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Instacart’s gig workers are planning a nationwide strike
- claudeganon 7y agoSending these people into work, in the middle of a pandemic, without appropriate protective gear, health benefits, or paid time off is criminal and I’m glad they’re organizing to protect themselves. Hopefully other frontline employees in grocery and delivery services will follow suit.
- imgabe 7y agoMany grocery stores already have strong unions. Nobody is "sending in" gig workers. Isnt the whole point of gig work that the worker can choose whether to pick up a gig and go in or not?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- claudeganon 7y ago> Many grocery stores already have strong unions. Some but not most: https://laborunionreport.com/2019/04/23/eight-of-the-top-10-favorite-grocery-chain-are-non-union/ https://laborunionreport.com/2019/04/23/eight-of-the-top-10-... > Nobody is "sending in" gig workers. Isnt the whole point of gig work that the worker can choose whether to pick up a gig and go in or not? Oh yes, the US economy, in its majestic equality, allows the rich as well as the poor to expose themselves to a dangerous, novel virus in exchange for low wage work.
- RhysU 7y agoPrecisely. Each group can equally seek wages per whatever marginal utility it attaches to obtaining that particular form of marginal income.
- claudeganon 7y agoGreat. Now examine the history, power relations, and social structures that determine all of the inputs into your imaginary model.
- wpietri 7y agoI can only gather you don't know many gig workers. The ones I've talked to aren't doing it for fun. They're desperate.
- tryptophan 7y agoGreat. Lets ban gig work and make sure that instead of a crappy income they have no income!
- wpietri 7y agoIt always amazes me how the discussion can go so quickly go from "The mighty market solves all problems!" to, "The market is an incredibly fragile flower, and the slightest worker protections will result in mass unemployment and starvation!" Before Instacart, people went to the grocery store just fine. If Instacart has to pay workers a living wage, some people at the margins might return to shopping themselves, but I doubt it would make a huge difference. And if it did, that just means Instacart would have been a business built on worker exploitation, meaning it's a bad allocation of labor.
- closeparen 7y agoIt can be exploitative and also better than the alternative at the same time. Those things are not in conflict. I understand the moral satisfaction of punishing the evil profiteer. I don’t see how you can claim to be acting on behalf of the worker when you trade off her livelihood in exchange for that satisfaction.
- wpietri 7y agoIf you can prove the tradeoff, fine. But until recently, the economy was doing great. There's no reason to think that significant numbers of people would have been totally idle if we required people to be paid living wages. Indeed, we can look at other countries that do require that and see low unemployment rates. Your bogeyman in particular has been brought up with every advance in worker protections. But the 8-hour day and the 40-hour week did not mean mass starvation due to lack of jobs. Reasonable minimum wages don't appear to harm employment significantly. The truth is that as a society, we a) create plenty of stuff, and b) have plenty of work that needs doing. The problem is one of allocation, and increasing worker exploitation doesn't solve that at all.
- diob 7y agoDo you have any proof of "grocery stores already have strong unions"? Genuinely wondering how you've concluded this.
- toomuchtodo 7y agohttp://www.ufcw.org/grocery/ http://www.ufcw.org/grocery/ It's a strong grocers union, but does not cover Instacart and other gig workers.
- diob 7y agoThanks for the example, looked into them a bit. Sounds like they're negotiating for some benefits amid the current pandemic: http://www.ufcw.org/coronavirus/workers/ http://www.ufcw.org/coronavirus/workers/ Wishing them the best of luck. That's unfortunate that they don't cover gig workers. A good chunk of our employment is now in "gig work".
- imgabe 7y agoThere was a sign at my local grocery store saying it's a union store, in fact there was one at most of the stores where I used to live (I live outside the US now). I've seen the workers striking outside the store. There were also news articles late last year where the union had won increased benefits / pay through a recent strike.
- diob 7y agoI appreciate you taking the time to reply, but this is hardly proof. It's all anecdotal. I was hoping you might provide some articles or citations backing up your point.
- imgabe 7y agoI'm sure entering "grocery worker union" or similar terms into your favorite search engine will turn up ample evidence of the fact that unions for grocery workers do indeed exist.
- mindslight 7y agoIt's nonsensical to assert that someone has a choice when they need income. The actual cost of living (food, utilities, and home maintenance) is quite low compared to the amount that just gets funneled upwards as rent. This rent treadmill has been created by decades of artificially low interest rates, an explicit government policy. Sadly most of this surplus doesn't even go to Scrooge Mcducks swimming in vaults of wealth, but rather gets wasted in a distributed fashion on fake office jobs.
