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Councilmembers introduce "PayUp" legislation to protect app-based workers

Publish Date: 4/7/2022
Description: Lisa Herbold (District 1 West Seattle/South Park) and Andrew J. Lewis (District 7 Pioneer Square to Magnolia) join Working Washington and Seattle Restaurants United to discuss the first in a suite of bills called PayUp focused on labor standards protections for app-based workers. The bill sets minimum compensation standards, transparency in employment terms, and flexibility in employment issues for app-based workers.This bill is the result of nearly a year of engagement with stakeholders including drivers and the companies with whom they work. Engagement thus far has included over a dozen large-format stakeholder meetings and three public meetings in the Seattle City Councils Public Safety and Human Services Committee. Discussion of the introduced bill will begin at the April 12 Public Safety and Human Services committee. Speakers and attendees include: Councilmember Lisa Herbold, Seattle City Council Councilmember Andrew J. Lewis, Seattle City Council Mikey Pullman, gig worker & PayUp campaign leader Kim Wolfe, gig worker & PayUp campaign leader Carmen Figueroa, gig worker & PayUp campaign leader Wei Lin, gig worker & PayUp campaign leader Jeanie Chunn, Seattle Restaurants United
SPEAKER_01

Hi, welcome.

My name is Mikey Pullman.

I am a DoorDash driver, a gig worker there.

Thanks for joining us today and learning about PayUp, the groundbreaking legislation that thousands of gig workers have organized for in order to raise pay, protect flexibility, and require transparency from apps.

We'll be sharing details of the policy, hearing from workers and council members about why we need PayUp Pass now, and answer any questions.

For efficiency's sake, everyone will introduce themselves when they speak.

First off the issue.

There are more than 40,000 gig workers currently working in Seattle.

That's more than half the number of Amazon employees in the Seattle area.

And that's almost enough people to completely fill the T-Mobile stadium.

It is also predicted that these numbers will climb drastically in the near future.

Gig workers are some of the most marginalized workers in the city, people of color, Immigrants, single parents, LGBTQ workers, and workers with disabilities all depend on gig work to pay the bills.

And all of these workers are excluded from basic labor standards.

Companies like Instacart, DoorDash, Uber, and Handy have blazed the trail for an innovative approach to cutting corporate costs by exploiting a huge loophole in our labor laws.

By simply classifying their workers as independent contractors, these companies get it both ways.

An on-demand workforce with no responsibility to provide basic labor standards or even pay the minimum wage.

And workers are the ones footing the bill.

We're paid as little as $2 a job and take on all the costs.

We cover the cost of gas, maintaining our vehicles, we pay all of our own payroll taxes.

We're on the hook if we get injured or need a big car repair.

And while that's great for DoorDash's CEO who's getting paid $413 million a year, what it means for workers is sub-minimum wage and zero protections.

It is imperative that we close these loopholes companies are already abusing to undermine the last 100 years of U.S. labor laws.

And gig workers have organized and created a path for Seattle to make that happen with the pay-up policy.

Gig companies have a big head start, and we're already behind in addressing this crisis, but Seattle has a chance to catch up before gig companies decimate workers' rights in every industry.

It's common sense.

Simply calling a worker an independent contractor shouldn't be an excuse for paying less than minimum wage or failing basic care.

to provide basic protections.

Whether we sign a W-2 or a 1099, we need the same basic rights every worker needs.

We have little to no control over our pay and conditions of work.

Gig companies promise flexibility but fail to deliver, and the companies we work for could not function without our participation.

We are an indispensable part of their profit model, despite best efforts of some to minimize both our worth or our labor.

For years, gig workers have gotten the best of both worlds.

For years, gig workers have gotten the best of both worlds.

The worst of both worlds.

I am writing my own stuff.

For years, gig workers have gotten the worst of both worlds.

Limited flexibility and no protections.

The payout policy would change that and get us the rights we need and the flexibility we depend on.

And these policies won't just benefit workers.

They'll benefit the entire city of Seattle because the wages of the people who live here are used to shop here, pay rent here, and all the other important and fun things people spend on to keep our economy functioning and healthy.

When the workers who deliver food can afford to buy their own groceries and go out to eat at restaurants, It means a healthier community for all of us.

Thousands of workers have contributed to the development of the pay-up policies, and the first three of these policies are currently on the docket.

A pay floor, transparency, and flexibility.

For the pay floor, how much we get paid at the end of the month, we are asking for minimum wage plus expenses.

That's it.

I heard somebody say once that we're asking for more than minimum wage, and first off, that's fine.

People can make more than minimum wage.

Secondly, people, that's not how this works.

As independent contractors, we cover all our own costs, so we need a pay floor that makes it into account all of our time, mileage, and other costs in order to ensure we earn minimum wage.

