By Katherine Hamilton


Uber Technologies' food-delivery business agreed to pay $3.5 million in worker pay restitution and civil penalties as part of an order by the New York City government.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection ordered Uber Eats to pay $3.15 million in restitution to 48,000 workers across the city, and $350,000 in civil penalties and fees.

An investigation by DCWP alleged that Uber Eats failed to pay workers the minimum pay rate between December 2023 and September 2024 for time spent on canceled trips, the mayor's office said Friday.

A DCWP report said Uber and other food-delivery companies engineered their interfaces to lower workers' tip earnings by $550 million.

"We're glad to have this resolved," Uber communications director Josh Gold said. "After the city notified us of the issue in August of 2024, we immediately corrected it, agreed to pay more than the amount owed, and appreciate the new administration moving quickly to bring this to a fair conclusion."

Food delivery platforms Fantuan and HungryPanda are also being ordered to make payments alongside Uber Eats for a total amount of $5.2 million.

Uber also agreed to reinstate workers who were wrongfully deactivated, which could be as many as 10,000 people, the mayor's office said. Uber has reactivated 1,053 workers, Gold said.

Gold said just over 94,000 couriers were impacted with an average underpayment of $19.48.

Earlier in January, DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine sent compliance warnings to more than 60 delivery companies including Uber, Instacart, DoorDash and Grubhub. The notices warned companies to adhere to expanded delivery worker protection laws that went into effect in January.


Write to Katherine Hamilton at katherine.hamilton@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

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