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

arstechnica.com

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

#61

Post by nilkn »

Sirened wrote: post #48
awakeasleep wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not crazy, it sounds like a convenient way for you to justify stiffing all the people these apps help you exploit.

I get tipping at restaurants: it’s an old habit that nobody really wants to try hard to change. There, of course, is no reason for us to build this stupid, old idea into a brand new platform

The reason tipping keeps popping up in new markets (like Uber/Lyft/Instacart/Doordash) is largely the same reason it's so hard to get rid of in existing industries: it allows businesses to advertise lower prices and lets customers actually pay those lower prices if they're willing to take the relatively minimal and sometimes even completely negligible social cost of not tipping.

Just look at how it went with Uber. Uber didn't want tipping to be part of the experience, but they kept lowering driver wages until drivers needed tips to survive and started rating down passengers who didn't offer cash tips. When the problem started becoming severe, they could have solved it by just upping driver wages. Instead, they kept fares impossibly low but added tipping into the app.

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

tertius wrote: post #37
matz1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the government really care of it's citizen, they should do it directly, by providing low cost/free basic necessity or basic income, etc. This way their citizen is not "forced" to work with these company you deemed "exploitative"

Basic income has to come from somewhere. Being forced to work i.e. be productive is very psychologically important. Now being forced to be a slave is a different story. What needs to happen here is for the government to step in when I crime is being committed. I.e. an employee is being paid less than promised.

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by eropple »

atonse wrote: post #57
bcherny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought experiment: what would happen if tipping was made illegal? Would restaurants go out of business because they couldn't pay their servers enough because their patrons weren't willing to pay when the actual cost of dishes was made explicit on the menu? Or would restaurants ditch table service? Or would waiters settle for a new lower wage?

What usually happens is that restaurants institute an across the board 18% service charge on all receipts. That covers tips for all the staff. There are a couple restaurants that have had good success with this.

There are, but at the same time there are restaurants that have had a lot of trouble with this approach because it raises the perceived price of the restaurant. It really seems damned-if-you-do.

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

#64

Post by jabretti »

drtillberg wrote: post #30

This isn't innovation, it is exploitation. Where are the state attorneys' general on this? Injured hauling a 600-lb order of sugar and cooking oil -- it's absurd the company does not carry workers' comp insurance for this. In the real world not carrying workers' comp insurance is very serious business. This is going to go like Napster, we'll find a better way when it is gone.

But they can opt out of any order they don't want to fulfill, right? Who would choose to fulfill that crazy order for the price on offer?

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

#65

Post by harshgupta »

spo81rty wrote: post #16

What I don't understand is if the pay or working conditions are so bad, why don't people just go find a new job? If they can't get anyone to do the job, they will be forced to pay more or fix the conditions. If they have a terrible reputation, nobody will want to work for them. It's simple supply and demand.

The answer is simple game theory. For a situation where corporations are forced to fix conditions, there has to be a significant large scale reduction in supply, which is an implementation nightmare. Unless that happens, one person quitting a job in protest is just an opportunity for another.

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

#66

Post by couchand »

> Instacart has agreed to pay at least several million dollars to settle the lawsuits, which will result in a typical settlement payout of a few hundred dollars per worker. The attorneys who brought the lawsuits, by contrast, stand to make millions.

This seems like an unnecessary and out-of-context dig at lawyers. Also, the citation provided doesn't square with the claim: the settlement they linked to allowed total damages of $2 million, and capped the attorney's fees at 25%, so the maximum payout is half a million.

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

#67

Post by louprado »

jeremyt wrote: post #12
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #6

I recently ordered from DoorDash, a similar service. The app gave me a price for the order and then had a line item called “Dasher Tip” and asked me how much I wanted to put down. I put in $20. Later when the woman arrived with the food, we stopped to talk for a minute. She was a little younger than my mom, and said she had just started working for the service after her husband died. She asked me if she could ask me…

Call me crazy, but when I use one of these services, I expect the service to be reflected in the price.

I often wonder what uplift the U.S. economy gets because consumers are lured by an initial low price that doesn't include service fees, taxes, gratuities, etc. It's like an accepted form of bait-and-switch, which is a proven tactic that increases sales.

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

#68

Post by jabretti »

notaboutdave wrote: post #24

Is this corporate greed or is the value of unskilled labor quickly approaching zero?

In the US, the price of unskilled labour has been deliberately driven down by decades of non-enforcement of immigration laws. Even a year after the election of a President who was supposed to deal with this issue there's been very little action.

In Australia we have control of our borders and the price of unskilled labour is more respectable.

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

#69

Post by nradov »

aphextron wrote: post #47

Instacart pay depends entirely on where you work. My brother works for them in SF/SV and earns around $2k/week with wages and tips. For someone with zero skills or job training otherwise it's a pretty sweet deal. Plus you end up with a car load of free groceries to take home whenever the system screws up an order.

Does that account for depreciation, maintenance, and fuel for his car?

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

#70

Post by largehotcoffee »

thrownblown wrote: post #51
grandalf wrote: post #21

The gig economy is always going to be more volatile than full-time work. This is why grocery stores had not already hired full time drivers to deliver groceries, and why there is demand for Instacart. It's the same with Uber. During a rainy day rush-hour there are rarely any medallion cabs available, so Uber created a way to get transportation on those days (surge pricing) that incentiveizes drivers to work during th…

One of the lessons of Austin's temporary Uber/Lyft kick out was that very quickly worker run ride sharing emerged to serve the need.

Except Uber/Lyft are back in Austin, and that worker run ride share didn't work.
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