- imgabe 7y agoNeeding an income is not the same as needing one particular specific source of income. It is nonsensical to assert that any particular gig or even gig work itself is the sole available source of income.
- mindslight 7y agoIt is when the options are limited and tend to move in lockstep - this is likely the best job these workers can find. If this were a functioning market, we'd see undesirable jobs commanding higher salaries than most desk jobs.
- tjr225 7y ago> Isnt the whole point of gig work that the worker can choose whether to pick up a gig and go in or not? “Lol”- these gig workers don’t have the same choices your typical google or Facebook or even Fortune 500 IT guy have. In fact I would suspect many have been pushed to the margins of society and are only “choosing” gig work because the only other option is that their families face hunger, homelessness, or worse.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoIt's an ideal I wish we would shoot for more consistently. It's wonderful when it works that way, but it's hardly the default norm for gig work. I'm pro gig work. I've done it for about eight years and it made it possible for me to have earned income at all under enormously difficult circumstances (while ill and homeless). But I'm also aware that it only works that way when the system is designed to allow for that. Many platforms aren't designed that way.
- blackrock 7y agoThe CDC recommendation to not wear a face mask in public is insane! This is a pulmonary infectious disease. Meaning that the virus is airborne. If you are infected, then every breath you exhale, every laugh or word you speak, every sneeze or cough you make, can transmit the virus into the air, inside the room that you are in. And it may take 3 hours before the virus particles settle on the ground. And you don’t know who is infected. The only way to be safe, and conduct some sort of normal transactions in public, is if everyone wears a mask while in public, and maintain some distance between each other. That way, the mask keeps the virus relatively contained to yourself, while providing some minimal barrier of protection from others. The reason why the CDC does not recommend this, is because of the mask shortage. They want to keep enough available to the health care workers. Which I understand, but if the public also uses a mask, then it would also minimize or slow down the infection rate. If you are working in public, or even if you are doing grocery shopping for yourself, then I highly advise to protect yourself, to take this issue seriously, and wear a mask.
- l_davis 7y agoIf the public used cotton masks, it would help and wouldn't take masks away from health care workers. If this were more normalized, the rate of spread could be lowered.
- triangleman 7y agoHoping to see Czech Republic's actions bear fruit in the next few days: https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1242894406031757313 https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1242894406031757313
- l_davis 7y agoI love that - going to share the link on my social media.
- samename 7y agoIt’s great that gig workers were included in the CARE bill. Hopefully this starts a trend of more bills including protections for gig workers. I fully support these workers striking for basic rights.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago> It’s great that gig workers were included in the CARE bill. This was specifically advocated for by Senator Sanders. He threatened to tighten the restrictions even further on the $500 billion bailout of corporations if this condition was not met. https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/1243034614362525696 https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/124303461436252569...
- jessaustin 7y agoI want to admire him for that, but then I re-read that "$500 billion bailout of corporations" part. This movie was terrible the first time I was forced to watch it...
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThe people who desperately need this relief are going to look past that. Compromise is inevitable.
- jessaustin 7y agoAt least some of those desperate people remember the time they were underwater on their mortgage, and then the bank took their house at the same time the bank was getting bailed out and its execs were getting big bonuses. Well, maybe they bought too big a house, and were rightly punished when real estate crashed? This time around, we'll have to be pretty heartless to blame them for getting fired because of a pandemic. When their house goes up for auction this time, somehow it will be the same people bidding for it again, using free loans from the government. I may be out ahead of this with my cynical take, but the public will catch up with me, just like they did last time. (Actually I have to give a lot of credit to Dylan Ratigan; he figured it out before I did this week.) Bailouts don't have to go mostly to politically connected rich turds. Somehow they always do...
- bdcravens 7y agoThe organization behind this, Gig Workers Collective, was only formed last month. https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/10/gig-workers-collective/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/10/gig-workers-collective/ I have a hard time believing in such a short time they were able to organize anything resembling a majority.
- mandelbrotwurst 7y agoFrom the article: “Vanessa and I have been organizing for four years,” Clarke said.
- claudeganon 7y agoThere has been informal labor organizing going on behind the scenes at most of these companies for years and many gig workers do work for more than one platform. The org may be new, but the unrest isn’t.
- loraa 7y agoThat went very quickly from people bragging about being their own boss to wanting to end up working as a grocery store employee again.
- ivanonymous 7y agoThese workers would be dependent contractors in Germany or Canada, I think. Defining that in-between category in the US would allow for some useful compromises. Especially because full employee comes with so much baggage here, e.g. health insurance. https://www.wolfbaldwin.com/articles/small-business-articles/the-case-for-the-dependent-contractor/ https://www.wolfbaldwin.com/articles/small-business-articles...
