Dozens of immigrant Grubhub workers protested outside the company’s Manhattan office Wednesday morning to demand that the company reinstate them after what they say are unjust deactivations.
According to organizers with the Workers’ Justice Project (WJP), 52 Bangladeshi GrubHub delivery workers received the same email on June 10 stating that they were deactivated.
The following day, five workers visited WJP’s office seeking help with their deactivation. An hour later, 25 more workers who had also been deactivated came to the office seeking help. Those 25 workers then provided contact details for relatives and friends who had been deactivated during the same period. The workers organized themselves through various group chats, and based on those conversations, WJP believes hundreds of other workers may have recently been deactivated as well.
The email, which Documented reviewed, said the workers were in material breach of GrubHub’s “Delivery Partner Agreement.” It also stated that they were found to have engaged in “actions or omissions that were fraudulent, deceptive, or materially impede the operation of GrubHub’s business.”
The email alleged that the workers were using a second Grubhub account and claimed to have evidence proving that accusation. However, no evidence of wrongdoing was shared with the workers in the email.
Workers like Mamun Hossen, 25, deny that they were using a second account.
“I’ve done nothing wrong other than work reliably for this company. I do not deserve to be deactivated like this,” he said. “There are over 50 of us who have just been deactivated, thrown away by the company like we don’t matter at all. We are human beings with families.”
Md Abu Bakar Siddique, 30, who was also deactivated on June 10, also denied any wrongdoing.
“GrubHub deactivated my account, and the explanation they gave is false and makes no sense,” he said. “It is not fair or just to treat workers this way. We are just trying to do our jobs and make a living.”
Although Grubhub gave workers up to 90 days to appeal the decision, according to WJP, the burden of proof lies entirely on the workers, not on the company. The process is entirely controlled by GrubHub, and drivers have no legal right to counsel.
The deactivations come as GrubHub is undergoing a corporate transition. In November, GrubHub’s parent company, Just Eat Takeaway, sold the company to the ghost kitchen startup Wonder for $650 million. The company was sold at a 90% loss.
GrubHub was purchased by Just Eat Takeaway for $7.3 billion in 2021. With its acquisition of GrubHub, Wonder is now positioned to become a major player in the booming delivery app industry.
Najy Kamal, senior manager of policy communications for GrubHub, stated that they met with WJP leadership on Tuesday to address the accounts that they believe were deactivated in error to resolve the matter.
“We don’t take deactivations lightly,” he said. “In this case, many of the recently deactivated accounts were either duplicates or being shared with multiple parties, which we can’t allow for safety reasons and is against our delivery partner agreement. Deactivations can be appealed, and we encourage drivers to do so if they believe theirs was done in error.”
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Ligia Guallpa, co-executive director of WJP, told Documented that they met with GrubHub’s public affairs team on Tuesday, and that the company committed to reviewing the issues raised and plans to organize a meeting next week. Still, Guallpa wants to keep the pressure on until GrubHub’s words become action.
“We hope this signals a genuine willingness to act in good faith,” she said. “Right now, it’s just a commitment, and workers need more than words. We urge the company to immediately reinstate deactivated accounts, create a fair appeal process, and end the unfair lockouts tied to unrealistic delivery timeframes. These are urgent issues, and we hope Wonder takes swift action to resolve them and provide real solutions for workers who’ve lost their only source of income.”
Meanwhile, a bill introduced by State Senator Robert Jackson in February, Senate Bill S5139, would bar delivery app companies from deactivating workers without an objective investigation, as well as give workers the legal right to appeal deactivation and be given advanced notice before a deactivation occurs.
The bill is currently in the State Senate Labor Committee for review.
