NYC Forces Delivery Apps to Return $4.6M to Workers

Tens of thousands of New York City delivery workers are finally getting their money back after years of being shortchanged by the apps they work for.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection just forced three major delivery apps to repay $4.6 million in wages to deliveristas, the city's app-based delivery workers. Uber Eats, Fantuan, and Hungry Panda all settled after a sweeping investigation uncovered widespread wage theft and unfair worker deactivations.

Uber Eats alone must pay $3.15 million to more than 48,000 workers who were underpaid or unfairly locked out of the app between December 2023 and September 2024. Individual workers will receive between $8.79 and $276.15, plus the company faces $350,000 in city fines.

"The era of giant corporations juicing profits by underpaying workers is over," said Commissioner Sam Levine. The investigation covered other major players too, including GrubHub and DoorDash, sending a clear message that worker protection matters more than corporate profits.

What makes this case remarkable is what it reveals about how these companies operate. Workers weren't being cheated by accident or technical errors. According to Ligia Guallpa from the Workers' Justice Project, exploitation was "baked into the app delivery business model."

For years, delivery workers complained about vanishing wages and sudden deactivations that cost them their livelihoods. The algorithms that managed them operated in the shadows, with no accountability and no appeals process. Companies treated labor laws as suggestions rather than requirements.

The Ripple Effect

This victory reaches far beyond New York City. It proves that tech companies can't hide behind algorithms to avoid responsibility for how they treat workers. Other cities watching this case now have a roadmap for holding gig economy giants accountable.

The settlement also validates what delivery workers have been saying all along. Their stories weren't isolated complaints or misunderstandings. They were evidence of systemic exploitation that took a city government willing to fight back.

Even Uber Eats acknowledged the problem, with spokesman Josh Gold saying the company was "glad to have this resolved" after officials brought the violations to light in August 2024. The company immediately corrected the issue and agreed to pay more than what was originally owed.

James Parrott from The New School's Center for New York City Affairs captured the bigger picture perfectly. Online labor platforms have "not only underpaid workers, but deactivated them with abandon, denying workers the ability to make a living."

Now those workers are getting justice, and cities everywhere are learning that corporate power doesn't have to win.