And the gig worker should not be responsible for the expenses required to do the job.

The person making your pizza should not also have to buy the toppings themselves.

Transparency.

This might shock some of you, but most gig workers don't know how much they are going to make for a gig, even when the company already knows the answer.

The payout policy would require apps to provide us info about pay, tips, time, and miles up front.

Because everyone involved in a business decision should have all the relevant information and time needed to decide if it's worth it for them or not.

These are basic standards and common sense expectations.

Flexibility.

Gig apps like to claim they offer this already, so they probably shouldn't be complaining about legislation that requires it.

Payup would require workers the rights to reject offers and work when we choose, without penalty.

But the companies play all kinds of tricks to limit that flexibility.

DoorDash, where I work, for example, sets monthly targets I have to hit to continue getting jobs.

If you don't hit your target, you can't go online when you want to.

Some apps require you to keep a schedule or penalize you for rejecting jobs.

Some even require gig workers to report to a manager.

Part of what defines gig work is the ability to freely choose when you participate and by how much.

But companies aren't delivering on the promises of flexibility we require.

None of this is complicated.

Getting paid at least minimum wage is pretty basic.

These policies take an innovative approach to addressing a long-standing inequity in workers' rights.

And most importantly, these policies were created out of an ongoing conversation with thousands of gig workers such as myself and the other gig workers you see in front of you.

Our personal experiences have shaped the direction and priorities of this legislation and would ensure we're treated with respect, not taken advantage of, and have the financial freedom we need to provide and survive in our society.

Next, I'm going to handle it off to Carmen.

SPEAKER_03

Hello, my name is Carmen Figueroa and I work on the Grubhub platform.

I am one of thousands of gig workers with a hidden disability that depends on the flexibility of gig work.

In exchange for the flexibility, it is an expectation that we give up basic rights like minimum wage.

Sub-minimum wages have become the standard for the gig economy.

Delivery pay is set using a black box algorithm.

I like to imagine a wizard looking into a crystal ball.

The numbers seen floating within the mystic smoke are presented to the gig worker as an offer.

An offer can be anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars per hour per offer, with the average being $3 to $5 per order.

Other apps like TaskRabbit encourage workers to set rates as low as $15 per hour, which is below the minimum wage.

After factoring in independent contractors' expenses, the sub-minimum wage drops even lower.

The apps are constantly devising ways to keep sub-minimum wages as the industry standard.

All apps in the past few years have revamped their payout structure, in many cases lowering gig workers' pay.

Some offers are so low that the gig worker ends up paying the company to do the order.

The promise apps make that gig workers have the flexibility to set their own hours and be their own boss is not entirely accurate.

In reality, the apps are the boss, controlling us with penalties and threats of deactivation.

Every penalty lowers a gig worker's rating.

Everything is tied to your rating.

Orders go to the highest rated, closest available driver.

The lower the rating, the lower the offer.

Ratings go down in real time for a variety of reasons, like rejecting a low-paying offer.

Flexibility for me means the ability to work at a pace and intensity that I am comfortable with for the length of time and hours I can manage without fear of penalty.

Flexibility is not simply the ability to log on whenever I feel like it and earn a little pocket cash.

For me, the most important factor, flexibility is the most important factor in whether I can pay my rent or make ends meet.

The promise of flexibility is being eroded as apps ramp up their control to maximize profits.

And while they're ramping up control to lower gig workers' pay and to maximize their own profits, the amps have taken away transparency.

The lack of transparency makes it harder for gig workers to tell or prove when they're getting a bad deal.

Some apps don't even tell us how much we are going to make per job or how far we will have to drive per offer.

On some apps, daily and weekly reports don't report mileage or time spent working on an order.

And this makes it harder for gig workers to calculate what their actual pay is and what their profit is.

The payout policy levels the playing field.

It removes the wizard glazing into a crystal ball and provides transparency so that I know what I'm being paid and how that pay was calculated.

The payout policy also protects the flexibility I need while guaranteeing I am paid fairly for my labor.

By passing the policies, Seattle can be the first in the nation to end sub-minimum wages for all gig workers who are often the most marginalized of workers, and for gig workers like me with a hidden disability that rely on gig work as their only source of income.

So now I would like to pass it off to Council Member Holbar.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Thanks so much.

And Carmen has a great story that was on Ruby DeLuna's, what is it called?

It's The Diary of a Gig Worker.

She tells the story.

I represent Lisa Herbold, council member representing District 1. I represent West Seattle.

And she has this fantastic story.

It's an unfortunate story, but it's really illustrative of what gig workers have to deal with, of not being compensated for mileage and time to get to West Seattle.

Imagine that.

I drove into work today.