- aeyes 7y agoInstacart operates in Canada and from what I hear it's pretty much the same as in the US.
- sabujp 7y agoInstacart's Web UI does not work. The search feature is completely broken and always shows a picture of the sad milk bottle, as is the update cart feature (before the shopper starts shopping) where you can search for an item and add it to your cart. I tried the same update cart feature in the app and while it is able to find items, tapping add to cart just shows the button depress animation and the item never gets added to the cart. Not only that, they're using enterprise signed ios apps for their shoppers and deliverers which requires them to do the settings -> trust app thing to run the app. Seems similar to what made Apple revoke Google and FBs enterprise cert for a while, very sketchy. You're only supposed to use enterprise signed apps for actual employees. It seems these "gig workers" aren't considered actual employees by the company but when it comes to abusing the cert it's ok? Apple should revoke their cert until they get an actual deliverer/shopper app. Edit: Seems I've angered some Instacart folks, care to respond about the issues on the web ui, app, and usage of the enterprise cert for signing your deliverer/shopper app?
- DingleDook101 7y agoThey are 100% turfing hard in here.
- throwaway2019B 7y agoI imagine you're being downvoted because your comment is incredibly irrelevant to the matter being discussed.
- sabujp 7y agoit's slightly relevant
- bogomipz 7y agoFrom the Instacart post linked in the article: >"As we previously shared, we’re offering up to 14 days of pay for any hourly employee or full-service shopper who is diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in individual mandatory isolation or quarantine, as directed by a local, state, or public health authority."[1] So there is no benefits for workers who develop symptoms and self isolate? This statement reads like you have to go a hospital and be fortunate enough to be able to get a test. In many hotspots there is a shortage of tests. There also seems to be any mention of providing hand sanitizer, gloves, masks etc to these workers. If you read the "previously shared" link in the above it states: >"All Instacart part-time employees now have access to sick pay, an accrued benefit that can be used as paid time off if you are absent from work due to illness or injury. We’ve previously offered sick pay in select states — now, all part-time employees across North America, including in-store shoppers, will be able to accrue sick time to use as needed in the event that they become ill. All sick pay accrual will be backdated from the start of the year, so all hours worked by our in-store shoppers since then will count towards their current, individual sick pay balance." An "accrued" benefit that will be backdated to the beginning of the year(we're only in month 3 of the year.)I'm guessing this would yield maybe 2 or 3 days max. That barely puts a dent into two weeks of self-isolation and no work. This all rings quite hollow. [1] https://medium.com/shopper-news/shopper-health-safety-update-ec518ad3841c https://medium.com/shopper-news/shopper-health-safety-update...
- claudeganon 7y agoIt’s a joke. I know people who have been to the ER with severe symptoms who were turned away without testing (mostly because they’re young and “expected” to recover). Every company that’s using testing as a precondition for benefits, when testing has been widely reported to be unavailable, is despicable.
- bogomipz 7y agoIndeed this story is real eye opener: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52019509 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52019509
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jefftk 7y agoUnfortunately for these workers, with the unprecedented spike in unemployment [1] I suspect Instacart will be able to find a lot of desperate people willing to cross the picket line. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA
- sabujp 7y agoamazon is also looking for workers
- joejohnson 7y agoThe Instacart workers should encourage any scabs to instead join the strike so they can work together to demand better wages and conditions.
- aleksaxyz 7y agoHow do they find these new workers? Wait for them out at the grocery stores?
- anigbrowl 7y agoYup
- mcgoo 7y agoPicketing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picketing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picketing
- alasdair_ 7y agoThe workers that would be picketing don’t work for the supermarkets. The people that own the supermarkets will tell the picketers to get lost.
- jessaustin 7y agoThis whole process will be more difficult with 6-foot distancing and surgical masks.
- ccktlmazeltov 7y agoWill they raise their pay as well? I know I'll get downvoted for exposing my point of view, but I'm one of the many people who do not tip the delivery man, so I really hope that they obtain better wages from their employers.
- everybodyknows 7y agoSociety might be better if tipping were not baked into the system, but there it is: wage scales, labor and tax codes have completed normalization of tipping, at least in the US. Your principled act of rebellion will produce not reform of commercial culture, but only distress for those who serve you -- and for yourself.
- ccktlmazeltov 7y agothat's your point of view, and obviously not mine. If everybody stopped tipping people would refuse to continue working in these conditions.
- woofie11 7y agoI would rather pay a higher delivery fee and (1) have enough workers to deliver my goods (2) Have them (and me) protected adequately. The whole way delivery works is broken right now.
