After investigating possible gratuity misuse, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that delivery platform DoorDash must pay nearly $17 million in restitution to over 60,000 eligible delivery workers. James stated that customers were misled into believing their tips would go directly to delivery workers, known as Dashers. Instead, DoorDash used the tips to offset the workers’ guaranteed pay, effectively keeping the tips for itself.
Watch the video above as Straight Arrow News contributor Adrienne Lawrence argues that this practice wasn’t a “mistake” as DoorDash claimed, but part of a broader pattern. While she welcomes the settlement, Lawrence contends that large corporations typically “don’t face real consequences when they break the law — they simply write checks and move on.”
The following is an excerpt from the above video:
DoorDash isn’t alone in this, big corporations have learned that the worst that can happen when they break the law is a fine, usually one much smaller than the profits that they made from their very own wrongdoings, and unless we demand more, they’ll just keep doing it.
So what can we do? Consumers, well, we have the power. We can demand transparency, and if companies are shady about worker pay, then we don’t have to support them. And workers, organizing works. This settlement in New York and its minimum wage law prove that keep pushing and lawmakers well enough with the slap on the wrist, worker protections at the national level are necessary.
We need to ensure gig workers get what they’re owed, because at the end of the day, if a company can get away with stealing wages once, well, they’re gonna do it again, unless we make sure that they can’t. DoorDash may have settled this case, but the fight for worker justice is not over, and we are watching you.
