Instacart’s “Response” is a Sick Joke — The Strike is Still On

For the past several weeks, Instacart Shoppers and Gig Workers Collective have been urging Instacart to take proper safety precautions. We have been ignored.

Instead, Instacart has turned this pandemic into a PR campaign, portraying itself the hero of families that are sheltered-in-place, isolated, or quarantined. Instacart has still not provided essential protections to Shoppers on the front lines that could prevent them from becoming carriers, falling ill themselves, or worse. Instacart’s promise to pay Shoppers up to 14 days of pay if diagnosed or placed in mandatory quarantine not only falls short, but isn’t even being honored. Instacart knows it’s virtually impossible to meet their qualifications and is ignoring Shoppers’ pleas for more substantial and preventative help. Additionally, as per their release, this policy is set to expire April 8th — likely before any Shopper will even qualify for this payment.

Instacart has a well established history of exploiting its Shoppers, one that extends years back before our current crisis. Now, its mistreatment of Shoppers has stooped to an all-time low. They are profiting astronomically off of us literally risking our lives, all while refusing to provide us with effective protection, meaningful pay, and meaningful benefits.

Shoppers have had enough. Instacart has refused to act proactively in the interests of its Shoppers, customers, and public health, so we are forced to take matters into our own hands. We will not continue to work under these conditions. We will not risk our safety, our health, or our lives for a company that fails to adequately protect us, fails to adequately pay us, and fails to provide us with accessible benefits should we become sick.

On Monday, March 30, Shoppers will walk off of our jobs, and will not return to work until our demands are met. We demand that Instacart meet the following conditions:

1. Safety precautions at no cost to workers — PPE (at minimum hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes/sprays and soap).

2. Hazard pay — an extra $5 per order and defaulting the in-app tip amount to at least 10% of the order total.

3. An extension and expansion of pay for workers impacted by COVID-19 — anyone who has a doctor’s note for either a preexisting condition that’s a known risk factor or requiring a self-quarantine.

4. The deadline to qualify for these benefits must be extended beyond April 8th.

This is an extraordinary time in history, and as Shoppers, those of us who are able — and have the means to protect ourselves — do want to help those in our community by delivering groceries and supplies. But with Instacart neglecting the basic wellbeing of its 150,000+ drivers, we believe there is no choice but to not only walk off, but to raise awareness to the company’s practices. They are putting us directly in harm’s way while profiting greatly. We cannot let this be considered normal.

Signed,

Instacart Shoppers and Gig Workers Collective

Instacart just unveiled its plan to add an additional 300,000 Shoppers to its existing workforce of 175,000 Full-Service Shoppers. Three hundred thousand desperate workers that have been laid-off to help flatten the curve will now instead be hopelessly wandering the aisles of already crowded grocery stores.

Instacart is not lacking adequate numbers of Shoppers, they are lacking adequate safety measures to allow already-existing Shoppers to continue to work safely. The fabricated PR narrative of heroic “job creation” in this time of crisis is a farce, they simply know that the pool of potential new blood is desperate enough to potentially put themselves into harm’s way. Instacart deserves no accolades, they’re simply exploiting those — and harming those — who have no other recourse. Instacart is wielding COVID-19 as a weapon. These are the absolute most despicable machinations of the gig economy at work.

Instacart is attempting to recruit a new pool of workers from those that have been laid off from jobs in what the media likes to call “non-essential” retail, including from restaurants, and even other gig apps that have seen a decline in business. Workers that are desperate to stave off eviction, foreclosure, repossession, and starvation. In order to appear generous, Instacart has increased referral bonuses in some markets — the Bay Area, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Seattle, and New York — to an astonishing and unprecedented $2,500. Instacart could’ve extend that sum to all existing Shoppers working through the most dangerous, stressful, and unprecedented working conditions ever faced — but instead, Instacart has chosen to focus its attention on those who are desperate enough to be manipulated.

Instacart has spent $0 to provide any Full-Service Shoppers on the frontlines with protective equipment and supplies. Not a single cent to provide us with soap, gloves, masks, disinfectants, or hand sanitizers (despite what their comms team tells the media). As Instacart Shopper Vanessa Bain recently explained to Forbes, Shoppers are left to work with “what they have, can find, and can afford, which is oftentimes nothing.”

On March 9, Instacart committed to “offer up to 14 days of pay for any part-time employee or full-service shopper who is diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in mandatory isolation or quarantine.” This policy, which will likely benefit few if any Shoppers, will disqualify Shoppers from eligibility by design. It requires a diagnosis that is virtually impossible to obtain, and that’s the point. If the cost of a doctor’s visit isn’t prohibitively expensive, the country’s testing capacity is close to nonexistent. These two factors taken together mean these superficial commitments from Instacart are meaningless, and Shoppers know they will not be able to actually draw benefits from them. It does nothing for Shoppers whose families have been impacted by school closures or shelter-in-place orders. By every measure, this commitment falls far short of the meaningful safety nets and insurance programs afforded to properly classified employees, such as Unemployment Insurance, State Disability Insurance, Paid Family Leave, and Workers’ Compensation.

So what are working conditions actually like right now for Instacart’s 175,000 existing Shoppers? In short, it’s horrific. Most Shoppers still have no access to essentials like hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes. And it’s no better when trying to find these for others — when shopping orders, stock of these items is depleted, and Instacart is doing an inadequate job of warning customers about stock shortages, leading to profound frustration for customers, and ultimately, Shoppers’ ratings are taking devastating blows due to stock issues entirely out of their control. Social distancing is rarely respected, lines are long, and patience is wearing thin. We fear that we are becoming the very vectors that Instacart and the gig economy claim to be minimizing, and the idea of 300,000 new, inexperienced Shoppers being exposed to these working conditions terrifies us.

Shoppers have a well-documented history of grievances against Instacart. When Instacart announced that they would be expanding their hiring at an unprecedented rate, we understood what’s at stake. Before anyone applauds Instacart as job creators, or some kind of economic savior, we implore that you ask “what kind of jobs are they creating?” The answer is the worst possible kind. Instacart intends to condemn 300,000 new individuals — picture the entire population of Cincinatti, OH or Buffalo, NY — into cyclical poverty and dangerous working conditions. A major city’s worth of desperate people plunged into deplorable working conditions. They will lack the most basic protections afforded to properly classified employees like minimum wage, overtime, sick pay, paid family leave, health insurance, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and workers’ compensation insurance. And they will be trapped there, because Instacart knows many, if not most of them, will have nowhere else to turn.

Instacart has utilized over-hiring as a means of compensating for our dwindling pay. There is no doubt that Instacart is utilizing its mass hiring to further drive down earnings while expanding its operations. Shopping for Instacart requires far more skill than Instacart leads applicants to believe. Veteran Shoppers are navigating this uncharted territory with extreme caution and barely surviving, we can only imagine the scope of how far the quality of service will degrade when inexperienced workers are left to fend for themselves.

What happens to both existing Shoppers and new hires when the demand inevitably wanes? An oversupply of labor and decreased demand will only tip the scales further in Instacart’s favor ensuring that earnings will fall to an all-time low, leaving both veteran Shoppers and new hires without viable income and while Instacart laughs its way to the bank.