Edited by Natalie Alonso and written by Victoria Mortimer
After a terrifying trek over Mexico to the U.S. border, Gustavo Ajche, then a teenager from Guatemala, arrived in New York City in 2004. Ajche, who had no home and no English, managed to get a job delivering pizza.
Ajche is still a part-time delivery worker more than twenty years later, but he now uses Relay, one of the many well-known delivery apps, along with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub.
Ajche has recently obtained employment in the construction sector after realizing that using delivery applications had become less dependable during the outbreak. He also mentions the risks of injury, dangerous roads, and theft that come with delivery labor. According to Ajche, delivery workers are the most vulnerable to theft and injury on the streets.
With almost 65,000 in New York City alone, app delivery workers have become more prevalent on the streets of major U.S. cities since the outbreak. In the mostly unregulated gig economy, this workforce—which is mainly composed of immigrants and people of color—lacks safety and wage guarantees.
In the financial district of Manhattan, Gustavo Ajche rides an electric bicycle.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
After learning that a number of gig workers in California had organized, Ajche went to the Workers’ Justice Project (WJP), an organization that he has been active with since coming to New York City and that advocates for low-wage immigrants. He suggested starting a WJP project for deliveristas. Thus, he was a co-founder of Los Deliveristas Unidos (LDU), an organization that currently has over 4,000 members.
In New York City, LDU has assisted in securing important rights for delivery workers, such as access to restrooms, open tipping, and an unparalleled minimum wage. By the end of the previous year, the hourly wages of delivery workers had risen from an average of $11.72 to an average of $19.56 after tips, a 64% increase from December 2023. Deliveristas still face new challenges, though.
The group is now contesting Int. No. 606, a law that was presented to the New York City Council in March 2024 and calls for e-bikes, mopeds, and scooters to be registered with the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) and the state-run Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The law would require license plates for delivery drivers’ primary means of transportation, such as cars. According to LDU director Luis Cortes, riders may have to pay a registration fee of about $20. However, the precise registration fee has not yet been decided, according to the DOT’s testimony during a December 2024 City Council hearing. The estimated cost to the city of implementing the measure is $19 million.
Luis Cortes, the director of Los Deliveristas Unidos (LDU), at the Worker’s Justice Project headquarters in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
Delivery workers are worried about the bill’s further restrictions on their necessary instruments. Protesters caution that Int. No. 606 may lead to a rise in racial profiling and increase the risk for workers without legal status, which might be exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s immigration plans.
For us Latinos who work as delivery drivers, if this measure were to pass, it would make our jobs on the streets much more difficult, adds Ajche. We still interact with the police on a daily basis even in the absence of this statute.
The debate surrounding e-bike regulation
NYC Council Member Robert Holden, a Democrat, presented Int. No. 606, often referred to as Priscilla’s Law. This measure was named in honor of Priscilla Loke, a 69-year-old pedestrian who was hit by a Citi Bike rider on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and died in the hospital in September 2023. The unnamed cyclist was arrested by police, but he was then freed, allegedly after being given a red-light penalty. Proponents of the bill contend that requiring e-bike license plates would facilitate the accountability of bikers, particularly delivery personnel. At the state level, a similar measure has been presented.
According to the NYC DOT, in 2023, motorized vehicle crashes involving e-bikes and mopeds resulted in 20 fatalities and 2,400 injuries for pedestrians and cyclists throughout the city.
The NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance, a group with more than 1,200 members that supports e-bike and moped legislation, is one of the groups supporting Int. No. 606. Upper West Side resident and co-founder Janet Schroeder claims that after reading about Loke’s experience in the news, she talked to elderly neighbors who were scared to leave their homes because of e-bikes.
I care about my neighbors who are scared to walk on the street, and I don’t have any secret agendas,” Schroeder says.
At a busy intersection on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a delivery worker drives in the bike lane.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
Deliveristas contend that since they already find themselves in a precarious situation and depend on e-bikes for a living, they would be among the most impacted by this bill. Cortes draws attention to the registration process’s bureaucratic burden, which would demand resources, time, and money from the DOT as well as employees. Cortes contends that since delivery workers frequently share e-bikes, it would be challenging to enforce licensing laws.
The majority of the app-based delivery workers in New York are immigrants, and many asylum seekers are lured to food delivery since it’s relatively simple to sign up for these platforms.Los Deliveristas Unidos affirms that a sizable percentage of delivery workers lack legal status, and that deliveristas frequently encounter major obstacles such as poor English language and a lack of documents.