I don't do that very often.

It took me an hour and a half.

So imagine not being compensated for that much time in order to deliver food to a customer.

We've all been working in this city and working successfully since 2012 to strengthen local labor law protections from paid sick and safe time in 2012 to the Seattle minimum wage to secure scheduling in 2016. Explosive growth of the gig economy, as we've heard explained, undermines those hard-fought protections because the number of workers in the gig economy is increasing exponentially, almost as a way to avoid all of the great labor laws that we've been fighting for for over a decade.

In March 2020, when the pandemic became real for us in Seattle and Washington, tens of thousands of workers stayed home, and many continue to stay home to this day.

Meanwhile, these on-demand and marketplace workers have continued to show up.

And that's why in June, the council paid a premium pay obligation for these essential workers.

That legislation is tied to the pandemic.

and the additional work and conditions that these workers found themselves in.

That is really their only, right now, hazard pay is functioning as the only guaranteed minimum wage these workers get.

So when that goes away, there is no guaranteed minimum wage.

As we begin to reopen and return to work, app-based workers need a long-term solution that holistically addresses the concerns that they have and addresses their sub-minimum wage.

That's what these folks are paid.

They're paid sub-minimum wages.

There's no other way around it.

This is why pay-up is so important.

We began conversations with stakeholders last June.

Some of you may remember that the council passed some transparency obligations for gig workers generally, and when we passed that legislation, we made a commitment to take up the issue of minimum compensation.

And so we've been working on that since last June.

We've had 12 large stakeholder meetings, which have included a wide range of companies that would potentially be impacted, companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Rover, Instacart, and others.

And we've included Working Washington and the workers who work for these companies.

We'll continue to have these smaller group meetings now that the legislation has been introduced.

The introduction of the legislation is a huge benchmark for this process, but it is not the end of the process.

So we'll continue to have discussions in committee.

Our first discussion in the Public Safety and Human Services Committee We'll be on April 12th at 930 and we'll be having subsequent discussions on the 26th of April and May 10th and through that process we'll identify issues that perhaps we didn't tend to prior to the introduction of the legislation, engage other council members.

We have had a couple of briefings.

to my committee prior to introduction of the legislation on draft bills so we could get council members on the committee familiar with the concepts.

There are a lot of complicated concepts in this legislation for how you determine minimum compensation, and so I've been really pleased to be able to include conversations about those efforts prior to introduction, and we'll continue them afterwards.

I think it would be great to hear more from the workers and Kimberly, right?

Is that right?

Come on up.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_05

This policy was developed over three years by thousands of gig workers, distilled down to the most important points which address the most egregious or harmful policies in the gig economy.

And then we refined it over the last year in a stakeholder process led by the city with gig workers and community organizers and the gig companies who chose to take part.

I myself went to more than a dozen of these stakeholder meetings.

It's crucial that we, the gig workers, led that policy ourselves because we've seen time and time again how the gig companies use fine print in their corporate policies to leave loopholes for themselves at the expense of gig workers who directly serve our community.

So it was important to take the time to get the details right, but the entire policy is built on some very basic principles.

We should get the flexibility we were promised.

The companies should be transparent about our pay.

And no worker in our city should have to put up with sub-minimum wages.

I'll just go a little bit more into the detail of the policy.

The first section would be the pay for minimum wage after expenses for all time worked.

So we make sure each job pays at least minimum wage after the expenses for all the time worked by establishing a pay floor.

Each job would have to pay a minimum of 39 cents per minute, and if driving is required, 73 cents per mile.

If you do the math, it may sound more than minimum wage.

It might sound confusing at first, but let me break it down to show you how the gig workers need this floor to make sure we're making at least minimum wage after expenses.

The permanent rate is about 135% of minimum wage paid on each job from when we start working it to when we finish.

That's 13% to minimally account for business costs that companies shift to us, like extra payroll taxes we cover as contractors.

21% to minimally account for the time that we have to work outside of the individual jobs, things like communicating with apps, support, It's all required to do the job, just not for necessarily one specific job that we're on.

So our pay needs to account for it.

And the per mile rate is 125% of IRS mileage reimbursement rate paid on all the miles we drive during each active job.

So the baseline is we need compensation for the mileage we put on our cars during each job.

The IRS rate is the gold standard for calculating the cost of operating a personal vehicle for business use.

People use it all over the country.

We can use it here.

It includes everything from gas to maintenance to depreciation, all the little stuff.

But there are also miles required between jobs, like driving to a hot spot for offers, returning from a drop off to get back into the hot area, driving to gas stations or restrooms.

25% is a way to minimally account for those extra miles that you need to drive.

And of course, not all gig work includes mileage.

