The New York City Council Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted Wednesday to readopt measures to protect the city’s rideshare and delivery drivers from firings without recourse, or “unfair deactivations,” after former Mayor Eric Adams vetoed the legislation in his last days as mayor in 2025.
The Council had passed on Dec. 18, 2025, a measure — Intro. 0276, which would protect high-volume for-hire vehicle drivers, like Uber and Lyft drivers, against unfair deactivations — by a 40-7 vote with one abstention, and at the same time approved legislation that would safeguard food delivery workers, Intro. 1332, by 40 to 8 votes. Adams struck down Intro. 0276, but not Intro. 1332, on his last day in office.
By law, the Council had to reintroduce Intro. 0276 when the new session convened in January. That reintroduction finally happened Wednesday, when the nine-member Transportation and Infrastrucutre Committee, now chaired by Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan), unanimously advanced the bill to the full City Council for another vote.
Abreu, a longtime supporter of the legislation, applauded the efforts of the council members and staff who worked to bring the legislation forward, including City Council Member Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens), the legislation’s sponsor.
“Too often, drivers can find themselves deactivated with little warning and limited explanation, effectively losing their income overnight,” Abreu said at the hearing. “The challenge is ensuring that the system is both safe and fair, protecting riders while also providing drivers with due process and basic transparency.”
The legislation will now move back to the council, which can override Adams’ veto by a two-thirds majority.
“The prior mayor vetoed our bill that we overwhelmingly passed,” said City Council Member Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens), the bill’s priiary sponsor. “But, it is a new day, where we have a council that is just as committed, even more so, to the protection of workers in this city. And we also have a mayor now at City Hall who believes just as strongly as our City Council does in standing up for Uber and Lyft drivers across this city and across this country.”
In explaining his slew of vetoes on his last day in office, Adams said at the time that the legislation he shot down ran “directly counter to [his] North Star of lifting up working-class New Yorkers.”
The legislation would prohibit the firing of drivers unless for a “just cause,” a “bona fide economic reason,” or required by law. For-hire vehicle services would also be required to provide advance notice to drivers prior to driver deactivation, unless the case involves account sharing, fraud, violence, or discrimination.
The measures would also allow drivers to challenge their deactivation through “an informal resolution process with the for-hire vehicle service,” or take the case to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which could investigate the deactivation and potentially reinstate the driver.
Right now, the only way for drivers to appeal a deactivation is through the Independent Driver’s Guild, a group funded by Uber.
Uber and Lyft have expressed their opposition to the legislation, writing in previous statements to amNewYork that the measures would put passengers at risk.
“Among other things, it forces rideshare apps to keep sending rides to drivers for up to 14 more days after a driver has already been told they’re being terminated, meaning New Yorkers could unknowingly get picked up by someone the company has already fired,” Uber spokesperson Josh Gold wrote in a December statement to amNewYork.
Krishnan’s bill is backed by the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance. It places the burden of proof on companies, rather than drivers, in unfair deactivation cases, and mandates that companies give drivers 14 days’ notice before kicking them off the app. Krishnan said the new legislation will protect more than 100,000 drivers in New York City.
Intro. 1332 is backed by the delivery workers’ group Los Deliveristas Unidos and went into effect on Monday. It provides similar safeguards for delivery workers driving for apps like Uber, DoorDash, Grubhub, Seamless, and Relay. It mandates that app companies provide a reason for reactivating deliveristas, give 120 days’ notice before permanently removing them from the app, and institute an appeals process.
Spokespeople for Mayor Mamdani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
