👓 Have y’all been following what’s happening with Instacart this week?

Read a thread by Sasha Perigo (Twitter)

Have y’all been following what’s happening with Instacart this week? The company is retaliating against workers, and it’s really, really bad. I’m going to share what I know in a thread. Instacart is a grocery delivery service. “Shoppers” are the workers who pick up items at the store and deliver them to customers.

Instacart keeps wages really, really low. A Shopper in Menlo Park says she makes a few hundred a week.

Shoppers went on strike this week with two demands:
- The app increase the default tip option from 5% to 10%.
- Instacart stop charging “service fees” and pocketing them. Instacart not only didn’t honor the workers strike demands, but they retaliated and cut pay further!

They cut bonuses which can be up to 40% of the workers’ income.

The workers are contractors so they aren’t as protected from this retaliation.

Instacart Shoppers wrote a Medium post explaining what’s happening to them and asking for software engineers and other employees to speak out against their bosses. @GoogleWalkout shared it today.

Instacart flagged it to Medium, and it’s been TAKEN DOWN!
link.medium.com/VW7Oy3D9r1

What can you do?
- Share this story widely and generate bad press for @Instacart.
- DON’T use Instacart right now.
- Organize with the gig workers at your company. Their struggle is your own!
- Follow @GigWorkersRise for updates and donate to support them.

mentions

Calling Instacart to give them negative customer feedback could help turn this around too.

If you're a customer who's boycotting, let them know!

for sure! beyond what you already put out there, I'd say that any customer who's able could contact IC to express disapproval. like any gig company they are VERY conscious of their customer base and if they realize customers care about this, it may shift something.

— breathe deep the gathering gloom (@mircifer) November 9, 2019