkers.
We will continue fighting for these New Yorkers who keep our city running, but too often have no champion to turn to. I’m grateful to the elected officials here today—City Council Member Harvey Epstein, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, Assembly Member Claire Valdez, and Council Member Julie Won—and I’m glad delivery workers will also find champions within our agencies, our departments, and our city government.
Over the past month, Commissioner Lavine and I have laid out an agenda to protect working people from greedy corporations that try to rip them off. We’ve already fought for delivery workers whose pay was stolen by multi-million-dollar app companies. We’ve signed executive orders to target junk fees that drive up the cost of hotel bookings and concert tickets. We created a citywide junk-fee task force. And we’ve gone after subscription tricks and traps that deceive our neighbors.
Through it all, we’ve been guided by one goal: to work as hard—and as relentlessly—for working people as they do every day. Today’s settlement is one more step in that direction. Thank you.
Sources: NYC.gov , Big New York news BigNY.com
