For four years, Big Tech has exploited New York City’s immigrant workforce as food-delivery apps turn a blind eye to the fact that the people who labor for them as “independent contractors” rely on substandard, potentially deadly e-bikes to do their jobs.
Now, City Hall is rewarding this irresponsible corporate behavior by subsidizing it, spending taxpayer money to do what the employers should do: give workers safe equipment.
New York City has become a more dangerous and disorderly place since 2020, in part due to the exponential proliferation of commercial e-bikes.
That year, as the pandemic created more demand for food deliveries from cooped-up New Yorkers, the state and the city legalized these motorized two-wheeled vehicles.
But the state and city did nothing to ensure workplace safety — or public safety.
On workplace safety: by the city’s estimate, “tens of thousands” of delivery workers use commercial e-bikes to bring food to Gotham residents.
Many work for apps such as UberEats and Grubhub.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
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