The difficult balance of New York’s female delivery workers in a predominantly male-dominated job
... Delivery work fits in with the care tasks of many women. However, these same responsibilities limit their ability to participate in the activism of food delivery workers, a field dominated by men that ignores their particular needs such as protection from harassment or access to bathrooms during menstruation...
One in four delivery workers is a woman, according to the most recent report from New York City, and Ortiz is part of that 24%. On her morning shifts around Harlem, she rides her bike at nearly the same speed as cars. She dodges trucks and passes motorcycles to deliver hot bagels and coffee to customers...
Bike theft is common in food delivery work, along with muggings, traffic accidents, and even deaths. In 2024 alone, the Workers’ Justice Project recorded 10 deaths of delivery workers, but that may be an undercount.
Despite the risks, delivery work continues to attract migrants in New York. Food delivery apps and authorities view delivery workers as independent contractors, which means that they have no labor protections such as social security and minimum wage. With food delivery work booming in New York during the Covid pandemic, a group of delivery workers and activists formed Los Deliveristas Unidos, along with the nonprofit Workers Justice Project.
Over the past three years, the organization has been able to pass packages of laws that guarantee bathroom access in restaurants, limit delivery distances, protect against unfair fees and establish a minimum wage. Few women have been involved in organizing the movement. One of them was the Mexican delivery worker Ernestina Gálvez, from the state of Guerrero...
The Justice for App Workers coalition, led by Dominican taxi driver Adelgysa Payero in New York, provides organizing spaces for women who work with apps. These include delivery riders and drivers. “I think that women are not as involved in activism as men because our time is more limited and many times what we were taught as children is to make ourselves small,” explains Payero, a mother of four...