Julissa Alvarez runs a last-mile delivery company out of Manhattan called Brimela Routes Corp. She started it in 2020. She says it employs more than 200 people, and that the workforce is predominantly Black and brown: immigrants, mothers, college students, older workers.
In an op-ed published October 6, she took a position on Intro 518, a bill before the New York City Council. In her words, it “would ban big companies from using independent contractors like me for last-mile delivery in the city.”
That is her characterisation, and worth saying, because the Council’s own listing describes the bill as requiring the licensing of last mile facilities. Whether that amounts to a ban is the whole fight, and she is a party to it, not a referee.
She came to the United States from the Dominican Republic at 14, had a child at 20, took two master’s degrees and worked in higher education before starting the company.
Her case is specific. A contracting model that looks precarious on paper is, on her payroll, what lets a mother build a route around a school day. Change the model and the schedule goes with it.
The counterargument deserves saying, and she does not make it. Contracting is also how delivery work gets stripped of benefits, which is what the bill’s supporters say they are fixing.
What is not in dispute is who holds the risk. The women on her routes got no seat at the hearing, and their hours turn on it.
