A month after a minimum wage for job-based delivery workers went into effect in Seattle, lobbying for the new requirements — both for and against — has shifted into higher gear, reflecting drivers' frustration with some of their impacts and the changing political climate in Seattle .
Although the law is still in its infancy, its future is already an open question. All but two council members who voted for the law either voluntarily resigned or were voted out, and much of the new council is more skeptical of the limitless labor regulations.
Companies like DoorDash, Instacart and Uber Eats have gone on the offensive, reducing certain aspects of their platforms and charging a $5 delivery fee, which they say is due to guaranteed pay. DoorDash called the minimum wage and new requirements for when a driver can be blocked from the platform “extreme.” The law will lead to fewer trips, they say, hurt restaurants and lead to lower overall wages for drivers.
“We hope the newly elected city council will come back to the table and put things right,” the company said.
The union representatives who passed the law are now on the defensive, a dramatic change from the broad support they enjoyed at previous councils. On Thursday, the group Working Washington, a 501(c)(4) organization with close ties to the Service Employees International Union, held a rally in favor of the law, including a skit featuring a monocle-wearing money baron.
They have countered that the law represents a bare minimum for what delivery drivers should be guaranteed when working in and around Seattle. While they acknowledge that the number of rides has fallen – and that some drivers may actually be earning less than before – they say such an outcome is not an inevitability and is rather the result of companies' resistance to paying better wages.
“Workers’ daily incomes are at stake because app companies are unwilling to pay workers just a living wage and make a smart business decision that doesn’t impact customers and small businesses,” said Hannah Sabio- Howell, communications director for Working Washington. “Instead they make a political decision.”
Seattle City Council | Local politics
The law, passed in 2022, sets a floor for drivers working for delivery companies such as DoorDash, Instacart, Grubhub and Amazon Flex, which rely on independent contractors who are not subject to the city's minimum wage of nearly $20. It requires companies to pay at least 44 cents per minute, plus 74 cents per mile on orders, or at least $5 per order – to at least meet and possibly exceed the city's minimum wage.
It will also create new rules for when a driver can be deactivated from a platform.
The city and then the state previously passed separate laws setting a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers.
Seattle's regulatory efforts could set a good or bad precedent for other cities looking to improve the amorphous landscape of contractor-based delivery services. Although several cities have attempted to regulate Uber and Lyft, few, if any, have done so for delivery services.
“I don’t know of any other state or place that has a minimum wage for broad gig work,” said Elizabeth Ford, a law professor at Seattle University.
The challenge with setting a minimum wage for drivers is that they are not paid hourly. Seattle therefore needs to develop a formula based on estimated minutes worked per hour that could approximate what employees are guaranteed.
The companies say current rates are more than $26 an hour, which would be well above the minimum wage. Working Washington counters that these calculations do not take into account idle time and wear and tear on private vehicles.
However, there is agreement that the delivery landscape looks different today than it did before the minimum wage. Kimberly Wolfe, a driver and organizer with Working Washington who is fighting for the law, has seen rides disappear, particularly because she used to drive for Shipt, which withdrew from Seattle entirely after the law took effect. She knows other drivers are frustrated too.
The question is one of guilt, and Wolfe pins it squarely on the companies.
“If it wasn’t for the app companies putting a stop to it, it would have been totally fine,” she said. “But they think long-term; They do not care.”
The companies, meanwhile, counter that shipping costs are a foreseeable impact of a disrupted market.
“What worries us is that the law will have exactly the unintended consequences that we told the council about in 2021, 2022 and 2023, that consumers would stop using the services and it wouldn't matter what “You pay them per ride,” said Michael Wolfe (no relation to Kimberly), executive director of Drive Forward, a 501(c)(6) drivers' association that receives money from some of the companies.
He said some members reported losses of up to 50% of their income. An exception are Amazon Flex drivers, who are assigned predetermined routes and earn significantly more. But food orders, especially small ones for one or two people, have declined.
The debate is clouded by companies' resistance to disclosing internal data, which they strictly protect as trade secrets. DoorDash, for example, reported a $1 million net sales loss for local restaurants over two weeks in January, but did not disclose how it calculated that loss.
Steve Marchese, director of the Office of Labor Standards in Seattle, said the onus is on companies to explain their surcharges.
“I think there is an opportunity to approach these companies to justify this cost,” he said.
Mayor Bruce Harrell has expressed his continued support for the minimum wage after signing it into law in 2022.
Members of the new City Council have not said how they will approach the regulations. But Council President Sara Nelson has made clear it is an area she would like to revisit. In recent weeks, she met with both Drive Forward's Wolfe and DoorDash lobbyists, according to visit logs posted on the city's website.
“I think we need to examine our policy options and then see what is possible,” she said in a recent interview.
Whether this is a proposed update to rates or a full repeal is unclear, but in his conversations with Nelson, Drive Forward's Wolfe said he felt she wanted to move quickly.
Wolfe, for his part, is not advocating repealing the entire law and is instead advocating for a more deliberate process as the city collects data on its impact in the coming months.
“I think there are a lot of things in this law that are worth complying with,” he said.
But Working Washington is resistant to change. Sabio-Howell drew a parallel with the city setting a $15 minimum wage, which initially set off alarm bells for some businesses but has since become the norm and expectation.
“I think the law just needs time to be implemented,” she said. “It would be outrageous and bad policy to repeal or roll back the minimum wage law for low-wage workers.”
David Kroman: 206-464-3196 or [email protected]; Seattle Times staff reporter David Kroman covers Seattle City Hall.