In what’s turning out to be a major labor dispute, DoorDash employees are demanding to know the details regarding new pay policies after the company got caught stealing their tips.
DoorDash is a food delivery service that’s basically the Uber of the restaurant industry. You order your food through DoorDash and a driver will take the job, pick up your meal, and deliver it to your door.
Naturally, customers often tip their driver, and those tips are mightily appreciated because those are the sole income for many drivers.
Drivers do receive a base pay, but the tips help the drivers make a living wage. The problem is that instead of getting their tips, the company is pocketing them, which generated an outcry that forced CEO Tony Xu to announce a new tipping policy promising that workers would receive their tips on top of their base pay.
“Every dollar customers tip will be an extra dollar in their Dasher’s pocket, and customers will be able to tip at checkout or after the delivery,” Xu wrote in a blog post this week. “The amount DoorDash pays in base pay and promotions will never vary based on the tip amount. Tips left at checkout will be shown as part of the Dasher’s guaranteed earnings when the Dasher is offered a delivery, and any tips provided after the delivery will also be added to the Dasher’s earnings.”
But even this policy isn’t doing anything to fix the problem.
“They’re still stealing tips,” DoorDash delivery person Dawnielle Turner told Recode. “I don’t think [the company] understands how many people rely on this as a primary source of income.”
According to Recode, DoorDash is isn’t earning the trust of their drivers because they have not been transparent enough with how much they have earned:
But DoorDash still won’t give its drivers a breakdown with a tip amount for how much they will make for each delivery when they first accept an offer. Only once a job is done will drivers see how much they’ve been tipped. That means that drivers have to trust that the company isn’t factoring in a customer’s tip when it quotes them on base pay. To help clear this up, drivers have called for the company to disclose exactly how much it pays workers for distance travelled and time spent making deliveries.
When it comes to paycheck security, people need to know exactly how much they should be getting paid. Having to work on blind trust is simply unacceptable. And I should know because I once worked for a company that calculated pay behind closed doors and you would have to “trust” that they paid you what you earned. It turns out my former employer was pocketing the extra money to enrich himself, which appears to be what Xu is doing.
DoorDash drivers have no problem making food deliveries. But they expect to be paid what they have earned so that they can pay the bills. If DoorDash continues to screw over their employees, they won’t have a business much longer.
Featured Image: Wikimedia
