7 ms·

Sending 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 the

Sending 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 ago
Many 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 ago
    Precisely. Each group can equally seek wages per whatever marginal utility it attaches to obtaining that particular form of marginal income.
    - claudeganon 7y ago
      Great. Now examine the history, power relations, and social structures that determine all of the inputs into your imaginary model.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I 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 ago
    Great. Lets ban gig work and make sure that instead of a crappy income they have no income!
    - wpietri 7y ago
      It 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 ago
        It 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 ago
        If 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 ago
  Do you have any proof of "grocery stores already have strong unions"? Genuinely wondering how you've concluded this.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    http://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 ago
      Thanks 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 ago
    There 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 ago
      I 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 ago
        I'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 ago
  It'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 ago
    Needing 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 ago
      It 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 ago
  It'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 ago
The 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 ago
  If 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 ago
    Hoping 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 ago
      I love that - going to share the link on my social media.

imgabe 7y ago

Many 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 ago
  Precisely. Each group can equally seek wages per whatever marginal utility it attaches to obtaining that particular form of marginal income.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    Great. Now examine the history, power relations, and social structures that determine all of the inputs into your imaginary model.
wpietri 7y ago
I 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 ago
  Great. Lets ban gig work and make sure that instead of a crappy income they have no income!
  - wpietri 7y ago
    It 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 ago
      It 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 ago
        If 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 ago
Do you have any proof of "grocery stores already have strong unions"? Genuinely wondering how you've concluded this.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  http://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 ago
    Thanks 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 ago
  There 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 ago
    I 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 ago
      I'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 ago
It'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 ago
  Needing 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 ago
    It 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 ago
It'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 ago

The 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 ago
If 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 ago
  Hoping 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 ago
    I love that - going to share the link on my social media.