Jobs like house cleaning and dog walking would simply be required to pay at least a per minute rate.

On apps like TaskRabbit and Rover, the policy would simply require apps to set a floor using these numbers.

So workers are still free to set their rates higher, but apps can't advertise jobs that pay below minimum wage.

With transparency up front, before we accept, they need to disclose total pay, tips, estimated time and miles, and other details about the job.

This is nothing they don't already know, so it would be easy to disclose.

That way we can make an informed decision about whether or not a job will work for us.

And after the fact, job reports and weekly pay stubs would have to include a breakdown of all our pay, tips, time, and miles.

In the past, apps have used opaque reporting to obscure what they're really paying, where our tips are going.

With these breakdowns, we can do the math ourselves and make sure they're paying us what they're supposed to and aren't stealing our tips, which has happened before many times.

Also, they can just change the pay.

They can just say it's a different rate per whatever, minute or mile or whatnot, without really saying anything, so this would require that they give notice.

Flexibility, a very important concept for most gig workers.

That section of the policy is all about reaffirming rights that we're supposed to have as contractors.

Flexibility is incredibly important for gig workers.

It's why so many of us do this work.

Right now, app companies promise flexibility, but they don't really always deliver on that.

And there's no way to enforce that.

Putting these rights into law would stop them from using tricks and games to take away our flexibility so that we can get what we were promised and what we need.

The right to flexible time.

Apps wouldn't be allowed to penalize workers based on when we make ourselves available to work, and they couldn't set minimum or maximum hours.

except daily limits for safety reasons.

For example, we can't drive any more hours than, say, your average trucker can.

That just makes sense.

The right to choose which jobs we accept and reject.

Apps wouldn't allow to penalize people for rejecting offers.

So if the job isn't going to work for you, you can say no without worrying about what's going to come back on you later.

They often have an acceptance rating threshold.

And if you don't meet it, you can be penalized.

They can deactivate or punish us for canceling orders when we aren't at fault.

All these things are addressed and they're just basic things to make the job reasonable.

I'm going to go ahead and pass this off to Wei.

Wei, do you have?

SPEAKER_02

Hi, my name is Wei Lin, and I've been working with the Gold Puff since February 2020. When I started I was new to Seattle, I just moved, I was just really new to Seattle, and I thought, I was trying to make up my mind at the moment, I thought get a job that's more flexible, will give me enough time to figure out what I was going to do next.

So I and I started to apply for GoPath and when I in I love working this type job because when I started I go to the shift I prefer avoiding rush hours and Pedestrians and choose not to work when I wanted to go visit my family's We just there I need a New York New York and take my cat to the vet hoping that that happens and most simply when I'm sick But the things changed.

GoPath worked differently from some of the other delivery apps we were just talking about.

They deliver convenient items and grocery stores use a micro-fulfill model we call a warehouse, which means customers will get their order delivered in 30 minutes or less, but the driver pays the cost.

for their super fast delivery time.

Unlike Instacart or GoPart for delivery orders from its own warehouse, so the driver has to report to the warehouse for our shift and wait for the orders.

Most of the time on the shift, I'm just waiting for my turn, after which I assign to certain bags that are bought out by the warehouse employee I make sure the back tag matches what I get, and I need to quickly finish the deal with them before it's too late, and rush back to the warehouse hoping I can get another order.

I'm not allowed to enter the building even though I need to use the bathroom or take a break, which most of the time I don't take a break because I can't afford to lose any orders.

And GoPath's policy, unpaid.

algorithm constantly change.

The last time change, it just happened last week.

Most recently, just last week I just talking about.

They used to offering an hour subsidy for every hour we spend waiting at a warehouse on the shift.

But over time, they cut our hourly pay, cut our bonus, and they start offering less and less shift.

all the drivers have to fight for one single shift, forcing us to work on demand with no guarantee pay at all.

That means we have no choice but to just show up in the warehouse and hope there's enough delivery available, which we earn on our risk.

Sometimes you show up there, there's 15 drivers waiting there, sometimes busy, and other times we only get one order per hour.

We just have to guess and hope and pray.

And I have to work from 10 a.m.

to 2 a.m.

to make sure I get the number I need.

We only pay $4 for every order we take, no matter how far it is and how long it will take us.

After factoring in the cost and mileage from the warehouse and the customer in the back, our pay ends up being close to $2 a day.

Even the homeless guys make more than I do.

GoPath is a good example of where the gig company will go if Seattle doesn't step up and make a change now.

They get away with paying us nothing for our time just because we are independent contractor, while require us to report and waiting for the work just like employees.

GoPuff even has a manager who decides how orders are distributed.

And in the meanwhile, all the expenses I incur are paid by me.

The company gets to use my car without paying for the gas or the maintenance.

