DoorDash Drivers Demand ‘Tip Transparency’ From Company

NEW JERSEY — Do you always leave a good tip when ordering a food delivery with DoorDash? You may unknowingly be picking up the slack for the bad tippers in your neighborhood, a petition claims.

Recently, organizers with the Driver's Rights Movement launched a Change.org campaign dubbed: “Stop Hiding Pay Information From Gig Workers.” The petition accuses DoorDash of purposely making it hard for drivers to determine whether a delivery is worth their effort by hiding the total value of larger tips.

“You can’t classify workers as independent contractors but not honor the obligations that come with it,” reads the petition, which has gained more than 52,000 signatures online.

In New Jersey, the average “Dasher” earns more than $25 per hour when they’re on a delivery, including 100 percent of tips. Drivers work fewer than four hours a week on average, numbers that are in line with the national average, a DoorDash spokesperson told Patch.

Indeed.com says the typical DoorDash delivery driver in New Jersey makes about $55,907 per year, which is 8 percent above the national average. It’s an estimate similar to GlassDoor.com, which says the estimated total pay for a DoorDash Loyal Driver is $53,826 per year in the Newark area.

Drivers pay for their own gas, although the company helps eligible Dashers defray the cost with a 10 percent cash back program and a weekly gas bonus. Drivers also must pay for upkeep on their cars, which can add up quickly.

According to the company, a driver’s paycheck comes from three sources: customer tips, company promotions and “base pay,” which is based on the estimated time, distance and desirability of an order and ranges from $2 to $10 per delivery.

But with 56 percent of a driver’s income coming from tips, knowing what customers will stiff you can make the difference between making money on a trip – or losing it, the petition argues.

Here’s what happens when DoorDash gets an order from a customer, the company says:

“Dashers are shown a guaranteed minimum amount (including the full DoorDash pay) they will earn for completing a delivery before they even accept the delivery, as well as the location and name of the business, the customer drop off location, and estimated total mileage for the delivery … After a Dasher completes a delivery, they can see their full earnings breakdown in their Dasher app, including promotions, incentives and 100% of their tips.”

Drivers are always free to decline any order, DoorDash says. Read more about the company’s pay model and “tip transparency” here.

The problem – allege some drivers – is that the DoorDash app only shows a guaranteed minimum amount, and doesn’t let them see how much a customer has tipped until they accept the order.

Here’s the dilemma that many Dashers are facing, the petition explains:

“You get a trip for 7.2 miles. You are offered $4 to complete it. That doesn’t make any sense. But you believe that there is no way it could only be $4. In the past DoorDash has hidden the full amount so sometimes $4 means $8, or $12, or $17. You decide that it’s worth the gamble. You go to the restaurant, wait 20 minutes for the food to be ready. You drive 7.2 miles - that takes 20 minutes. And you have to drive back from far out - another 20 minutes. Total time spent: 60 minutes. Total gas used: 14.4 miles = 0.6 gallons = $2.75. It turns out that DoorDash hid part of the pay, the total pay is $5. After gas you made $2.25 in one hour. And this doesn’t even count the depreciation on your car.”

For a time, some Dashers used a workaround solution, turning to Para, a third-party app that allowed drivers to see the tip amount before accepting an order – as long as they let the app access their DoorDash account.

But last year, Para stopped working with DoorDash’s app, partly leading to calls for a day-long driver strike.

Meanwhile, DoorDash has discouraged drivers from using the Para app in conjunction with its own:

“Para collects its information by requiring Dashers to share their login credentials and scraping content without authorization from the DoorDash platform, which is a deeply concerning security and safety risk. We remain committed to protecting the privacy and security of every side of our marketplace, and focused on ensuring Dashers have clear information about their earnings and the best possible dashing experience.”

Now – with their livelihoods on the line – Dashers are speaking up and demanding more transparency when it comes to tips, according to the Driver's Rights Movement, a group led by Para and a “collective of passionate gig workers.”

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‘EQUITABLE AND FAIR EARNINGS’

What is DoorDash’s reason for preventing drivers from seeing the full tip amount before they choose to take an order? According to the company’s website, it’s all about fairness:

“In deciding which orders to accept, some Dashers may wait for orders with exceptionally large tips and repeatedly decline lower- and even average-paying orders, with the goal of completing only high-tip deliveries. Unfortunately, this behavior not only impacts the experience for other Dashers, limiting their ability to receive high-value orders, it also harms the experience for customers and merchants relying on Dashers to complete their deliveries. These actions result in longer wait times for customers and leave merchants with unfulfilled orders and potentially unhappy patrons. To ensure all Dashers have an equal chance at receiving high-value orders while increasing the likelihood that an order will be filled quickly, we show Dashers an estimated amount on orders that contain larger tips, rather than display the full tip amount upfront. This estimate does not impact the amount the Dasher receives upon completing the delivery — every Dasher still receives 100% of customer tips. By providing an estimated amount, all Dashers have visibility into the minimum amount they will earn, and a fairer chance at high-value orders.”

Not all of its drivers are seeking full-time hours, and many simply want to make a supplemental income, the company has maintained.

“DoorDash is committed to ensuring equitable and fair earnings opportunities for all Dashers and we’re always eager to hear their feedback,” a spokesperson told Patch last week.

But the organizers of the Change.org petition aren’t buying DoorDash’s explanations.

According to the petition:

“DoorDash claims that it is to ‘make every trip worth taking.’ What this means: there are many trips that don’t make sense for a driver to take. But DoorDash wants to accept these trips to boost their revenue. The problem is that they are doing this at the expense of the driver. If DoorDash wants to take unreasonable trips to boost their revenue, that is a business decision by them, and they should pay the cost. Not pass the cost on to workers by trying to trick them.”

Tip transparency isn’t the only thing Dashers are fighting for in the workplace, according to the Driver's Rights Movement. Other “rights” they are demanding include:

• “Right to work for multiple platforms and choose where our time is best spent”
• “Right to easily access the underlying data of your work profile and earnings history”
• “Right to due process free from unfair deactivations, and the right to understand why, appeal, and respond with representation”

More than 100,000 Dashers across the U.S. and Canada fulfill millions of deliveries per month, the company said in 2017 – just four years after it launched. Dashers earned over $11 billion on the DoorDash platform in 2021.

DoorDash saw rapid growth during the coronavirus crisis – but the boom is expected to slow down, according to a quarterly report released on Aug. 5:

“For the three months ended June 30, 2021 and 2022, our revenue was $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, representing a 30% year-over-year growth rate. In addition, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, we experienced a significant increase in revenue, total orders, and marketplace GOV. The circumstances that accelerated the growth of our business during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic are not likely to recur, and we expect growth in consumer demand and our revenue, total orders, and marketplace GOV growth rates to continue to decline in future periods compared to growth rates in 2020 and 2021.”

Facing “intense competition” from companies such as Uber Eats and Grubhub, the company said that it will hit a big speedbump if it can’t recruit enough quality drivers to keep up the pace.

“If we fail to attract Dashers or retain existing Dashers on favorable terms, if we fail to increase the use of our platform by existing Dashers, or if Dashers terminate their agreements with us, we may not be able to meet the demand of merchants and consumers and our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected,” the company stated.

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