DoorDash, the app-based food delivery platform, will pay $131.5 million to resolve claims the company underpaid or waited too long to pay its New York City workers.
"Simply put, we screwed up," the San Francisco based company released in a Sept. 22 statement on its website after announcing it reached a settlement with the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
"Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late. While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay. We pride ourselves on operational excellence at DoorDash − and this was not excellent, nor was it acceptable. Dashers should be paid in full, on time, every time. We are sorry to the Dashers we let down."
The move helps address the city's longstanding
accusations DoorDash and competitor Uber Eats, another online food delivery service, shortchanged workers more than $550 million in tips.
Uber could not immediately be reached by USA TODAY.
DoorDash said it will provide millions of dollars in relief to about 264,000 employees.
The amount includes more than $83 million to resolve a dispute with the city over how to calculate pay for time workers spend online between deliveries but not actually making deliveries. It also includes $12.3 million for payments "that were missed or arrived days or weeks late."
In addition, DoorDash said DCWP will receive $16.7 million in fines owed to them.
USA TODAY has reached out to Mayor Zohran Mamdani office for comment.
DoorDash said the mistake was due to “technical bugs or happened in complicated situations" including deliveries that crossed city limits, had multiple pickup or drop-off locations, or were partially fulfilled or cancelled. In other incidents, the company said errors stemmed from Dashers "providing incomplete or inaccurate banking information."
"We’ve fixed the technical issues that caused these errors, including better validation of banking information to ensure we catch issues before it causes a missed payment, and we’ve strengthened our compliance program to help prevent this from happening again," DoorDash said.
When will DoorDash Dashers get settlement?
DoorDash said all affected employees would be contacted about the settlement "in the coming weeks."
"Dashers will be paid a minimum of $10, even if they were underpaid by less than that," the company wrote.
For more information about the settlement and too learn whether you have been impacted, visit DoorDash's Help Center here.
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DoorDash to pay $131M for underpaying delivery workers
