Bike Messengers Launch Union Campaign

New York, NY – New York City’s 10,000 bicycle couriers race through the streets every day, delivering parcels and food for shifts that can last 10 hours or more—and they do it for not much more than minimum wage, sometimes less, with no sick days or workers’ compensation if they fall or get hit by a car.

On Oct. 18 outside City Hall, a group of about 10 couriers announced the launch of a campaign to organize them into a union, the New York Messenger Alliance, affiliated with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “We need an alliance,” Amir Bey, 47, said. “We don’t have insurance. We don’t have paid vacations. We need to form together and bring this to people’s attention.” 

Bey, who’s been a bike messenger for 16 years, says messengers love their jobs, but “we need to have respect given to us as couriers.” “It’s a very dangerous job,” added Manny Mahecha, 31. “At the same time, it’s fun.”

Messengers work on a per-delivery commission, and are classified as independent contractors by their employers. That means they don’t get benefits, and have to buy and maintain their own bicycle, messenger bag, lock, and, now that technology has transformed the work, a smartphone.

“You download the app through your own phone. You either have to get unlimited data or you’re screwed,” says Sadio Ballo, 36, a 17-year veteran from Harlem, wearing a well-worn backpack over a suit and tie.

Ballo, who used to work for Uber’s courier service and now rides for the Caviar food-delivery app, disputes the independent-contractor designation. “If I don’t sign up for a schedule, I don’t get priority on the deliveries,” he told LaborPress. “I get the scraps. You’re telling me I’m independent?”

“Misclassification” might sound like a legal term,” said NYTWA executive director Bhairavi Desai, but “there’s a human cost.” Safety is a major issue in the organizing campaign. Jorge Alvarez Washington raised his hand to show the splint on his broken thumb. Amir Bey switched to being a foot messenger for a year because he had two herniated discs in his back. Unlike yellow-cab or black-cab drivers, they’re not guaranteed workers’ compensation.

“If the dispatcher finds out you’re injured, you know what they say a lot of times? ‘Make sure you get that package in,’” said Hannington Dia, who rides for Uber, GrubHub, and sometimes Doordash. “Most guys, when they get hurt, the most they take off is one day,” says Ballo. He kept working after he broke his ankle.

“If the dispatcher finds out you’re injured, you know what they say a lot of times? ‘Make sure you get that package in,’” said Hannington Dia, who rides for Uber, GrubHub, and sometimes Doordash. “Most guys, when they get hurt, the most they take off is one day,” says Ballo. He kept working after he broke his ankle.

The union will demand that employers pay for safety gear such as lights, helmets, and brightly colored vests, says Desai.

The courier business has changed significantly since the 1970s. Legal and advertising documents, which used to be a big part of it, are now usually sent by e-mail, but the emergence of food-delivery apps and “last-mile” parcel delivery have made up for some of that. “Food and packages are 90%,” says Mahecha.

The app-based delivery services that have emerged in the last few years—Uber, Caviar, Instacart, Postmates, GrubHub, Doordash—now dominate the business, largely supplanting the traditional storefront-based courier services. Foot messenger Kurt Boone now works for Zipments, an app where you sign on and take jobs.

Wages, never high, have stagnated. Ballo says he made $400 to $500 a week 15 years ago. Now he has to work 70 hours to earn the same amount, maybe less. One Sunday, he worked 7½ hours for $53. Dia says he makes $300 to $400 for a 40-hour week.

As it did with cab drivers, Uber promised high wages when it entered the market in April 2014, but then slashed them. “I remember when I first started working for Uber in 2015. I thought I’d hit the motherlode,” said Washington.

Traditional couriers pay $4-$5 per delivery, says Ballo, a rate that hasn’t increased in 15 years. Uber started out paying messengers $12 a delivery—but in November 2015, they cut that to $5.60, and they don’t let messengers carry more than one package. As with cab drivers, they also “overhire,” he adds—“so that’s why you find yourself working 10-16 hours a day, sitting and waiting 2-3 hours for a delivery.”

Uber “right now is the most egregious example of this malfeasance,” says Hannington Dia. “Uber has oversaturated the market. We need to make an example of their example.” The company now employs about 600 couriers, according to Desai.

“We’ve let companies like Uber take advantage of the loopholes in the law,” said City Councilmember Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn). It’s a “bad irony” of the new economy, that as more and more work is being done by the gig, corporations are making billions while their many workers don’t have basic protections.

Taxi drivers and messengers are often rivals, competing for the narrow space on the same streets, but they also have the same basic working conditions, hustling for money and being paid or not paid based on how much work is available and how fast they do it. “It seems like that, but what’s overlooked is that taxi drivers and messengers have so much in common,” says Ballo. “We look beyond the conflict to the struggles we have in common.”