Himself the victim of an assault, Vicente Carrasco, a 39-year-old Mexican, created this group in March to defend against thefts, in particular of electric bikes, which can cost more than 3,000 dollars and constitute, along with telephones, essential work tools.
Every night, after a long day at work, he and a handful of others “deliveristas“- term made on the verb”deliver” (“deliver“) – gather at the exit of the Queens Bridge, Manhattan side, to help if one of their colleagues is in difficulty.
“If there is a GPS on the (stolen) bike, we will track it“, he explains to AFP. But the motto is”don’t go alone“.
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“When there are many of us we always try to get it back“, most “we don’t want to risk our lives too much. You don’t know if people are armed“, explained Vicente Carrasco.
His group works alongside three others, such as “The Chapin on two Wheels“, which brings together more than 1,000”deliveristas“through the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Thanks to their efforts, they sometimes manage to get their belongings back.
– “Not violent” –
One of Vicente’s comrades, José Rodrigo Nevares justifies this organization: “my bike allows me to eat, feed my family, pay my rent“.
“I can’t let them take it away from me“, he explains.
Unlike other groups, among the more than 65,000 delivery men in New York City, the Delivery Boys have decided to take justice into their own hands.
“When you call the police if you’ve been robbed, they never come (…) We organized ourselves to be able to defend ourselves, to be faster“, explains Vicente Carrasco, who specifies however:”We are not violent“.
And in a community where 80% are undocumented, according to the associations that defend them, many do not go to the police “by fear“, says José Rodrigo Nevares, a former waiter who became a delivery man after losing his job during the pandemic.
Questioned by AFP, the city police (New York Police Department, NYPD) on the contrary assured “take these crimes very seriously“and that for”victims worried about their immigration status (undocumented), the NYPD does not and will not question them about it“.
These self-defense practices, which Vicente Carrasco brought from Guerrero, his native state in Mexico, are not unanimous.
“They stir up a lot of violence and our fear is that someone will be hurt“Ligia Guallpa, director of the Worker’s Justice Project, which defends the rights of low-paid workers, told AFP.
But the working conditions of these delivery men, mainly from countries in Latin America, Africa or Asia, are “inhuman“, she laments, pointing her finger”a sector where there is no protection“social.
– “Essential but unprotected” –
With an average salary of $ 2,345 per month, delivery men do not get the same treatment as the service industry, where the hourly wage is $ 15 in New York City.
According to a report from the Worker’s Justice Project, in collaboration with the Worker’s Institute at Cornell University, among 500 delivery people surveyed, 54% had already been victims of their bicycle theft. And among them, 30% suffered an assault, says the study, titled “Essential but unprotected“.
According to Ligia Guallpa, the delivery people still won a small victory: from next year, they will be able to use the toilets of the restaurants where they collect their cargo, limit the distances to be covered, fully receive the tips left by customers and no longer have to pay $ 60 to $ 70 to buy the bag needed for delivery.
The deliverers and the associations that defend them point to the increase in income from applications in recent years, still boosted by confinements.
“They make a profit because they bill both customers and restaurants and have no commitment to delivery people, who are freelancers.“Says the Worker’s Justice Project report.
