USA: DoorDash, Grubhub, Instacart & Uber allegedly abandon promises to protect delivery workers as migrants fear ICE & Trump administration deportation orders
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"The delivery app industry has abandoned its immigrant workforce,"
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Trump’s reascension to the Oval Office has added an anxiety-inducing layer of labor to what was already a difficult job. Delivery drivers have little choice but to help watch each other’s backs. They are warning one another about where ICE agents have been spotted while scanning the news for the latest information about government raids. Advocates are out trying to bring these workers up to speed about their rights. But resources are tight. The thing that would help the most, access to immigration lawyers, is in short supply.
But the greatest frustration may be that while these workers keep doing the actual delivering for the billion-dollar delivery companies, those companies—like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub—are offering them no immigration help.
Unlike the early months of Trump’s first term, when these companies lined up to proclaim the importance of immigrants and promise legal help for their immigrant workers, the companies have been silent on civil rights this time around—though some have spoken a different way, through big donations to support Trump...
... Despite the rising fear of deportations, none of the major delivery app companies—including Uber, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart—are offering any kind of help to their delivery workers.
The companies’ silence this year is a big departure from the first months of Trump’s first term. At the time, many of these firms made conspicuous public pronouncements about their concern for immigrants. They promised to protect their workforce, and they backed those pledges with capital.
Uber put out a statement in January 2017 deriding Trump’s “unjust immigration ban” and announced it would “create a $3 million legal defense fund to help drivers with immigration and translation services.” Instacart’s CEO, Apoorva Mehta, announced a $100,000 donation to the ACLU and said the company would pay for “office hours with immigration counsels for employees and their families in need.” On January 29, 2017, DoorDash’s CEO said the company would give “free food to any lawyers or advocates working this weekend to support immigrants, refugees.” None of the companies have made similar public announcements or monetary commitments at the start of Trump’s second term. (Uber, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart did not respond to The New Republic’s questions about their support for immigrant workers or about criticisms from workers like Ajche.)...