Gee & Ursula: Delivery drivers ‘have to do better’ in demand for minimum wage

The Seattle City Council passed a first-in-the-nation minimum wage law for rideshare drivers last year. Now, there is a push to do the same for app-based delivery drivers in Seattle.

Seattle mulls first-of-its-kind minimum wage for app-based delivery drivers

The proposed legislation — known formally as “Pay Up” — would build on a bill passed by the council in 2020, which established a $16.39 an hour minimum wage for rideshare drivers, paying out $0.56 per minute and $1.33 per mile driven while transporting passengers. In practice, the new bill would set a $17.27 an hour minimum wage for app-based delivery and service drivers for companies like DoorDash and Instacart, while helping cover baseline expenses.

Mikey Pullman is a DoorDash driver in Seattle, and is a volunteer with the Pay Up campaign.

“I started DoorDash in Idaho for a little bit, and then I moved here six months before the pandemic, got a job at the census, and then the pandemic kicked off,” Pullman explained. “My partner has a heart condition, so I worked for DoorDash to try to avoid having to work a restaurant job and get everybody sick.”

“We made the labor laws before gig working was this popular,” he noted about the reasoning behind the demand. “So the thing that we’re actually trying to do is we’re trying to just redress the balance.”

He says that right now, app drivers pay “all the cost of the delivery.”

“We’re just trying to get people paid the minimum that we, as a society, have decided people need to get paid so they can contribute to society,” he said.

Pullman also noted that he has to pay for gas and for repairs to his car. He says he often gets offers for jobs from DoorDash that are as little as $2 or $2.50.

“All we’re asking [employers] to do is to pay people … so that they can buy groceries and pay their rent,” he added. “This would actually benefit Seattle by putting money back into the city.”

He said the drivers are asking for the same minimum wage of Seattle, and that would account for any hours the drivers are working.

“You get minimum wage while you’re working,” Pullman said. “I mean, I’ve had other delivery jobs — like I was a pizza delivery driver, I got paid even if I was stuck in traffic. These are the kinds of things that we’re talking about. … I still deserve to get paid; I’m still burning my gas.”

“The idea that the worker has to pay for these things is like asking the guy making your pizza to pay for the toppings,” he added.

Hosts Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin spoke more about the interview later in the show. Gee has been a DoorDash driver himself and is still not convinced by Pullman’s argument.

“As someone who spends their days fighting for people to get better wages, spends their days talking about how I believe that the federal minimum wage is way too low and how I believe that people are working for [low] wages, this person still cannot convince me that a DoorDash worker should make a minimum wage,” Gee said. “And I am a DoorDash worker.”

Gee also clarified that app-based delivery drivers can turn down a job if it doesn’t make enough money.

“Let’s just say I’m only going make $3.50 on this job, right? I can turn that down,” Gee said.

“So to say you’re only going to make $2, well, that’s not true,” he noted in response to something Pullman mentioned in the interview. “Because if you don’t want to just make the $2, you can always turn it down. So again, they’re going to have to do better because if you can’t convince me — and I’m someone who’s always fighting for people to make more money — it’s going be a hard fight.”

Listen to the full interview in the first hour of the Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin Show on Feb. 14:

Listen to the Gee and Ursula Show weekday mornings from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.