Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LOCAL LEGISLATION—NYC—Mayor vetoes city council bills that would have guaranteed grocery delivery workers minimum wages, (Aug 14, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Although restaurant delivery workers must be paid at least $21.44 per hour under a pay standard in effect since 2023, that pay standard excludes grocery delivery workers.

“Today,” said Dan Ocampo, Staff Attorney with the National Employment Law Project, “Mayor Eric Adams vetoed two City Council bills that would have guaranteed delivery workers for companies like Instacart, GoPuff, and Amazon Flex, the minimum wage virtually all other employers in the city are legally required to pay.” The two bills in question—Introduction No. 1135 and Introductory No. 1133—were passed by the New York City Council in July by overwhelming majority but vetoed yesterday by New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams. New York’s current minimum pay standard restaurant delivery workers at least $21.44 per hour, but it excludes grocery delivery workers.

High prices cited. In his veto statement, Mayor Adams wrote, “Now is not the time to do anything that will further increase the cost for New Yorkers of obtaining groceries, when prices are already too high.” He explained his veto as having to do primarily with the cost of groceries. “Unlike the delivery of restaurant meals,” he wrote, “grocery delivery is a fundamental need for many New Yorkers, including many SNAP and EBT recipients, as well as seniors and people with disabilities, who use grocery delivery services to access fresh and affordable food products for their daily sustenance.”

Council criticizes the decision. The New York City Council, which noted that the two bills were passed by the Council with a “veto-proof majority,” issued a statement lambasting the decision, claiming that “Mayor Adams is once again displaying hypocrisy – this time, by opposing common-sense minimum pay standards and protections for grocery delivery workers that his own administration negotiated with us to match existing ones for food delivery workers.” They stated that it was “disappointing but unsurprising that the mayor is once again prioritizing corporate interests over New Yorkers and parroting inaccurate talking points to justify his actions that hurt working-class people.”

Indeed, NELP’s Ocampo noted that “Adams’s Department of Consumer & Worker Protection led the effort to raise restaurant delivery worker pay” and that “[b]y vetoing these bills, he’s not only defying the City Council, but undermining his own administration’s work.”

Ocampo adds: “This move won’t make groceries more affordable for struggling families. But it will ensure thousands of delivery workers remain stuck with poverty wages. New Yorkers need both affordable food and fair pay for the workers who deliver it. And we can have both when we work towards policies that raise wages and make app-based jobs good jobs. The City Council should override this veto and stand with workers who keep New York running.”

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