I caught an eight-time blow tire last month.

There is no flexible for me.

I have to work whenever I can get orders, and sometimes that means working up 90 hours per week.

We needed to pay for that time, and we need to pay that covers the basic expense, not just the false promise of flexibility.

We need to change, and we need to now.

I think that would be my part, I guess.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, thank you everybody it's good to be back in person to just to acknowledge that for a moment I'm Andrew Lewis Seattle City Council member district 7 It's really good to be here after working for several years with working Washington with the drivers who are up here with us today who do this important work and to announce that we're moving forward with some of these worker protections to really make sure, quite honestly, that work is work, regardless of how it's done, regardless of if it's delivered through an app, that there be a certain standard and a certain floor that treats all work with dignity in the city of Seattle.

And that is really what we're here to talk about today and the policy that we're announcing to move forward.

Strong economies aren't built from the top down, they're built from the middle out.

And what we've increasingly seen over the last couple of years is gig work, what's typically referred to as gig work, is increasingly just becoming work in the role that it forms in our economy.

Over 40,000 workers in the city of Seattle area are engaged in the work for apps that would fall under this legislation.

And when you have that big of a segment of your economy, that is at risk of falling below some of the labor standards that we've established as a state, as a city, to make less money per hour than the $15 minimum wage that we fought for, that we passed, to not have the same benefits as far as paid sick and safe leave, some of these other ordinances that Councilmember Herbold has been involved in over the last several years on the City Council.

then you start creating an awful big segment of your economy, of your workforce, that doesn't have access to rights that the rest of us take for granted, who have jobs that are traditional jobs.

This is about the future of work, people.

This is about what our economy is increasingly going to be looking like.

This is about a country that's increasingly going to be driven by technology-driven, app-based work, app-based jobs.

We need to make sure that we have policies in place so that there's a floor that we all agree to, regardless of the type of work you do, that you get the dignity, you get the benefits of what's coming to you for a hard day's work and a hard job, that you know transparently that your tips are going to you, that you know that as inflation starts eating away at the money that you're making for your job, as the price of fuel starts going up because of global uncertainty, because of conflict internationally, that you can have the certainty that you're going to be able to make ends meet and be a part of the success of our region.

And that's really what we're here today to do.

I'm really honored to stand with these workers up here, honored to work with Council Member Herbold on this important policy.

And thank you all for coming to hear about the announcement of this.

And I look forward to continuing the outreach, the work, the critical next steps in front of us to bring this policy to fruition.

So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03

Hi, me again.

So I was asked to tell the West Seattle story.

So for every West Seattle order, I am tricked into accepting.

I know my rating will go down at least one point.

Grubhub refuses to acknowledge that the West Seattle Bridge is closed.

I have called them, I have emailed them, I have sent them links, but they just refuse to acknowledge that it's closed.

Although they did notice that there were a lot of West Seattle orders being rejected and they removed the West from West Seattle addresses.

So this tricky kitty removal of West makes it really challenging to know if there is a West Seattle order and reject it.

So I always feel tricked if I don't immediately recognize it as a West Seattle order.

So.

You can't really reject it because I don't know so I end up having to do it.

There are some drivers who once they realize it's a West Seattle order, they return the items and cancel the order or they keep it and they cancel it.

And then the order is just reassigned to a new driver who may reject it.

Eventually another driver will be duped into accepting the order.

Meanwhile, the customer is waiting and possibly getting upset that their order seems to be bouncing around from driver to driver.

And then because Grubhub refuses to accept that the West Seattle Bridge is closed, the time and mileage pay category of your pay will be grossly underestimated and underpaid.

And the whole time you're driving to West Seattle, you receive messages that you are late and that you're going in the wrong direction.

And now because Grubhub believes you have driven miles out of your way and you are very late, your rating will drop at least by one point.

If the customer calls to complain, that's a possible rating drop of another one to two points.

So for me, West Seattle deliveries are just not worth it.

I know that my rating will drop at least one point and I will not be paid correctly for any of my efforts.

SPEAKER_01

Just a real quick story.

My own personal involvement.

I first moved to Seattle in the 80s when I was a kid.

I'm in my 40s now.

Just a huge difference in where I come from and where I am now.

We moved back to Idaho when I was pretty young, and by the time I moved here again in 2019, you can imagine someone who presents themselves like me has not had a very easy life.

I have my own severe medical problems, and moving to Seattle within a few months has completely changed my life.

I was able to get medical treatment.

I was able to get a diagnosis.

I was able to start participating in society.

Before, I spent hours at home every day just trying to breathe.

I have really bad asthma.

I was able to start at the census and really participate in the economy and work full time.

I was working out five days a week.

