You know what big tech companies love more than an algorithm?
Unchecked greed.
They love the idea that if a CEO wants to squeeze a worker until they pop like a stress ball, that is just business as usual.
But there is a new sheriff in town here in New York City, and his name is Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
And unlike the corporate apologists who think “innovation” means the right to underpay immigrants, Mamdani is actually doing something about it.
Gustavo Ajche is a delivery worker and an immigrant from Guatemala.
He pulled up a screenshot inside the Worker’s Justice Project office in Brooklyn recently.
It showed that for three hours of work in November 2024, an app called Motoclick paid him exactly $6.75.
That is not a typo.
The city’s minimum hourly rate for delivery workers at the time was $19.56.
Ajche told The Nation, “They keep you waiting for hours, and sometimes you don’t make any money for the work you put in.”
While the executives are likely planning their next yacht trip, workers like Ajche are being robbed in broad daylight.
The Lawsuit That Should Scare CEOs
Ajche is one of 20 workers who filed complaints with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP).
And on January 15, the city administration decided they had seen enough.
They filed a lawsuit against Motoclick and its CEO, Juan Pablo Salinas Salek.
The goal? To shut down the company’s operations entirely.
This isn’t a slap on the wrist.
It is a death blow to a business model built on theft.
The lawsuit accuses Motoclick of stealing millions from workers through illegal fees.
Get this: the company charged workers $10 penalties for canceled orders.
They deducted the full cost of refunded meals from paychecks.
In some cases, they claimed the workers owed them money.
It is the kind of math that would make a casino boss blush.
A New Era for NYC
This action marks one of the first major moves under Mayor Mamdani, who took office on January 1.
He campaigned on worker protections and affordability, and he is actually delivering.
Speaking to The Nation, Mamdani said, “The goal here is to ensure that working-class New Yorkers look to the government as an entity that can actually help them in their day-to-day struggles and one that will hold accountable those who are breaking the law.”
He added, “Too often for delivery workers, the city government has at best overlooked them. What we want to show is that their well-being is of our concern and that the law matters no matter who is breaking it.”
It is refreshing to hear a politician talk about helping working people instead of maximizing shareholder value.
DCWP Commissioner Samuel Levine, who previously led a bureau at the FTC under the Biden administration, is leading the charge alongside Mamdani.
Levine said, “We are seeking to shut down this company, and other predatory apps should be on notice.”
He also made a great point about the double standard in our justice system.
“New Yorkers who speed in the park illegally get tickets. I don’t know why executives should have immunity when they break the law,” Levine said.
The Big Tech Grift
It is not just the smaller apps like Motoclick that are the problem.
Earlier in the week, Levine’s department released a report on the big guys: DoorDash and Uber.
The report showed these companies changed their apps in December 2023 to make tipping harder.
They moved the tip option to after checkout instead of during the order.
The result was catastrophic for workers.
According to the report, the average tip on Uber and DoorDash is currently 76 cents per delivery.
Compare that to rival apps that kept tipping at checkout, where the average is $2.17.
The report estimated these interface changes cost workers $554 million in tips.
That is half a billion dollars taken out of the pockets of working people.
Meanwhile, DoorDash donated $1 million to a super PAC supporting Andrew Cuomo during last year’s Democratic primary.
Cuomo was the front-runner then, and DoorDash clearly wanted a friend in high places.
It is the classic corporate playbook: buy a politician to protect your profits.
But they bet on the wrong horse.
Fighting Back
Workers are not taking this lying down.
Alejandro Grajales, another complainant against Motoclick, laid it out clearly.
“They don’t respect the minimum wage. They don’t respect the distance limits,” Grajales said.
He noted, “There’s no option for the customer to give us tips, and they take 25 cents from each delivery, which adds up to a lot over hundreds of deliveries.”
Antonio Solis, who worked with Motoclick for two weeks in May 2025, estimated he lost around $100 to $200 in unpaid wages.
These men are members of Los Deliveristas Unidos.
This collective has already won major victories, like the right to use restaurant bathrooms and a minimum base pay.
Now, the Mamdani administration is backing them up.
Levine sent warning letters to apps like Instacart, Grubhub, Uber, and DoorDash.
He is telling them to comply with new laws taking effect January 26.
These laws require tipping options at checkout and extend protections to grocery delivery workers.
DoorDash and Uber, predictably, have sued to block the tipping law.
DoorDash even released a statement on January 13 claiming the tipping change was suggested by a 2022 DCWP study.
Levine was not having it.
In an interview with The Nation, he called that claim “absurd.”
“The study laid out potential scenarios the agency might face, including the possibility that companies would make it harder for consumers to tip.… That is not something DCWP wanted. It was something that the agency feared,” Levine said.
The Party Is Over
The days of corporate impunity seem to be numbered in New York.
Levine said, “I want these companies to start following the law. My hope is they actually realize they’re in a new era.”
Mayor Mamdani agreed.
“This era of impunity when it comes to profiting off of working-class New Yorkers’ lives is going to come to an end under our administration,” Mamdani told The Nation.
He added, “Companies like Motoclick clearly believe that this is still the politics of the past. This is still a moment where those with the least [money and power] also possess the least recourse. They are wrong.”
It turns out that when you elect leaders who care about people, things actually change.
Sorry, CEOs.
You might have to pay people for their work now.
I know that sounds like a nightmare to you.
But get used to it.
