Make on-call time defensible: a compensable-time checklist after DoorDash's NYC pay settlement

If a worker can be reached and is expected to respond, treat the time as compensable until your written rules and job design clearly exclude it. DoorDash agreed to a $131.5 million settlement with New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection over missed or late pay for about 264,000 delivery workers. The settlement does not make every reachable minute compensable. A payroll system still needs to know which minutes count, why they count, and who approved the count.

More than $83 million of the $131.5 million settlement addressed a dispute over pay for logged-in time when Dashers were not actively on a delivery. After December 2023, DoorDash’s compensable-time calculation omitted certain trip-time and on-call-time categories required by New York City’s Minimum Pay Rate. When DCWP announced the settlement, the city’s delivery-worker Minimum Pay Rate was $22.13 per hour, excluding tips. DCWP’s settlement formula paid workers roughly 200% of the shortfall, so a worker owed $1,000 and paid nothing would receive $3,000. A small classification error can become a large payment.

Reachability is the line, not the label

A worker who can sleep, answer personal calls, and use the phone for anything else is in a different position from one who must keep the device on and respond quickly. The first may be unpaid in some places. The second is much harder to defend as unpaid. The label in the policy is only the starting point. The design is what you must defend.

Remote work does not change the test. A worker at home is still reachable if the job expects a response. If the schedule says the worker must be available during certain windows, those windows are the time you need to count. If the policy says the worker may use the time for personal purposes, you need a record that the worker actually had that freedom.

Some jurisdictions require payment for all on-call time. Others allow unpaid standby when the worker is free to leave and use the time. The law requires you to know which rule applies. Good practice is to document the control either way, because the worker’s memory and the manager’s memory will not match in a dispute.

Use the five-step checklist before payroll

Run the list when you design on-call, remote, or standby work, or when you change the app, the schedule, or the pay rule. Each item is a test you can run quickly, and each one answers a question an auditor will ask.

• Write the reachable or expected-to-respond windows in the job description or policy, with start and end conditions.
• Classify each recorded period as active, standby, canceled, or boundary time before payroll runs.
• Calculate the applicable pay floor for each classification and flag any shortfall before payment.
• Keep the log, the approval, and the policy version used for each period in a retrievable file.
• Run a recurring report that shows missing classifications, shortfalls, and approvals that are absent.

The first item exists because reachability is the fact in dispute. The next items exist because the pay floor changes with the label. The final item exists because drift is where errors hide.

Boundary time is where disputes start. A call that begins before the shift and ends after it, or a canceled callback that still required the worker to stay ready, needs a label. If the label is missing, the payroll system will usually default to the cheaper answer.

Build a record a regulator can request

The settlement required DoorDash to provide DCWP with detailed compliance data reports monthly for three years. DCWP would partner with Workers Justice Project and the Workers’ Algorithm Observatory to develop software letting workers send DoorDash trip and earnings data directly to the agency. Copy that standard: if you cannot produce the data, you cannot defend the classification. Put the report in front of the person who owns the pay rule, and fix the gap before the next payroll.