And it was because the structure of Seattle is so fundamentally different than where I come from.

where the rent is almost as expensive, but minimum wage is half as much, where there's no protections, where as a gig worker, I didn't get anything.

And here in Seattle, I get an extra $2.50 per delivery because the city council has looked at this issue and has decided that you just can't survive and take these extra risks.

It's just not accessible.

So now what we're trying to do is we're trying to continue to strengthen the social fabric and the society that we have here in Seattle.

My participation is very personal.

My partner has some severe medical problems.

They're immunocompromised.

They have not left their apartment since 2020. The only people they get to see are me and the nurse that stops by once a week.

On Monday, they're having a stomach pump put in.

And all of this stuff, of course, is very stressful.

But it means that I have to keep doing this for a living.

I can't go back to a regular job.

I have to do this.

I don't have a choice because I have to protect someone who means a lot to me.

And there's a lot of us in this situation, not just for ourselves, but for the people we care about.

I got asthma and diabetes.

40% of the people who have died from COVID have had diabetes.

It's not safe for me, but I have to do it because there's somebody in my life that I care about.

And we forget when we talk about all these things and we look at the numbers at the very end of the day.

There are a lot of people who do these gig jobs that will literally die if we don't help them.

My passion in getting involved, I'm an artist, I'm a performer.

For the last few years, I've been doing a storytelling musical show, and this city has a lot of trauma that we need to start processing.

and I really want to be able to jump in there, and I really want to be able to start helping people, and I can't do that.

The bridge between this and that are rules like this that help people like me that you just don't see out there, who you see very colorful on the street, who are looking out for younger queers and trying to create spaces that are safe and healthy for people that don't have the hard shell that I do, that I can stand up here and I can demand change.

And I'd like to thank the city council members for being involved.

My actual partner lives in Herbold's district, so I will let them know that you're one of the good ones.

They're much angrier than I am, but it's harder for them to get around.

So, just at the end of the day, I just want everyone to remember that for some of us, this is more than just a job.

Like, my decisions are decided by my priorities, and my priorities are taking care of the people around me.

SPEAKER_05

Well, there's so many stories, it was hard for me to pick what I was gonna say.

Because there's a lot happening out there for gig workers.

A lot more shenanigans than your regular nine to fiver has to deal with.

I think I'm gonna talk about the fact that when I did gig work from like 2012 to 2015 right in there, I was doing okay.

It was pretty good.

But there's sort of a frog in the water, heating up kind of thing going on, a race to the bottom that these gay companies are doing, just lowering the compensation a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and they keep on lowering and keep on lowering.

And you do a little more hours and a few more hours and, oh, it wasn't a good weekend, I'll have to do an extra day.

And before you know it, you're doing more than 40 hours to get less than the minimum and Seattle ain't cheap to live in.

What do you do?

So this kind of thing basically pushed me right out into homelessness.

I got to the point where I did my budget and I'm like, you know what, I could meet all my goals if I didn't have to pay rent.

And so I went homeless.

And that's difficult.

And it's very difficult to come back from once you're out there too, without a good some good money.

And gig economy is not necessarily giving you good money.

So If I had these protections then, that they couldn't go below minimum wage, I never would have been on the street.

Never would have been out in a tent, looking for shelters.

You know, all that stuff.

I wasn't a productive member of society.

I couldn't do all the things that I had done before because I had to spend all my time concentrating on me and my needs and just getting to a good place.

And you know, I've got no drug or alcohol or any of those kinds of problems, just regular normal person trying to get back from that.

It's hard.

It's very hard.

So this policy is going to allow a lot of gig workers who are on the edge.

to not teeter off that edge.

And I don't think anybody here wants to see one more homeless person on the side of the road.

It's time to change some basic foundational stuff to support people staying in their houses, to support people being able to support their own families, to support people being paid for all of the work they do.

These are basic things.

We're not asking for the world.

They're basic things.

So, with that, after hearing these stories, I'd like to hear from Council Member Lewis.

How do you respond when you hear those Geek Worker stories, you know, from your perspective?

Why is the city taking action?

SPEAKER_00

Well, Kimberly, thank you.

You know, just to go back to some of my remarks earlier, and, you know, as you just articulated, if you're going to have a massive segment of your workforce that is working hard every day and getting nowhere, you're just asking for trouble in the economy that you're forming in the city.

I mean, if you have a huge segment of people who are going to have to live in their cars or live in a tent and not have access to the kind of compensation for their labor necessary to have four walls and a door that locks, then You're not setting up a city and an economy for an equitable success.

You're setting up a system of perpetual inequality, of downward spirals that start impacting all of us.

And we really need to make sure that there isn't a big loophole in our labor standards where if work is characterized as gig work, it falls into this different category where those safety nets don't exist.

