... [T]he city became the first in the nation to take aggressive steps to improve those employees’ working conditions, approving a groundbreaking package of legislation that will set minimum pay and address the plight of couriers employed by app-based food delivery services... Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said that the package of legislation would give workers the “rights they deserve” and that he was optimistic it would spark a national movement to improve conditions for app-based delivery workers.

... Under the legislation, delivery workers would also be able to set parameters on the trips they take without fear of retribution. Workers — who have been targeted by robbers intent on stealing their money or their e-bikes — would be able to determine the maximum distance they want to travel from a restaurant or specify that they are not willing to go over bridges to make a delivery, for example.

... The package of bills, however, falls short in a variety of ways, representatives of the workers said. The delivery workers, for example, would still be classified as independent contractors who are ineligible for workers’ compensation or unemployment benefits. Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute, called the protections passed on Thursday the “floor” of what was necessary to provide “basic rights.”... The workers need the ability to negotiate work rules with their employers, she said, adding that the City Council has more work to do to improve conditions for them. “My concern is that this gets presented as the solution,” Ms. Campos-Medina said in an interview. “The ability to use the bathroom is a basic human right.”