Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to New York City Council’s vote to pass a first-in-the-nation slate of bills that provides delivery app couriers with protections and ensures better working conditions.

“We applaud New York City not only for passing these bills, but for consistently introducing and enacting laws that demonstrate not just an appreciation of the economic threat Big Tech poses to its citizens, but the ways its abusive practices have frayed the social fabric,” said Moe Tkacik, Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Protect Our Restaurants launched a year ago to demand policymakers and enforcers shut down delivery apps’ predatory business model, which is rooted in exploiting their own workers and the restaurants they coerce to partner with them. New York City’s lawmakers are doing just that.”

“Last month, the New York City Council capped the commissions delivery apps secretly extract from restaurants and required the apps to share the names and email addresses of the customers they are feeding, allowing these small business owners to once again establish personal relationships with their customers. With its newest slate of bills, the City Council is now also securing some of its most exploited workers the possibility of a living wage and a dignified place to use the bathroom,” added Tkacik.

Learn more about Protect Our Restaurants here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.