NYC sues delivery app Motoclick, warns other apps to comply with new worker protection laws
Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined DCWP Commissioner Samuel Levine, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su, and worker advocates to announce the lawsuit and a new enforcement push aimed at ensuring compliance with new delivery worker protection laws set to take effect Jan. 26.
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New York City filed a lawsuit Thursday against delivery app Motoclick and its CEO for allegedly violating the city’s delivery worker laws, as part of a broader effort to hold delivery platforms accountable for protecting workers’ rights.
Motoclick, which operates a restaurant-facing delivery service, allegedly ignored the city’s minimum pay rate and stole money directly from workers’ paychecks, according to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP).
Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined DCWP Commissioner Samuel Levine, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su, and worker advocates to announce the lawsuit and a new enforcement push aimed at ensuring compliance with new delivery worker protection laws set to take effect Jan. 26.
These laws will mandate all delivery apps to include a tipping option at check out.
Earlier this week, DCWP released a report revealing how design changes by Uber Eats and DoorDash caused delivery workers to lose over $550 million in tips.
The report found that after these apps moved tipping prompts to after checkout, average tips dropped to just 76 cents per delivery on average, compared to over $2 on apps that kept tipping options upfront. The losses amount to about $5,800 per worker annually.
“It may seem like a procedural change, but the effect has been devastating for so many across the city,” Mayor Mamdani said. “No longer will we tolerate corporate mistreatment of workers across these five boroughs”
Deputy Mayor Julie Su called the lawsuit against Motoclick a clear warning to all app-based companies. “You cannot treat workers like they are expendable and get away with it.”
Last month, Uber Eats and DoorDash sued the city over the new tipping law, arguing the change was meant to keep prices down after the city raised the minimum pay for delivery workers to $21.44 an hour.
DoorDash also points to a 2022 report from the city that suggested apps could reduce costs by moving tipping to after checkout.
"Moving tipping to after checkout isn’t novel or nefarious, it’s how tipping works in many areas of life,” said John Horton, DoorDash head of North America Public Policy. "We followed that suggestion and now they are attacking us for it”
A DCWP spokesperson pushed back against that claim, saying in a statement: "In the 2022 report, DCWP discussed what apps might do in response to a minimum pay rate, including worst-case scenarios like removing tipping options from the checkout interface. DCWP has never recommended that apps do this and spoke out against it when the worst-case scenario came true in 2023. This week’s report exposes just how devastating that change has been for workers, reducing their earnings by over $550 million dollars.”