Additionally, statistics reveal that Black and Latino individuals are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested during traffic stops, and that language issues make it difficult for them to advocate for themselves or obtain justice.
The bill, according to Cortes, would grant law police unrestricted authority to halt employees and confirm their identities. According to him, it may be illegal to ride without a license plate or to disregard local laws, which puts employees at needless danger of being reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Int. No. 606 is unlikely to pass, according to Brandon Chamberlin, an attorney at Adam D. White Law, which defends injured pedestrians and bikers. According to Chamberlin, the police already have the authority to issue tickets to bikes without a license plate, so I don’t think it resolves the issue of traffic safety.
Mopeds and e-bikes for sale in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a neighborhood with a large Chinese and Latino population.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
Some U.S. jurisdictions, such as Montgomery County, Maryland, have enacted bike licensing laws.Bicycle licensing was attempted in Toronto but later overturned due to jurisdictional issues, misallocation of police resources, and expensive expenses.
Additionally, Chamberlin points out that state law, which went into effect in January 2025, already requires a license plate for mopeds, the vehicle about which the bill’s backers say they are most concerned.
The riskiest job in NYC
Advocates contend that delivery workers should have more protection, even if they are at the center of the discussion about e-bike regulation and pedestrian and cyclist safety in New York City.
With 30 fatalities per 100,000 workers between 2021 and 2022, delivery labor has overtaken construction as the industry with the highest fatality rates in the city due to accidents and robberies, according to the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. According to the most recent data available, there are seven construction jobs for every 100,000 people in 2020. According to WJP data, 10 immigrant delivery workers lost their lives while performing their duties on the streets of New York City in 2024 alone.
Lower Manhattan cyclists must negotiate congested crossings while sharing roadways with other cars.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
Advocates and delivery workers claim that app businesses don’t go far enough in protecting their employees in spite of these threats. Delivery workers must pay for all work-related costs, such as health and auto insurance, since they are independent contractors. They don’t have sick days or holidays. 49% of workers reported having been in an accident or crash while making deliveries, and 75% of them had to pay for their own medical care, according to the AWJP poll.
Additionally, according to Ajche, algorithmic management systems penalize employees who miss deadlines by occasionally deleting their accounts and make irrational forecasts about delivery timelines. According to LDU, these strict deadlines incentivize delivery workers to speed through the streets, endangering themselves as well as other bicycles and pedestrians.
Organizations speaking out against Int. No. 606, including theNew York League of Conservation Voters(NYLCV),Transportation AlternativesandMake the Road, have urged New York City to work with app-based food delivery companies to find solutions without disproportionately burdening low-wage workers. These include e-mobility gadget awareness campaigns and traffic law education.
Additionally, the NYLCV’s deputy director for New York City Policy, Alia Soomro, suggests that the City provide delivery personnel with safety training and education programs, along with technical assistance and incentives for buying equipment and vehicles that are safe and compliant.
Other proposed safety measures include investing in bike infrastructure, such as separate protected bike and e-bike lanes on high-traffic routes, as well as double-wide bike lanes, to reduce illegal cycling on sidewalks and protect pedestrians. Additionally, NYLCV recommends expanding the number of public e-bike charging stations and e-bike loading zones for deliveries.
On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a delivery man on a scooter speeds by a busy junction.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
Beyond the challenges posed by Int. No. 606, delivery workers are grappling with shift scheduling systems, recently introduced by apps, requiring workers to book work hours in advance. Weekly work hours have decreased from 50–60 to merely 10-15 due to this new method. Also, companies have removed pre-checkout tipping, meaning workers can only receive tips after an order is completed.
The City Council s Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection has debated severalbillsthese include requiring delivery apps to verify that mopeds used by their delivery workers are properly registered and bringing back the option of tipping before or when an order is placed. LDU is also currently working on a campaign against immediate retaliatory deactivations of workers accounts; as Cortes states, sometimes the apps end up deactivating users’ profiles without explanation simply because of a missed deadline.
Ajche remains hopeful that deliveristas will overcome these new challenges: Sometimes I feel like I say the same thing over and over again, he says, but the work of our organization shows that change is possible.
Gustavo Ajche in Manhattan s Financial District, one of his regular routes while delivering for a popular food app.Yunuen Bonaparte’s photo for Palabra
