Gig workers are making a special delivery to City Hall with hundreds of to-go bags and one giant 6-foot-tall bag.
It’s a message calling on city leaders to deliver for workers by passing a new law eliminating subminimum wages on apps like DoorDash, Instacart, and UberEats. These workers are currently paid as little as $2 a job for their work and excluded from basic labor standards.
Workers are urging city leaders to continue moving forward on the PayUp policy under discussion by council, which would raise pay, protect flexibility, and provide transparency for 40,000+ people citywide. This would be the biggest advance in workers’ rights since the Fight for Fifteen.
WHO: A delegation of gig workers from apps like DoorDash, Instacart, Handy, Rover, and Shipt, who are leading the fight to raise pay, protect flexibility, and provide transparency in the gig economy.
WHAT: Delivering 400 to-go bags and one giant 6-foot-tall bag to the plaza at Seattle City Hall, representing 1 bag for every 100 gig workers in the city. Each bag will display what an actual delivery paid after expenses. There will be a brief program where workers will speak about their experiences working in the gig economy, and call on city leaders to deliver.
WHEN: Wednesday, February 16th @ 1pm sharp
WHERE: The plaza in front of Seattle City Hall (600 4th Ave, Seattle, WA 98104)
To interview workers participating in this action and leading the Pay Up campaign, contact Jeffrey Gustaveson: jeffrey@workingwa.org
More information:
This recent City Council presentation details the draft PayUp policy under consideration.
Data shows that workers earn far less than Seattle minimum wage, often as little as $2/job.
In 2020, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu received $413 million in compensation.
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Working Washington is the voice for workers in our state. Working Washington fast food strikers sparked the fight that won Seattle’s first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage. Working Washington baristas and fast food workers led the successful campaign for secure scheduling in Seattle, and our members across the state helped drive forward Initiative 1433 to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick days. We successfully drove Amazon to sever ties with the right-wing lobby group ALEC and improve conditions in their sweatshop warehouses, and got Starbucks to address inequities in their corporate parental leave policy. And we've continued to make history by organizing for the landmark statewide paid family leave law in 2017, winning the groundbreaking Seattle Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in summer 2018, leading the fight to restore overtime protections to salaried workers in 2019, and passing the nation's first hazard pay and paid sick days laws for gig workers last year. For more information, visit workingWA.org.