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DoorDash continues to flout state labor laws by misclassifying its drivers, called “dashers”, subjecting them to low wages and lack of benefits, according to a class action lawsuit.
The company is accused of enriching itself on the backs of its drivers, who receive low pay and no benefits as independent contractors. Allegedly, 97.5 percent of DoorDash’s workforce consists of independent contractors who are denied protections under federal and state labor laws.
“Companies like DoorDash were never supposed to be allowed to run an entire business on the backs of independent contractors,” asserts the lawsuit. “People who work in the company’s core line of business are its ‘employees.’”
The plaintiffs say that DoorDash continues to willfully misclassify its drivers as independent contractors to avoid paying benefits or a minimum wage, but treats them like employees.
“Even though federal, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts law require DoorDash drivers to be classified as ‘employees’ and receive the rights and protections employees get, DoorDash continues to willfully misclassify them as independent contractors, to reap the benefit of their work and maximize its profit,” asserts the class action lawsuit.
The lead plaintiffs say they have all worked as dashers and had similar experiences with the company. They say that they have been responsible for paying for the costs associated with making DoorDash deliveries, including gas, insurance, and mileage, despite the company failing to pay them the federal minimum wage for their work.
Despite the low pay and contractor status, dashers must follow detailed instructions when they begin their DoorDash shift. Failure to follow “precise instructions” can result in termination of their position.
A typical shift begins when the dasher clicks a button on the DoorDash app in order to be assigned orders for delivery, according to the lawsuit. Dasher’s tasks include driving to the assigned restaurant, notifying DoorDash that they have arrived, and picking up or waiting for the food order.
The plaintiffs say an assigned credit card, the Red Card, must be used to pay for the food. Then dashers must drive to the customer’s location, park, follow specific delivery options, and notify DoorDash when the delivery is complete.
According to the class action lawsuit, dashers are evaluated based on a series of factors, including “On Time” delivery, customer ratings, completion rates, and acceptance rates. Plaintiffs say delivery times are tight and do not take into account delays at the restaurant or even with the DoorDash app itself.
In addition, dashers are allegedly penalized for trying to take only high paying or low distance orders, potentially facing deactivation of their account for failing to take on more assignments.
“Dashers with low metrics are terminated,” says the lawsuit. “For example, DoorDash bans drivers from the Dasher App if the driver’s Average Customer Rating falls below 4.2 stars.”
Further, a dasher’s metrics can allegedly affect the quality of deliveries they are assigned along with their pay.
Dashers and DoorDash customers alike are duped by the company’s policy on tips, as well, claim the plaintiffs. Customers may think they are leaving their dasher a tip on top of the fee the driver is paid by DoorDash; however, prior to 2019, dashers received either the guaranteed amount DoorDash would pay for the order or the customer tip – not both.
The plaintiffs seek to represent DoorDash dashers in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts who have not signed the company’s arbitration clause.
Have you worked as a DoorDash dasher? We want to hear about your experience. Tell us in the comment section below!
The lead plaintiffs are represented by Jahan Sagafi, Relic Sun, and Molly Frandsen of Outten & Golden LLP and Steven M. Tindall, Aaron Blumenthal, and Nikul Shah of Gibbs Law Group LLP.
The DoorDash Dasher Class Action Lawsuit is Clifford L., et al. v. DoorDash Inc., Case No. 20-cv-00666, in the U.S District Court Northern District of California.
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619 thoughts onDoorDash Class Action Lawsuit Alleges That Drivers Are Paid ‘Substandard Wages’
Im a dasher I worked for 3 hours and didn’t receive a dine tonight. I called Doordash they told me to wait a few minutes, so I waited for 6 hours later and still haven’t been paid for those 3 orders I did tonight. So I just literally chatted with customer service the person told me I had been paid, so I said what and they disconnected me from the chat. i have everything that states If the payment went to my door card or not . I feel like i worked for free. and to be treated like that makes me so mad. Being a dasher I go to make money to make sure my babies are good, but instead I’m being ripped off every chance I get by this unprofessional company. Please add me to this list we need to be heard
Seems very unfair customers are bottom of the list and they should be top drivers the one that make the company or abused to say the least good luck
Ive been a doordash driver for almost two years. And it seems like when a new program is implemented that requires additional work such as the shop and deliver and alcohol deliveries the pay remains the same or not enough. With the additional required I feel there should be some kind of increase in the pay. And Ive also notice when cstrs pay a higher tip the base pay is very low regardless of miles.
