Damanda-delivery company DoorDash to pay San Francisco $5 million

Nov 22, Reuters -- Delivery company DoorDash Inc is paying more than $5 million to settle an investigation by San Francisco into labor law violations, with the bulk of the money going to delivery workers, the city attorney said on Monday.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement that DoorDash will pay more than $5.3 million under the agreement. There will be $5.1 million for the nearly 4,500 DoorDash workers who completed deliveries in San Francisco between 2016 and 2020.

Chiu said that we are living in an era of deep inequality and nothing could be more important than to make sure workers are paid fairly and their benefits are safeguarded.

DoorDash was proud of the flexible earning opportunities it offered and did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

The settlement will allow us to focus on providing the best experience for Dashers, despite the fact that we deny any wrongdoing.

The city opened a formal investigation into DoorDash in 2019 after media reports said the company was using customer tips to subsidize workers' base pay.

The city claimed DoorDash was misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees, a violation of San Francisco's health care benefit and paid sick leave laws.

The settlement was part of a larger fight between gig economy companies and lawmakers which culminated in a California ballot initiative, https: www.reuters. In Nov. 2020, the article US-Election gigworkers-idINKBN - 0 M 0 was cemented by the voters as independent contractors while entitling them to some benefits https: www.reuters. There are fights over the status of workers at DoorDash, Uber Lyft and other gig companies. com business gig-companies push-state level-worker laws-faces-divided-labor movement -- 2021 -- 06 -- 09 text The 20 push 20 by 20th e 20 gig, run 20 within 20th e 20 same 20 union across the United States, Canada and Europe. The majority of workers don't want to be employees and enjoy the flexibility offered by on-demand work, according to companies.