Instacart shoppers say response to strike demands is ‘insulting’

Summary

A TechCrunch article by Megan Rose Dickey on Instacart shoppers' reaction to the company's response to their strike demands during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article reports that Instacart began distributing its own hand sanitizer and extended financial assistance through May 8, 2020, and that shoppers had demanded personal protective equipment, hazard pay, a 10% default tip and extended sick pay. It reports that shoppers say the new default tip will provide no meaningful benefit and that hazard pay and sick pay demands went unaddressed. It also quotes Instacart President Nilam Ganenthiran and mentions Assembly Bill 5 and a $2 trillion stimulus package that provides gig workers with unemployment insurance.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

Instacart shoppers say company’s response to strike demands is ‘insulting’

Over the weekend, Instacart outlined its plans to better support shoppers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For starters, Instacart has begun distributing its own hand sanitizer and disinfecting supplies and is working to place sanitation stations inside some retailers. Additionally, Instacart has changed the default tip setting to reflect a customer’s previous tip amount.

But organizers of the massive Instacart strike, which starts today, say it’s not enough. Gig Workers Collective, the organization spearheading the strike, calls Instacart’s response “insulting and “a sick joke.”

For example, Instacart shoppers had been asking for hand sanitizer for weeks, according to Gig Workers Collective.

“It’s abhorrent that it took this long for them to act, but on the bright side, it shows that a strike will work to change their behavior,” the group wrote in a Medium post yesterday .

Regarding the tip amount, Instacart shoppers have long demanded the company change the default tip amount to 10%. While Instacart has changed the default, shoppers say the new default “will, in all likelihood, provide no meaningful benefit to shoppers,” as customers’ previous tip amounts were guided by the 5% default.

Meanwhile, two demands went unaddressed: hazard pay and sick pay for workers who must stay at home because they are at high risk of contracting the respiratory illness.

Instacart shoppers laid out their demands on Friday , asking that Instacart provide personal protective equipment at no cost to workers and hazard pay of $5 extra per order, change the default tip to 10%, extend the sick pay policy to those who have a doctor’s note for a pre-existing condition that may make them more susceptible to contracting the virus and extend the deadline to qualify for those benefits beyond April 8th. Shortly after those demands went public, Instacart immediately laid out plans to extend financial assistance through May 8, 2020.

“Within days of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., we rolled out retroactive sick pay for in-store shoppers nationally and extended pay for all shoppers affected by COVID-19,” Instacart President Nilam Ganenthiran said in a press release. “We were the first company to launch ‘Leave at My Door Delivery’ to give our customers and shoppers a safer, more flexible delivery option. Last week, we announced a new COVID-19 bonus to increase pay as Instacart shoppers step up as household heroes for customers. And now, we’ve sourced, manufactured, and are distributing our own hand sanitizer in an effort to expedite distribution lead times and work around supply chain shortages. Our teams will continue to operate with a sense of urgency on creative solutions to help ensure Instacart shoppers have access to health and safety supplies as quickly as possible.”

Shoppers have said those efforts have not been enough and they’re saying it again. That’s why shoppers are still striking in the hopes Instacart will meet all of their demands. The plan is to strike and not return to work until all of their demands are met.

Instacart shoppers’ strike comes as legislators throughout the nation are pushing for more gig worker protections. In San Francisco, supervisors are asking the SF Office of Labor Standards Enforcement to establish enforcement procedures in compliance with Assembly Bill 5, which outlines what types of workers can be legally classified as independent contractors. The supervisors are also asking for both SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to seek injunctive relief to prevent misclassification of workers as they seek paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. Nationwide, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package that provides gig workers with unemployment insurance.

Topics

Biotech & Health , coronavirus , COVID-19 , Instacart , labor , personnel moves , strike

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Megan Rose Dickey

Senior Reporter

Megan Rose Dickey is a senior reporter at TechCrunch focused on labor, transportation, and diversity and inclusion in tech. She previously spent two years at Business Insider covering tech startups focused on the shared economy, IoT and music industry. She graduated from the University of Southern California in 2011 with a degree in Broadcast and Digital Journalism. – See more at: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/megan-rose-dickey#sthash.ir4VFt2z.dpuf PGP fingerprint for email is: 2FA7 6E54 4652 781A B365 BE2E FBD7 9C5F 3DAE 56BD

View Bio

File and source

File

instacart-shopper-coronavirus-strike-response_1cbac6a23e1f5e1e.html

Size

232,892 bytes

SHA-256

39ca95fff0eb51c514e96e3a52307aea7dd9ba16d61ae8c1dbef1a4d04cfba68

Our copy

instacart-shopper-coronavirus-strike-response_1cbac6a23e1f5e1e.html

Original

techcrunch.com