Please is there a class action law suit against Doordash in Tennessee or Alabama? I have driven cab for the past 20 years and its $2 a mile, 25c waiting time, and a $1.50 drop rate(to get in cab). So I decided to try doordash and they offer less than 50c a mile(10 miles for $5 or less. What is this please? Obviously doordash does not care about food or food delivery if they are willing to let you go more than 6 miles. Let us understand delivery by these examples. A car can go 1 mile in 1 minute and 20 seconds going 45 miles and hour. So 6 miles would equal 7 minutes and 20 seconds, that is ,if there were no lights to stop at and no drop in speed. let us remember that the national average for food delivery is between $19-$24 and hour. Also before we move on , this entry is about doordash attempting to set wage to lower than standard or even legal, in certain areas and taking the rest of the profits. In my area it is set to $13.50 and hour. You can and will met the national average of $19.50 if calls were not levied incorrectly. Anyway the point is that food can not be delivered over 6 miles max, because the average approximate time to go 6 miles is not 7 minutes and 20 seconds one way, but the actual average is 12-15 minutes one way, and during peak hours 20+ minutes for 6 miles. If it takes 20 minutes to make a 6 mile call then you can only average about 3 calls per hour. If you can only do about 3 calls per hour, then each call should average $6.40 and less than 6 miles to equal $19.20 which is the national average. The thing is with doordash you could be making more, but they set bias in the algorithm to limit you from making more than the wage they set in your area. furthermore acceptance ratings hurts everyone. If I have to accept bs the they will continue to dish it out, but if we could refuse a call because the fee is to low, that would force the customer to pay for his food being delivered, but we have no intermediary which is suppose to be doordash. Why would anyone tip you if you continue to accept no tip? Doordash is suppose to say to the customer, your price is to low for delivery , which inspires the customer to say, I’ll give more, but this does not happen. Now in my area 10 miles takes me into another state with different laws and different traffic patterns and unknown streets and places, but doordash does not care about these things and offers you 10 miles trips often, not caring about speed of delivery or safety of driver in unknown areas. Not only that after taking a 10 miles trip, doordash will offer you to go even further out from the original 10 miles and not headed back to your location. In other words you have to continue to accept and could end up 30+ miles from your original location in another state or some unwanted place. Doordash is horrible and does not care about food delivery, or its drivers or customers. Finally they expect me to pay for tires, oil change, gas, insurance, and repairs if needed at the same time offering you calls of $2.75 for 6 miles, while gas is and average of $3.50. All calls should average $6.40 and be less than 6 miles and a negotiable fare. No one should be allowed to even crank their car up for less than what is previously stated.
Is this still going on?
now i might get deactivated because you put my full name on the commit
I totally agree with everything that’s being said in these articles doordash sucks they’ve been ripping people off and since day one and I wish somebody would fire a class action lawsuit in Alabama against doordash I’ve been delivering on a bicycle that’s a pedal bicycle not a electric bicycle we’re almost a year and when I noticed it kept sending me long runs I started complaining about I’m doing it on a bike and doordash said oh switch to a bike and then there were no orders so I had to switch back to my car which I’m still delivering on a bike just to get the orders and they’re completely dropping my percentages because I won’t take 10 Mile runs on a bike that’s 10 mi one way 8 miles one way so I’m not making any money with doordash hardly anymore and I can if they would send me my orders but they won’t send me the orders so and they bring in people over us after we’ve been working for over a year and give them better money than the people that have been working for them for a longer periods of time until they start dropping their percentages and then they’ll start doing those people the same way they’re doing the rest of us it’s a scam we have to pay her on taxes and we have to pay for everything else but doordash reaps all the benefits look at their profits in the millions off the backs of their drivers the people who deliver the food that make doordash their real money Alabama anybody out there we need a class action lawsuit to endure dash too!
iI have accepted orders that are low miles and after i pick up the order and get the delivery details & destination moles have doubled. I called and they say their writing a report and you never here from them again. They time you on your delivery arrival and my average keeps going down all they while I am speeding they have all the gps data on you MPH driving they dont care. countless orders pop on my screen driving down the freeway with a acceptance time on them. accepting orders and driving to the vender and order gets canceled and or the store does not have the item and it gets cancel no pay. I did a 6 mile delivery last night for 2.75 total only because if i dont have my acceptance rate above 70% by the end of the month i wont be elligabal to dash now next month.
Unfortunately most door dash customers are under the impression that door dash is compensating their drivers by giving them fair wages that would at the very least meet the minimum wage requirements in the particular state that their driving in, so they don’t feel the need to tip their drivers. But in reality, door dash pays us next to nothing while they reap the benefits and get rich in the process. My guess is they don’t want to encourage customers to leave additional tips bc it would make the door dash delivery service too expensive and they would ultimately lose out on a substantial amount of business in doing so. It’s infuriating to know that the drivers do all the work and get completely screwed in the end while the executives of the company get filthy rich in the process. We are expected to do all the work while using our cars putting wear and tear on them in the process, pay for our own insurance, pay for our own gas, and use our valuable time to get the job done. The greedy executives should be held responsible for their actions and either start paying their employees fair wages and shit down the illegal business they’re running. The way they treat their employees is disgusting and i excusable and they should be ashamed of themselves for stealing money from the hard working people they abuse in order to enrich themselves.
DoorDash is running incentives for drivers to complete certain numbers of deliveries in order to earn money bonuses. However, even after deliveries are completed in the required increments, the company is forcing the drivers to prove the incentives exist through lengthy phone calls and endless emails for repeat information.
The only ones benefiting from this so-called incentive programs. They offer are the fat cat CEOs and executives of Door Dash. These people are criminals, and they should be held accountable for stealing money from hard-working people like you and me.
After completing 2000 delivery with Doordash in the past two years, the company culture when dealing with driver and customers (Consumer or Restaurants) are based on Deception, self-interest, and taking chances to get winnings even if you end up losing what you earned from Doordash. After my 2000 successful deliveries, I ended up with the lowest acceptance rate (Less than 25%); I spent hours waiting for orders with no success, but at least I will never be fooled again by casino-like algorithms win once, lose ten.
Ezcaters advertises on their website that the drivers keep the tip but it’s an $8 flat rate for hundreds of dollars of items which means it’s a lot more work.
No tip is given to the drivers yet it claims it does right on the ordering website. Please look it up. The drivers are also only getting a VERY small portion of the delivery fee and the ezcaters is keeping most of it. This all seems so illegal.
Also they randomly cancel people’s accounts and keep their money from the entire week that they worked and tells them outright that they’re keeping the money. Even though to driver did all that work, gas, time, mileage, risk etc. How is it legal that they keep the money from a job done? 🤬