*

Uber Eats, DoorDash ( DASH ) workers to gain pay on par with

mimimum wage

for casual workers

*

If approved, the deal will go into effect in July

*

The US firms must also take out accident insurance for

their

workers

By Christine Chen

SYDNEY, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Australian food delivery

workers are on course to gain minimum pay levels after Uber Eats

and DoorDash ( DASH ) struck a deal with the country's

transport union that is being hailed as a world first.

Under a draft agreement released on Tuesday, their workers

would earn at least A$31.30 ($20.19) per hour. That represents

an increase of about 25% for some couriers who are paid per

delivery and not how long they have worked.

The deal would put them on par with the minimum wage earned

by Australian casual workers.

If approved by the Fair Work Commission, the agreement will

go into effect next July.

"For too long gig workers fell through the cracks,"

Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said in a statement.

"We didn't think it was fair that these workers missed out

on minimum standards, and had to rely on tips to survive. That's

not the Australian way."

The agreement comes after Australia's centre-left government

passed a law last year that defined gig workers as

"employee-like" workers and gave them the right to negotiate

minimum pay and conditions.

Uber Eats and DoorDash ( DASH ) are the main players in the

Australian food delivery market, with Sydney-founded app Menulog

set to close local operations at the end of November.

The U.S. companies must also take out accident insurance for

their workers, give them access to their records and provide

them with more details about each delivery job, according to the

agreement.

"It is a world first set of conditions for gig workers

performing this work, and it will result in life-transforming

wage increases," Michael Kaine, national secretary of the

Transport Workers' Union, told a news conference.

"Until this point in time and even as we speak today, there

are swathes of workers in the gig economy that are being paid

below the minimum national wage."

Utsav Bhattarai, a Canberra food delivery worker, told the

same news conference he had worked through illness and dangerous

weather to pay the bills.

"Just one more order, one more hour, just need to keep going

- that's the condition that these drivers were living under," he

said.

"The change that we're seeing now, it's massive."

Ed Kitchen, Uber Eats managing director for Australia and

New Zealand, said in a statement the agreement was a "meaningful

step towards building modern laws for modern forms of work" and

gave delivery workers protection, security and flexibility.

($1 = 1.5506 Australian dollars)