Why I support the PayUp policy — a letter from Joel Shapiro, CEO of delivery app Dumpling
Joel Shapiro is the CEO of Dumpling—a platform that helps workers in the gig economy start their own businesses—and member of the Seattle Labor Standards Advisory Commission.
Here’s why he supports the PayUp policy:
April 25, 2022
Seattle City Council
Re: Support for PayUp Policy
Dear Members of the Seattle City Council,
The gig economy is broken: low pay, no flexibility, no transparency, and no opportunities for people to take control of their own work. We need new business models to fix it — and also new policies to ensure workers have basic protections. That’s why my co-founders and I started Dumpling — and it’s also why I support the PayUp policy being considered by Seattle City Council.
Technology has the potential to deliver a unique degree of flexibility, along with meaningful transparency and fair pay, but that’s not what workers experience on apps like Instacart and DoorDash. In fact, more often than not, technology in the gig economy is being used for the exact opposite, significantly favoring the company at the expense of the worker.
Instead of transparent and fair pay, pay rates are determined by constantly changing algorithms designed to go as low as the company can get away with. Instead of flexibility to decide which jobs are worth taking, workers are pitted against each other in a race to immediately accept or lose job offers, not giving sufficient time to determine if the job is actually worth taking. Workers are left to cover all of their own expenses — including the skyrocketing price of gas — and left to hope for tips in order to make any money. Individual workers are up against multi-billion-dollar companies, it’s not even close to a fair fight.
I’ve heard from workers on these apps for years as we’ve been building Dumpling right here in Seattle. Our aim: use technology to flip the gig economy on its head by creating a true ownership model for workers. We do this by building tools that help individuals run their own local grocery delivery businesses, empowering them with autonomy and technology. These tools enable business owners to set their own schedule, choose where they shop, set their own fees, source leads, and choose which customers they want to work with.
While our team is dedicated to making our ownership model succeed, it’s not enough. There will always be other players in the market. And if they’re not guided by the same mission to equip workers with proper pay, supportive tools, and a transparent work environment, workers will pay the price. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen over the past few years: as on-demand gig apps have grown, workers have become the replaceable, exploitable cogs in a model built to carry all of the costs of on-demand.
That’s why it’s been so exciting to see City Council continue to move forward on the PayUp policies developed by gig workers who have organized with Working Washington. The policies which have been discussed would ensure workers are paid at least minimum wage after expenses for all time worked. They’d ensure workers have the flexibility the gig apps promise — but don’t always deliver on. They’d provide the up-front transparency workers need to be able to determine what jobs work for them. And they’d provide other basic protections for gig workers too.
The gig economy has a ton of promise to provide people the flexible access to income they need. But it also has a ton of downside — especially when it’s out of balance like it is now. A Seattle-based Dumpling Business owner, Talisha Herald, said it best “I look forward to continuing to grow my own business, and also to seeing Seattle establish a pay floor and other basic protections for workers in the rest of the gig economy.” Although businesses like Dumpling are helping to provide meaningful opportunities to workers, we need policies like PayUp to move forward to ensure workers don’t bear all the costs if companies fail to step up.
I look forward to continuing to grow Dumpling, and also to seeing Seattle establish a pay floor and other basic protections for workers in the rest of the gig economy.
Sincerely,
Joel Shapiro
Co-Founder, Dumpling
Labor Standards Advisory Committee (LSAC) member