Still, by organizing en masse and expressing vocal opposition to exploitative policies, they have managed to wring some concessions out of the billion-dollar corporations whose labor they provide.įor Instacart, the drama began late last year when it changed its method for paying its contract workers. Most gig economy workers are still classified as contract workers, meaning that they aren’t covered by federal minimum wage laws and other labor protections. It’s no secret that many modern gig workers exist in a state of permanent precarity, with few legal protections, unstable working conditions and pay that varies based on who’s flush with venture capital money that week. Postmates, another high-flying start-up, recently settled a class-action suit with thousands of delivery workers who contested the way the company classified them as contract workers.
INSTACART DRIVER DRIVERS
Drivers for Uber and Lyft in New York successfully agitated for a citywide minimum wage that went into effect this week. The victory at Instacart, which will ultimately affect thousands of workers, is just the latest in a string of successful pressure campaigns by workers for gig economy platforms. In addition, Instacart said it would retroactively compensate workers who had lost base pay as a result of the old tipping system. He also said the company was putting new minimum payments into effect: at least $5 for orders that require only delivering an item, and $7 to $10 for orders that involve picking items off supermarket shelves. Mehta apologized for the tipping policy, which he called “misguided.” He said that from now on, Instacart would calculate tips separately from base pay. “It’s offensive, it’s unethical, and in this climate it’s a very dumb thing to do,” Matthew Telles, an Instacart courier in Chicago, said this week before the reversal.
![instacart driver instacart driver](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/instacart-0227-2117-final.jpg)
![instacart driver instacart driver](https://alphanews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/My-Post-2021-12-11T130718.551.jpg)
In some cases, the more customers tipped, the less Instacart paid them. Instacart’s workers had taken to Reddit forums and private Facebook groups to express their anger with the policy, which counted tips toward the guaranteed minimum payments the company offered to shoppers. “We heard loud and clear the frustration when your compensation didn’t match the effort you put forth,” Apoorva Mehta, Instacart’s chief executive, wrote in an open letter to Instacart’s contract workers, known as shoppers. On Wednesday, Instacart, the Silicon Valley upstart that delivers groceries and other household items to customers through an app, reversed a tipping policy that had outraged workers, who accused the $7 billion company of cheating them out of rightfully earned wages. The gig economy’s work force is fighting back, and in some cases, it’s winning.