- jariel 7y agoMe too, but neither you nor I represent the market. If there was a sufficient market for all of this to work out, it probably would have existed before Instacart. Instacart provides no innovation, other than dumping investor money on the market, and externalizing a lot of cost and risk onto gig workers, thereby making the price of delivery somewhat worthwhile ... for now. The moment the workers are paid reasonably and/or the VC subsidy runs out, what then? Since when do the unit metrics on this business add up?
- koolba 7y ago> Since when do the unit metrics on this business add up? Never. Without VC money or gig workers who do not understand the costs of depreciation this model does not work for something as low margin as groceries. At 10% margin, which is insane for groceries, you’d need a $100+ order to breaking even the cost of delivery. Forget actually making a profit. And real margins are closer to 2-3%.
- nexuist 7y agoOver $100 is insane for groceries? We regularly spend that much for a family of three almost every weekend. Admittedly, we are in a high CoL area.
- koolba 7y agoThe 10% margins are what’d be insane. Not an individual bill of $100. At 2-3% the profits on that bill drop down to nowhere near enough to cover gas, mileage, health insurance, unemployment tax, and everything else tacked on for the true cost of delivery.
- cameronfraser 7y agoEverlane workers tried to form a union and they were all fired https://twitter.com/EverlaneU/status/1243615472307695618 https://twitter.com/EverlaneU/status/1243615472307695618 When there are a ton of people looking for work it is not really a good time to be striking
- markdown 7y agoThank god I don't live in a society where people get fired for unionising. I don't understand how such a thing happens in any democratic society. Do workers really not like the idea of collective bargaining, or are there more business owners than workers in your state/country?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> Do people really not like the idea of collective bargaining Since the gutting of private-sector unions, the average American’s exposure to collective bargaining is public employee union strikes.
- markdown 7y agoYour implication being that the average American who is negatively affected by a public employee union strike takes the side of the government and blames workers for inconveniencing them?
- drjesusphd 7y agoIt's far more petty than that. No one actually has to be inconvenienced. The average American is just plain resentful of unionized public employees.
- CamperBob2 7y agoYes, it's one thing to gang up to extort General Motors, and another thing entirely to gang up to extort the taxpayer. Public-sector unions should not be a thing.
- jariel 7y agoAmerica has created quite a lot of terrible, low paying and unsustainable jobs that also externalize a lot of risk to staffers. It's great for consumers via low prices, and investors via returns. But it's a problem on the whole. Sadly, I feel if these people were paid a decent wage, the price would be high enough the market would be tiny. I'm not sure if the long-run economics add up very well here.
- jessaustin 7y agoShould I be happy that I've never used one of these VC-driven delivery services? I'm certainly not tempted to do so now.
- _bxg1 7y agoImagine the capitalistic (!) opportunities that would exist if we had universal healthcare and basic safety-nets. "Gig economy" jobs could actually function as a reasonable and real system for working, instead of being something dystopian and abusive. As a society we've hung so many things off of this framework of "being an employee" (healthcare, retirement, the ability to not work for a small part of the year), that there's no room for any other paradigm without having people forego fundamental needs. Unfortunately times are dire enough that people do so anyway, but that's a separate question.
- ilaksh 7y agoI think it's awful what is happening to Instacart and many other workers. I hope that eventually there will be successful push back. That may be part of what Bernie Sanders' movement is about. But I think that within a decade or so the reality is that we will have more advanced robots (combined with warehouses designed for automation) that can do most of these jobs, including driving and delivery. Not saying it isn't incredibly challenging or that we are anywhere close, but there is progress and also massive, massive financial incentive. At some point UBI will be the obvious option to everyone. It seems obvious to me that income should not start at absolute zero even now.
- smabie 7y agoA prisoner's dilemma, and let me tell you, everyone is going to defect. My money is on the strike never happens.
- peterwwillis 7y agoOther delivery services don't have the problems of Instacart. My CSA delivers me a custom food order once a week. They leave a box at my door, stand across the street, call me, and wait until I come out and grab it. And their workers are getting paid fairly. And they don't screw over local businesses. And they get me what I actually ordered. I just have to wait a whooole week for this amazing convenience, and pay less than Instacart charges for delivery. Gig working will continue to exploit businesses, workers, and consumers until we solve the problem that made it a viable business model: income inequality. If people didn't need multiple part time jobs to survive, they wouldn't be working these terrible conditions. And when that stops, businesses (like restaurants) will also stop being abused by predatory gig-fueled companies (like grubhub). And if people didn't need to make extra cash with Uber, there'd be enough tax money to fund better public transit, which further levels the economic playing field.
- sabujp 7y agoinstacart.com and sameday.costco.com are "down" ("We're taking a lot of orders right now") - please check back soon. Good luck with your workers!