Gig Workers Must Get Paid for Virus Supplies, San Francisco Says

San Francisco’s close to requiring that companies contracting with gig workers—including hometown delivery platforms Uber, Instacart, DoorDash, and Postmates—reimburse workers for cleaning supplies, among other protections, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Legislation heading to the mayor is the latest in the battle San Francisco has engaged with tech companies and platforms of all kinds, from fighting Uber and Lyft in court, the Legislature, and the California Public Utilities Commission over regulating who’s driving on city streets, to continued fights over how workers should be treated. The city’s public safety concerns are heightened with more people relying on grocery, meal, and prescription deliveries after weeks of a shelter-in-place order.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week unanimously approved a labor-backed ordinance that would temporarily require grocery and drug stores, restaurants, and on-demand delivery service employers to provide health, scheduling, and hours protections to employees during the public health emergency.

Employers would have to provide personal protective equipment including gloves and masks, paid time for cleaning vehicles, a no-contact option for deliveries, paid time for sanitizing vehicles, and not retaliate against workers for exercising rights under the emergency ordinance.

The proposed ordinance, which would be effective immediately, heads to Mayor London Breed, who told reporters “it’s definitely something overall that I agree with.”

Committed to Safety

The proposal also would give San Francisco an opportunity to make up for earlier inaction, said Veena Dubal, a University of California Hastings School of Law professor.

“The city of San Francisco was derelict in its duties when it refused to enforce laws against these companies when they first opened their doors. This set a terrible example for other cities and states, essentially enabling the disaster we see with gig workers all over the country,” said Dubal.

The app-based services said they’re committed to customer and delivery worker safety. DoorDash said it’s ordered more than 5 million consumer-grade face masks and is distributing those, along with hand sanitizer, gloves, and wipes, to delivery workers known as “dashers” across the U.S.

“DoorDash is committed to the health and safety of our community. In response to Covid-19, we’ve taken numerous actions to protect and help merchants, Dashers and customers, and believe these steps mean we are already largely in compliance with the ordinance,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Instacart said Thursday its shoppers will soon have access to a daily, in-app wellness check to help the grocery runners determine if they have any Covid-19 symptoms, and give guidance on what to do next if they have symptoms.

The measure is the latest in a long line of ordinances and a culture to protect and support workers. San Francisco has strong fair labor standards, a higher-than-state-level minimum wage, and paid sick leave ordinances that apply to all businesses in the city, said Chris Benner, director of UC Santa Cruz’s Institute for Social Transformation.

Survey Findings

A report and online survey Benner conducted for the city and Jobs With Justice, a union rights organization, found nearly one-quarter of 291 drivers in San Francisco stopped working on the apps when the virus hit.

The survey found 41% of drivers are now only doing deliveries, with nearly half of those switching from hauling people to food due to the coronavirus. And more than half of respondents lost 75% to 100% of their weekly earnings on the tech platforms since February.

San Francisco’s tech industry has raised funds and used its skills to address the pandemic while offering free personal protective equipment, paid sick leave, and funding for workers income losses, said Jennifer Stojkovic, executive director of sf.citi. The San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation is a nonprofit that links the city’s technology community with policymakers.

“Our members not only provide the economic backbone of this City, but now provide many of the essential services needed by the residents of San Francisco. We must ensure these companies can continue to support our community through the services and jobs they provide with fair policymaking that works for all industries involved,” Stojkovic said in an email.

Gig workers will need better workplace protections, particularly around health and safety as people returning to work once the orders are lifted choose ride-hailing apps over mass transit, said Nicole Marquez-Baker, policy and legal services director at WorkSafe, a California coalition promoting worker safety and health.

California, said Marquez-Baker, has “some of the most really important and kind of novel and pioneering laws around workplace protection. I think the struggle is around, at least, how workers actually enforce those rights.”