Some Instacart workers to strike over pay that can be as low as $1 per hour

[workinclasszero]

Some Instacart workers to strike over pay that can be as low as $1 per hour
Stoppage to last Sunday and Monday, but its impact seems unlikely to be broadly felt.
CYRUS FARIVAR - 11/19/2017, 10:02 AM

OAKLAND, Calif.—Seated at a dimly-lit bar, a gregarious man dressed in a scarf and beanie reflecting his favorite local sports team, explained to Ars last week why he and some of his fellow Instacart shoppers plan on not working this Sunday and Monday.
"We’re going to sign up for shifts and then when it’s time, if I’m working from 10am to 1pm on [November 19], the first order, I’m going to decline it, not accept the batch," he said, using Instacart’s term for multiple pickups at a single retail location. "They’ll kick us off and we’ll continue to do that until they kick us off [for the day]."

The man, who goes by Ike, declined to let Ars use his full name for fear of reprisal—he also doesn’t want unwanted scrutiny from his colleagues at his full-time public sector job.

Instacart, which was founded in 2013 and has raised over $674 million in venture capital, lets customers purchase groceries online (at a markup) so "shoppers" can purchase the items directly in-store and then deliver them. Like other so-called "gig economy" startups like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and more, Instacart relies heavily on part-time or contract labor.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/some-instacart-workers-to-strike-over-pay-that-can-be-as-low-as-1-per-hour/

[jumptheshadow]

1. My experience as an Instacart customer

The introduction of Instacart into my area was a Godsend. My partner is a six year Stage 4 survivor with three metastasized disks. I am older than her, and work out, but I'm unable to carry the heavy water bottles and cat litter without some difficulty up the stairs of our non-elevator building.

At first, the service was pretty transparent, and I believed that the tips I was paying were genuinely supplementing the income of the delivery workers, who were shouldering the heaviest burdens of the work.

One day, a delivery person pointed out to me that the service fee was distributed among all workers. If I wanted to specifically award the delivery of heavy products in cold weather, let's say, I had to pay an extra tip. I called the company, and they told me that, indeed, the service fee I was paying was going towards providing a $14 per hour salary for everybody. I would have to pay another tip to specifically award the delivery person.

My problem with this was three-fold: 1) The service charge process had not seemed transparent, to the point where I had missed the need to tip the delivery person extra; 2) Why wasn't Instacart paying its employees in every point of their process a good working salary in the first place without surreptitiously squeezing their customers; 3) There were obvious hard feelings about the situation, and more than one employee complained to me about the company's policies or the necessity of carrying water up the stairs.

Anyway, I still use Instacart, but have been searching for alternatives. I just don't feel as good about the service, even though it makes our lives much easier.

[pansypoo53219]

2. serfs 'r' us