Seattle voters overwhelmingly oppose weakening the PayUp ordinance, NPI poll finds

Three-fifths of Seat­tle vot­ers are opposed to pro­posed leg­is­la­tion that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­en the PayUp ordi­nance the city adopt­ed with­in the past few years to increase wages and pro­vide work­er pro­tec­tions for deliv­ery dri­vers, a new city­wide poll con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and its allies has found.

Asked if they sup­port­ed or opposed repeal­ing part of the Seat­tle law that pro­vides min­i­mum pay stan­dards and work­place pro­tec­tions for app-based deliv­ery dri­vers work­ing for com­pa­nies like Door­Dash and Instacart, with the goal of low­er­ing high deliv­ery fees, 60% of our respon­dents said they were opposed. Only 18% expressed support. 

Anoth­er 22% said they were not sure. 

Our sur­vey, which field­ed last week, also asked about the city’s upcom­ing trans­porta­tion levy, anoth­er weighty mat­ter now before the Coun­cil. We pub­lished our levy-relat­ed find­ings ear­li­er this week, pre­ced­ing the Coun­cil’s first meet­ing to dis­cuss the may­or’s pro­pos­al. To inves­ti­gate vot­er atti­tudes towards the leg­is­la­tion that would weak­en PayUp, we part­nered with our friends at Work­ing Wash­ing­ton, who have been orga­niz­ing for years in sup­port of stronger pro­tec­tions for work­ers, includ­ing deliv­ery drivers. 

The PayUp ordi­nance is so named because its intent is to get com­pa­nies that employ gig work­ers to step up and do right by the peo­ple who are pro­vid­ing the labor that is cre­at­ing their prof­its. Com­pa­nies like Door­Dash don’t like the law and would like to roll it back. They have found an ally in Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Sara Nel­son, the cofounder of Fre­mont Brew­ing, who is one of two at-large mem­bers of the cur­rent city council.

As Busi­ness Insid­er put it in an arti­cle that ran ear­li­er today:

Since Jan­u­ary, gig deliv­ery work­ers in Seat­tle have been reap­ing the ben­e­fits of a local law man­dat­ing a cer­tain pay lev­el. Just months lat­er, they could see their incomes cut under pro­posed revisions.

PayUp, which took effect in the city in Jan­u­ary, requires Door­Dash, Uber, Instacart, Grub­hub, and oth­er deliv­ery apps to pay inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors the equiv­a­lent of the city’s $19.97 min­i­mum wage — a rule that the app com­pa­nies have opposed.

But CB 120775, a pro­pos­al intro­duced last month by Seat­tle City Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Sara Nel­son, would low­er the min­i­mum pay for dri­vers and roll back pro­tec­tions for work­ers, accord­ing to a draft of the legislation.

Under the pro­pos­al, gig work­ers would be paid an hourly rate of $19.97 for their time spent retriev­ing and deliv­er­ing orders. While that seems con­sis­tent with Seat­tle’s min­i­mum wage for employ­ees, the gig work­ers cov­ered by the PayUp law are only paid for “active time” spent work­ing on orders — mean­ing that time spent try­ing to claim an order is uncom­pen­sat­ed. They’re also respon­si­ble for their own costs, such as gas.

Those aspects of the job had led Seat­tle’s city coun­cil to cre­ate a sys­tem that pays work­ers based on the miles they dri­ve and the min­utes they spend on the job. PayUp also demands that no offer pays less than $5.

The lat­est pro­pos­al would do away with that $5 min­i­mum and the per-minute pay­ment. Instead, gig work­ers would get paid 35 cents per mile — down from the cur­rent 74 cents.

It would also elim­i­nate or cut back oth­er pro­tec­tions for gig work­ers in the city. For exam­ple, a PayUp rule giv­ing work­ers two min­utes to review an order before accept­ing it would shrink to 45 seconds.

The bill is sched­uled for a com­mit­tee vote on Thurs­day. If it pass­es, the pro­pos­al could face a vote by the full Coun­cil on May 21.

The Seat­tle Times and KING5 have also recent­ly report­ed on Nel­son’s proposal. 

City Hall reporter David Kro­man wrote about it for the Times on April 26th and pro­vid­ed a good, fac­tu­al, neu­tral­ly word­ed expla­na­tion of what the ordi­nance would do. We liked that expla­na­tion so much that we incor­po­rat­ed it into our question. 

