If you've read Doordash Driver before, then you know that I can sometimes be critical of Doordash for some of their questionable practices. With that said, I also am not bashful when I support Doordash, and there are quite a few things that I do support Doordash with. In this article, I'm going to talk about an incident that happened a few days ago up in Northern California at the front of Doordah CEO Tony Xu's home.
Before I do that, let me talk about what triggered this event. Just this week, a California Superior Court judge ruling called Proposition 22 unconstitutional. As most people know, Prop 22 was passed in November of 2020. Part of this proposition allowed app based companies like Doordash to continue classifying their delivery drivers as independent contractors.
With the California Superior Court calling Prop 22 unconstitutional, it boosted the adrenaline of those against Prop 22. About 50 dashers protested in the San Francisco area right in front of Doordash CEO Tony Xu's house. It was reported that these 50 dashers are all affiliated with advocacy groups "We Drive Progress" and "Gig Workers Rising."
One of the picket signs a protestor held said "Pay workers a living wage." Another protestors sign said "Share the Wealth." This group is demanding transparency of tips and 120 percent of minimum wage. They also want protective equipment and extra pay for car and equipment sanitizing. Additionally, they want the unfair driver deactivations of Doordash to stop.
First off, I do not agree one bit with these Doordash protestors. If we were talking about a different state here other than California, I would hold a different stance because I know what it's like to dash all day and not earn what you should. The low earnings can really get a person down. With that said, we are talking about California here and anybody not happy with Proposition 22 clearly doesn't understand the fantastic deck of cards that they have been dealt.
These Doordash protestors are idiots
Not to sound harsh, but the demands of these protestors really makes me wonder if they are capable of thinking rationally. Doordash is already paying 120 percent of minimum wage to Doordash drivers in California. Doordash also generally provides transparency with our tips. We see what we will make for the call upfront and can decide from that information displayed if we will accept the call or not. The only exclusion to this are the hidden tip calls. These calls make up a very small percentage of Doordash offers, and this is a subject for another time. There is a somewhat valid reason why Doordah does this for these certain calls, and I can see both sides of this, but we will talk about that another time.
Proposition 22 also includes 30 cents per mile driven, health insurance stipends for those that drive over 15 hours per week, medical cost and lost income cost for drivers that are hurt while on an active call and other worker's protection. What all of this comes to is these protestors wanting to be employees instead of independent contractors.
As a Doordash driver, why would I want to be an employee?
I don't want to be a Doordash employee and you shouldn't either. There's no doubt that most of you reading this agree. We voted, and that's why Prop 22 is here. If these protestors gave as much effort in finding a job that offers what they want instead of spending all their time protesting, whining and complaining, they would probably be able to find at least a little bit of happiness in their life. Or would they? They'd most likely find something new to complain about.
If these protestors could get their way, dashers in California would be employees of Doordash and receive hourly pay. That would be around $14 per hour (Much lower than what Dashers earn with the Prop 22 guaranteed pay.) Dashers would also be entitled to overtime pay.
Major problems with this would be that Doordash would have to drop 90 percent of its dashers. Are these protestors foolish enough to believe that Doordash could employ all of their dashers? Also, what makes them think that they wouldn't be the first dashers that Doordash would get rid of and not hire?
There would also have to be schedules for the workers, you know like a regular job. The pay would be minimum wage, and I doubt Doordash would allow any overtime to happen. Honestly, if an individual were a Doordash driver employee, he or she would most likely be a part time employee, 20 hours per week.
These protestors would also like to see paid sick time, employer provided health care, bargaining rights, unemployment insurance and all the other benefits that employees are lawfully entitled to. Why, oh why would anybody want Doordash to turn in to this! There are plenty of jobs out there that provide everything that they are looking for. Maybe they like this kind of work? Okay, go become a Pizza Hut or Dominoes Pizza driver. There are also a lot of courier jobs out there where they can get that hourly pay and employee benefits.
As Doordash drivers, and independent contractors, we love the freedom to work when an where we want. We love being able to log on and off whenever we want. We love only having to take the calls we want. We love being able to take our kids with us dashing if we want. We love working for ourselves. Doordash is not our boss and does not dictate what we can and can't do like an employer can. We are independent contractors that work for ourselves.
A regular hourly job? Dashers don't want that! We don't want hourly pay that will minimize our earnings. We don't need overtime pay. As an independent contractor I will always make more in 8 hours than I would in 12 hours as a minimum wage hourly employee with overtime.