And that's what we're starting the process here today to introduce this legislation and take this to the next level.

SPEAKER_01

for y'all we do know this is an important issue for workers but how does it affect the rest of the city and how do you see the passage of this bill being connected to the overall economic health of the city well I think as

SPEAKER_04

And I think the answer that Council Member Lewis gave in response to Kimberly is definitely linked, right?

We want an economy in our city that works for everybody.

And when you don't have an economy in your city that works for everybody, you have winners and losers, and it creates other societal challenges that the city has to deal with.

I want to make sure that people are paid fairly for all the work that they do so that they can take care of their family.

so that they can support having decent housing to live in.

And I want to make sure that people are paid fairly for their work so that they can participate in the economy.

So that they can shop in our small businesses.

So that they can be actively, civically engaged in their community as we've heard speakers talk about wanting to be more involved.

So the old saying is a rising tide raises all boats, it does.

SPEAKER_01

All right, we're just gonna do a last word from some of the gig workers, and then I think our side of it's kind of done.

And then, yeah, what?

Oh, we're doing Q&A after that, right?

Okay, thank you.

I'm not in charge of anything, I just talk words.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, does that work for you?

Sure, absolutely.

Glad to help.

Just a final word, you know, just to reiterate and wrap up kind of everything that we said, everyone knows that the city is interconnected in 10,000 ways that none of us really know.

But we do know that the sheer number of people that this actually encompasses isn't just important, but it is growing faster.

If you look even into this at all, you're gonna see that industry after industry after industry are converting more people into these types of positions.

So while we're looking at things like the DoorDash app and some of these other apps, it is going to be very realistic in a short period of time that more jobs than you know are going to qualify for gig work.

How long is it until journalists have to compete with each other on an app to get a job?

It's not unrealistic that you're going to be competing for someone who's going to be willing to work for one-tenth the amount that you make.

Same for anything else.

They've already got things like this for people who wait tables.

And we have gone a long ways in places like Seattle to make sure that people who wait tables and service food are actually able to take care and buy food themselves.

I don't really think that there's any evil cabal or anyone that's getting together.

It's just simple economics.

People see ways to cut labor, it's simple to do, and then they follow it.

This just makes sure that we protect the very people that live here.

The city is its people.

You know, the infrastructure, the stadiums, the cool culture, everything that makes Seattle an amazing place to live is absolutely nothing if the level of suffering that is happening in Seattle flavors that in a way that it's unpalpable to anyone who sees or experiences us.

Seattle is the Emerald City.

I can tell you I looked forward to moving here most of my adult life.

It was a trope.

People told roast jokes about it on stage when I was doing stand-up.

I am in love with the city of Seattle, which means that I see the best in what Seattle can be.

And the best that Seattle can be is the kind of city that takes care of the people that live inside of it.

SPEAKER_03

So my final word is gig workers should be afforded the same rights and dignities as traditional employees.

And I would like lawmakers to pass the payout policy standard because gig workers are not disposable and we should not be exploited.

SPEAKER_02

I have a last word I need to share.

Because the platform work is totally different than the others even though maybe the minimum wage thing happens maybe not actually helping because if there's no schedules we still have it but I want to share my story to help what we are doing here because I think this is a huge thing for all of us and if I can push a little bit To help as this thing happens, I don't want anyone else to suffer from the pressure that we actually currently have.

So I just want to say, I want to make sure more than 40,000 gig workers in Seattle have a basic right.

We need a pay floor, and least minimum wage after expense.

We need the flexibility we promised, and we need the transparency to decide ourselves whether it's worth doing it.

The gig economy has been here for years, and we can't afford to keep waiting.

As the companies get richer and richer, the pay gets lower and lower, and we are left to struggle more and more.

I just wish, and let's do this done and pass the payout policy, please.

And thank you so much for joining us.

And that's the last word from me.

SPEAKER_05

Okay, and this is my last word.

These gig companies may say that they can't afford to pay us more.

And my answer to that is If you can't hack it you shouldn't be a business owner Because there's good business owners all over they can pay their people minimum wage So if you can't do it, maybe you ought to just die and have the good business workers pick over your remains like vultures and make a good business, you know just saying It can be done.

So Yeah a good business business whatever business good business people who know how to do good business and not and Have their people be healthy Earners for them or workers that work with them.

It can be done.

So if you're not doing it figure it out or step aside and let someone who does know how to do it because this is happening and we're not going to stand for subminimum wages anymore.

That's it.

It's done.

We're done.

It's time to change.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_04

We don't know that prices are going to go up.

These platforms are having annual revenues of billions of dollars a year, so I wouldn't assume that prices are going to go up.

I wouldn't.

