In a stunning moment of corporate self-awareness, DoorDash has admitted what we all suspected: they were underpaying workers in New York. The company will now hand over $131.5 million to settle a city investigation into wage violations. Shocking, we know.
But here’s where it gets fun. DoorDash’s internal defense apparently hinged on a genuinely novel interpretation of employment law: workers were not actually employees at all, but rather “very enthusiastic customers” who happened to be obsessed with delivering food for below-minimum wage. Think of it as a hobby, the company seemed to suggest. Like collecting baseball cards, except the cards are your rent payments and they keep getting smaller.
The settlement means DoorDash will now pay back wages to workers who, it turns out, should have been paid minimum wage all along. Revolutionary stuff. New York investigators, bless them, had to explain that people who show up on a schedule, follow company rules, and perform labor for compensation are generally considered employees. Not a gray area. Not a “gig.” Not “very enthusiastic.”
The real comedy here is not that DoorDash underpaid workers—that’s the tragedy part. It’s that someone in a conference room thought the “they just love it” defense would stick. It did not. Now shareholders get to watch $131.5 million walk out the door, and workers get to find out what minimum wage actually feels like.
Turns out when you treat people like employees, you have to pay them like employees. Who knew?