Here’s the ques­tion in its entire­ty and the responses:

QUESTION: The Seat­tle City Coun­cil is con­sid­er­ing repeal­ing part of the PayUp law that pro­vides min­i­mum pay stan­dards and work­place pro­tec­tions for app-based deliv­ery dri­vers work­ing for com­pa­nies like Door­Dash and Instacart, with the goal of low­er­ing high deliv­ery fees. The Coun­cil President’s pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would:

• Cut the hourly rate to rough­ly 33 cents per minute and 35 cents per mile, below the IRS’s per-mile reim­burse­ment rate for vehi­cle wear and tear of 67 cents
• Make it so dri­vers would not be paid for trips can­celed by the customer
• Return more pow­er to the com­pa­nies, allow­ing them to more eas­i­ly lim­it work­er access to the plat­forms, lim­it hours, gar­nish tips, and more
• Elim­i­nate dri­vers’ abil­i­ty to sue the com­pa­nies over alleged labor violations

Do you sup­port or oppose the pro­posed legislation?

RESPONSES:

• Sup­port: 18% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 8%
  • Some­what sup­port: 10%
• Oppose: 60%
  • Some­what oppose: 17%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 43%
• Not sure: 22% 

The words in the list por­tion of the ques­tion above were tak­en almost ver­ba­tim from Kro­man’s arti­cle. We also made sure to empha­size in the text of our ques­tion that the goal of the leg­is­la­tion is to low­er high deliv­ery fees. As you can see, most Seat­tle vot­ers had a very neg­a­tive reac­tion to what Coun­cilmem­ber Nel­son is propos­ing. They may not like high deliv­ery fees, but they don’t think Nel­son’s leg­is­la­tion is a solu­tion to that problem.

You can also see that not only is there an over­all oppo­si­tion to sup­port ratio of 3‑to‑1, but the per­cent­age who strong­ly oppose the leg­is­la­tion is more than four times greater than the per­cent­age who strong­ly sup­port it. This is clear and com­pelling evi­dence that Nel­son is on the wrong track. The Coun­cil must aban­don this pro­posed legislation.

There’s a much more log­i­cal alter­na­tive course for the Coun­cil to take, and we asked vot­ers to weigh in on that as well, which is cap­ping deliv­ery fees: 

QUESTION: Do you sup­port or oppose cap­ping the amount of deliv­ery fees that deliv­ery apps like Door­Dash and UberEats can pass on to consumers?

RESPONSES:

• Sup­port: 64% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 50%
  • Some­what sup­port: 14%
• Oppose: 17%
  • Some­what oppose: 6%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 11%
• Not sure: 17% 

For read­ers’ aware­ness, the above ques­tion actu­al­ly came first in our sur­vey, pre­ced­ing the longer ques­tion above about Nel­son’s pro­posed ordi­nance. Respon­dents were thus weigh­ing in on the idea of cap­ping deliv­ery fees before they shared their views on the ordi­nance. The sup­port for this alter­na­tive course of action is very strong: close to two-thirds of respon­dents were enthu­si­as­tic, with half of our respon­dents very enthusiastic. 

Our sur­vey of 647 like­ly 2024 Seat­tle gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, April 30th, through Fri­day, May 3rd, 2024. 

The poll was con­duct­ed entire­ly online for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute by Change Research and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.1%.

Door­Dash, Instacart, and oth­er com­pa­nies can be expect­ed to strong­ly oppose any effort to lim­it the fees they can charge. And they will. 

But that does­n’t mean the idea should­n’t be pursued. 

Pres­i­dent Biden has made tak­ing on junk fees a big part of his first-term agen­da, and research sug­gests vot­ers absolute­ly love it. Coun­cilmem­ber Nel­son should take note of that. And all of our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives would do well to remem­ber that checks and bal­ances aren’t just a cru­cial facet of our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment — they’re a cru­cial facet of our sys­tem of free enter­prise, too. We need mar­kets to be well-reg­u­lat­ed to ensure that our econ­o­my remains healthy and vibrant well into the future. 

As the late Sen­a­tor Paul Well­stone liked to say, we all do bet­ter when we all do bet­ter.