Grubhub exploits drivers in a number of ways:
- Hiring at one rate, then switching to a lower rate. In my market, I was hired at $13/hr. After a few months, they dropped it to $10/hr with only days worth of notice, and applied the new rate to hours that I had already scheduled under the old rate.
- If your market is slow, they lose money by paying your hourly pay. So, they find reasons to take it away from you. For instance, if you “miss” an order, you lose your hourly pay for the entire day. Already worked 8 hours? They don’t care. You lose ALL of the hourly pay, keeping only tips and delivery pay. More often than not, this is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the hourly pay.
- They punish/reward drivers with their tier system, but they lack transparency with their decisions, to the point where drivers can AND ARE punished for technical errors in the app, to name but one example. This, in turn, drops their numbers and therefore their driver tiers, which in turn impacts which days they can schedule hours for. If you drop too low, there are no hourly blocks left to sign up for by the time block sign-up starts on Saturday. Their top tier can sign up beginning on Thursday. So not only do they steal your hourly pay when they want to, but they can and do make it difficult to even maintain hours. This often feels like it is applied selectively, and there is no effective means to raise questions.
- When you attempt to address the above issues, Driver Care flat out LIES to you, or MAKES THINGS UP to fit any narrative that allows them to claim that you failed to earn your hourly pay, even if it’s AFTER you’ve already worked for and earned it. They claim your app wasn’t connected, or updated, or that you didn’t have blocks scheduled that day (even if you did). They use similar lies in the scheduling tier system, claiming that drivers haven’t successfully completed a scheduled block in over 30 days, even when the app ITSELF says they worked one the day before!
Drivers, STEER CLEAR of this predatory company!
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, PLEASE do something about this! PROTECT Colorado workers. STOP being complacent! Grubhub should lose access to 1099 labor IN ALL FORMS, AT ALL TIMES, AND FOR ALL USES. They want people working for them, they can hire EMPLOYEES like a business with integrity does. Most companies see carrying a large employee count as a badge of honor. It’s a GOOD that they do for the world, because they can. But not Grubhub. Having more “employees” means LOSING MORE MONEY. So they just say, “Fuck the worker.”
Not in my state. Not in my country.
Hoorah!
Stand by to stand by! –Mad Squid
