Hoboken must demand better enforcement by our police department, but there are also other avenues that we should be taking..
By the New Jersey Department of Labor’s ABC test: delivery drivers are NOT permitted to be classified as independent contractors in the State of New Jersey (https://www.nj.gov/labor/ea/audit/independent-contractor-vs-employees/).
Specifically (this is directly from New Jersey’s page):
The individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of work performed, both under contract of service and in fact; and
The work is either outside the usual course of the business for which such service is performed, or the work is performed outside of all the places of business of the enterprise for which such service is performed; and The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business.
As delivery drivers perform work that is exactly the usual business of “Doordash” and “UberEats” – these drivers are not gig workers, entitled to hourly pay, and even unemployment and if they were paid hourly, they wouldn’t be struggling to rush as many deliveries as possible over the 3-4 hour period that they can do well delivering our food orders.