“The pay is not good, but there aren’t good jobs out there anyway.”
As Americans enter month eight of the coronavirus pandemic, drivers for companies like DoorDash and Uber are bearing the burden of stay-at-home orders and a crumbling job market.
With the economy continuing to stumble, people are turning to the gig economy to stave off unemployment. Meanwhile, demand for delivery services is skyrocketing. These trends, the New York Times reports, have created a legion of independent contractors who are unprotected and vulnerable as they perform frontline work.
As New York Times reporter Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura writes, DoorDash and Uber drivers in New York City are forced to navigate unpredictable pay, a lack of access to resources like bathrooms and face masks, and the perilous reality of zero employee benefits such as paid sick leave and employer-paid health insurance. The result is an underclass of workers whose labor has generated billions of dollars for some of Silicon Valley’s largest companies that continue to exploit drivers even as the pandemic rages on.
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