I don't need a work schedule. That's what would happen if dashers were employees. I've heard some say that Doordash would still be able to allow hourly employees to work when and where they want. Are you freakin serious? Anybody that thinks this has most likely never ran a business. Of course Doordash would have to set schedules for employees. Do you think that they can just have everybody logging on and getting paid by the hour whenever they want? Of course not! If Doordash is going to pay by the hour, they would need to make sure that their drivers are busy and productive whenever they are on, and that can't be thousands of dashers sitting in a parking lot not doing anything.
Paid sick time leave? I'm not trading my independence for this. If I have a headache or just don't feel good, I'll still dash if I'm up to it. If I feel really bad and have a serious fever or something like that, I'll just stay home. I'm alright with not getting paid for the day. The trade off is just not worth it for a few free measly hundreds of dollars whenever I have a tummy-ache.
All of the other stuff such as unemployment insurance and company paid health benefits is also not worth the trade off of my independence to work when, how and where I want. By the way, as already mentioned, Doordash does offer a health insurance stipends for those that drive over 15 hours per week.
Most of us dashers do this gig work on a part time basis. Most dashers are in another line of work as an employee with a set schedule. That job gives hourly pay, company paid health benefits, vacation pay, unemployment and all the rest of the perks that go along with an employee job. We do not want another job! We want a side gig to earn extra money whenever we want. We love this Doordash side gig where we can earn $500 to $1000 per week on a part-time basis. This is more than what some people earn at their full time employee job!
Sure, there are dashers out there that dash all day. They have turned this gig job in to a full-time gig. Maybe they're between jobs or they just like doing Doordash full-time. No matter what their reason is, they should not ever try to turn these independent contractor gigs in to employee jobs. Again, there are already enough of those out there.
The Doordash pay is great since Proposition 22 passed
I make much more money since Prop 22 came into effect. I'm guaranteed to make about $20 per hour at minimum. If I make more than that - great! But I know I'll always earn at least $20 per hour. It's officially 120 percent of minimum wage for active time and 30 cents per mile that you drive. When calculated at the end of the week, a dasher will always find that their guaranteed Doordash pay will come out to about $20 per hour. All they have to do is multiply their active time by 20, and they will always see that it is very close to what they were paid. Add the customer tips on top of that and the pay is great, especially if you are comparing it to the pay before Prop 22 went in to effect.
Lately, when I dash, I will usually dash for 5 hours per day and make $100 to $140 per day. There is very little down time. From those 5 hours I am probably on active time 4 and a half hours. The tips will help determine what my Doordash daily earnings will be.
Sometimes, I will be on active time during a whole hour. Let's say I make three deliveries during that hour. My pay would be the $20 per hour guarantee from Doordash plus the three customer tips which may be $2, $5 and $3. This would give me $30 earned for the hour.
Before Prop 22, there were times when I would dash all day (12 to 14 hours) and barely hit $100. Every dasher in California knows our pay has increased dramatically since the passing of Prop 22. Those low paying $3 to $6 calls are no longer as haunting as they used to be because we know that we will be earning much more than that for the call when our guaranteed pay kicks in at the end of the week.
Doordash has given us Dashers protective equipment
A claim made by the protestors was that Doordash needs to protect its drivers better by giving extra pay for car and equipment sanitizing. I don't know where they have been, but I have gotten hand sanitizer from Doordash more than just a few times. Yep, it comes straight to my mailbox. I've even gotten plenty of red masks from them.
There have been times when I bought myself a small bottle of sanitizer on my own. I've even bought masks on my own. Sometimes it's just quicker and easier, but as I've said, Doordash does and has given these things to Dashers absolutely free for a while now. Maybe I am missing something. When it comes to protective equipment, what more do these protesters want from Doordash?Before prop 22 was passed in California, the protests, whining and complaining was a bit more understandable. I mean, there was all the low paying calls, and let's not forget the whole tip stealing thing that went on. By the way, that was the lowest of the low that a company could do, but that is the past, and I am not saying we should forget it, but we have to concentrate and tell the truth about what is going on right now.
Proposition 22 has been all positive for dashers. Sure, it is true that Doordash and all the other gig companies are better off with Prop 22 than making their drivers employees, but would anybody really want to screw themselves over just to screw over the companies? Being employees is not beneficial to anybody!
The California Superior Court judge that has ruled Prop 22 as unconstitutional seems to have way too much time on his or her hands. The people of California voted for Prop 22, and it would be stupid for the courts to challenge the will of the people. Why would they? Because a few idiots want hourly pay and some vacation days?
I don't see any of this going anywhere, and I'm sure Doordash, Uber, GrubHub and the other app based gig companies don't either. Sure, there will always be those that will challenge them, but I'm confident that righteousness will always win. Am I calling these companies righteous? Heck no! Wrong word. They have done a lot of wrong in the past. In this case though, they are right, and Prop 22 is good and the people's choice. So leave it alone!
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