I think the thing for a business owner to do, a platform owner to do, is to look at their algorithm and adjust their profit.

not the cost of the end product to the customer, because they have a self-interest in making sure that people still use the platform.

If you're going to increase costs, and that's going to impact people's interest in using the platform.

So I think a good business decision is to look at what the profits are, and again, I think if you look at 2021 numbers for platforms like Uber and Uber Eats and DoorDash and Instacart, they're around $5 billion in revenue in a year.

That's right.

Yeah.

Well, one of the things that we're looking at doing to protect the restaurants is folks might remember also tied to the council's actions to address pandemic impacts as we put a cap on the percentage that the platforms can take out of a restaurant's profits.

And right now I think the cap is, is it 30%?

Is that right?

15%.

And so that is something that we can look at continuing beyond the pandemic.

in order to ensure that the costs that the platforms have associated with the basic compensation of something other than a sub-minimum wage, that the small restaurants, small businesses do not bear that cost.

That is, again, that cap exists right now.

It's going to exist, I think, through the end of the state of emergency, but we can look at extending it.

That's a good question.

I mean, I think that's one of the inputs that go into this complex policy.

But I think it's less about the prices going up.

I think the question I'm, the answer I'm providing is not so much about the cost going up.

It's about, even if the costs are the same, the platforms raising the amount that they're taking from the restaurants.

So it's, you know, it's a $10, say it's a $10 order, and, you know, $1.50 is coming out, going to the platform from the restaurant.

Maybe they keep, it's still a $10 order, and they instead want to take $3 out, right?

We want to make sure that that doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_99

to basically make sure that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think that's a lot about one of the fundamental principles of the bill about transparency and being able to see what the compensation is going to be for each job and being able to, not just transparency, but flexibility, the flexibility that the platforms promise, making sure that people are able to make an informed decision about whether or not to take the job or not.

SPEAKER_05

Frankly they were using like the weekly pay period and all that type of thing to end up paying you less.

they you know it's about loopholes and and if they have to pay by the minute they can't do the shenanigans that have been happening it's not just a or that might happen it's happened for years exactly it's more fair because it means that you actually really do get that minimum wage for that whole hour you worked they can't say oh you've made a little bit more this hour and less that hour so we'll just equal it out and then you'll live you know you make what you made It's basically a response to them already putting an elephant through a loophole, and we're like, okay, gotta close it up.

SPEAKER_01

And I just wanted to tag on, actually, your first question.

And it's a very common question whenever we talk about actually paying people living wages.

Like, what if that costs other people more?

And I kind of feel like this framing actually allows these companies to hold us hostage.

Let's take a look at DoorDash, the company I work for.

They charge restaurants 15%.

I don't know if you know much about restaurants, but that's basically their profit margin.

But they don't stay open during the pandemic if they don't take advantage of it.

So DoorDash has been like, yes.

They then charge the customer.

The $250 premium pay that we added on, we gave that at DoorDash to the customer, which then, this is anecdotal, but I believe it's affected my tips.

People see that on there, that $250 charging.

Well, I don't have to pay them.

which means the premium pay ends up becoming part of my tip money.

So we're charging the customer, we're charging the restaurant, and then we also make me pay for the gas and all the expenses?

At what point are all of these so necessary for DoorDash that they can justify raising the price because they have to pay me an extra $2 an hour?

It's such a ridiculous, and we're so used to this conversation of, well, what if they have to raise the price?

Oh, I'm sorry, is not buying a third yacht less important?

The expenses of business, the negotiation from a lot of these companies start with, well, we can't negotiate away our profits.

We can start everywhere else.

When in reality, it's like, okay, here's your giant pile of money, and here's all of the people that work for you who can't afford to live.

So where is the most give?

The most give is all of this extra cash that gets sucked out of Seattle.

Because the thing that I didn't really have time to really go into that's a very important part of this is all of the money we're talking about is going to stay in circulation here.

All the money that they take from us gets sucked out of Seattle and goes to make some other place better off.

And we all know the economy is the lifeblood of a city.

So this just isn't like, will they charge more?

Yeah, they'll probably use it as an excuse to charge more because they don't want their profits to go down from whatever insane high rate it is.

And right now they're coming after me, they're coming after the restaurants, and they're coming after the customers.

to not have to pay anything.

And all we're asking for is to take one of those three categories and make sure that we're not taking advantage of the worker as much.

And that's it.

It's such a small slice.

And so if the price does go up, I feel like the framing really should be, why are you charging even more for a service that shouldn't be charged for this much?

There's no reason that the customer, the worker, and the restaurant should be paying for all of it.

Anybody?

And next question.

Is that about time for us?

All right.

I think we're going to wrap it up.

All right.

Thank you very much, everybody.

I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_99

Thank you.