LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The 65,000 delivery workers in New York City - deliveristas - became essential workers in the early days of the pandemic. WNYC's Arun Venugopal looks back five years later.
ARUN VENUGOPAL, BYLINE: The other day, Gustavo Ajche sat outside the New York Stock Exchange. Tourists from around the world were milling about, taking pictures in front of the statue known as Fearless Girl.
GUSTAVO AJCHE: This is my area.
VENUGOPAL: Ajche is the founder of Los Deliveristas Unidos. The group represents workers who deliver the meals that New Yorkers order via DoorDash and other apps. He says just thinking about Manhattan five years ago, when the city streets were desolate, makes him sad.
AJCHE: Because most of the time during the pandemic, like, at 3-4 p.m., this street was so quiet. You not see nobody.
VENUGOPAL: No one except for delivery workers. The vast majority are immigrants, and they kept bringing New Yorkers their meals and medications on e-bikes and mopeds. It wasn't easy. The streets were eerily quiet, and delivery workers were vulnerable to assault and robbery. So they formed WhatsApp groups to stay in touch with each other.
AJCHE: They would say, hey, you OK? Yes. I just dropped the food - on my way back. OK, you're safe.
VENUGOPAL: But Ajche felt the rest of the city was hardly giving the workers much thought.
(SOUNDBITE PANS BANGING)
VENUGOPAL: If you lived through the pandemic in New York, you might have leaned out your window every evening and banged a pan for essential workers. This was Harlem in April of 2020.
LIGIA GUALLPA: Every time New Yorkers will come out of their doors to clap, they will mention every worker who was in the front line - except deliveristas.
VENUGOPAL: Ligia Guallpa runs the Workers Justice Project and joined forces with Ajche early in the pandemic. They fought to improve pay and safety for delivery workers and help New Yorkers understand this is essential work. Guallpa's voice cracked as she told the story of one worker who delivered a case of water through heavy rain. The ride took 30 minutes and paid $4. No tip. By the time he arrived, Guallpa says he was exhausted and furious.
GUALLPA: And when somebody opened the door, it was a old lady on a wheelchair. And he said, at that moment, I cried because I was like, I'm helping somebody that cannot get access to basic services. And he said, at that moment, I understood what my role was.
VENUGOPAL: The efforts to initiate change began to pay off. In 2021, the workers secured a raft of city laws improving their pay and working conditions. And last month, DoorDash agreed to pay nearly $17 million to settle claims that it withheld tips meant for thousands of delivery workers. A DoorDash spokesperson said the settlement was related to an old pay model that's since been retired. But Guallpa says the results have been validating.
GUALLPA: It is a beautiful story that explains the power that a small grassroot organizing group has built in the City of New York.
VENUGOPAL: Gustavo Ajche says he's proud of what's been achieved since the pandemic, and that delivery workers are not done fighting.
For NPR News, I'm Arun Venugopal in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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