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

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

#91

Post by justboxing »

rhizome wrote: post #72
justboxing wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had tipped her. $20. She showed me her phone with the app on our order. DoorDash told her we had tipped her $6 This is why I almost always tip in Cash. I hand it to the person, in person. San Francisco's Indian Restaurants (Indian here, and I go to the Indian restaurants here all the time, that's how I know) are notorious for not passing on any of the tips left on the card to the waitstaff, and some even don't gi…

tl;dr: it's wage theft. I don't have experience doing it, but both of these cases are highly, highly frowned upon and likely to get quick resolution if a complaint is made to the Department of Labor. http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2013/05/legal-for-your... https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/should-supervisor-sh...

Thanks! I'll give this a try!

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

#92

Post by Xunxi »

Of all the delivery services out there Amazon Restaurants/ Food Delivery is the only one that pays right. There's a fixed hourly rate of about $16 that you receive whether you make a delivery or not. Any tip that you receive if you make a delivery at some point in time gets added.

All the rest give you a pittance, some even based on mileage. Its a pity!

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

#93

Post by corvallis »

fpisfun wrote: post #44
sumeno wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because finding a low skill job is pretty hard. Not everyone has the luxury of choice.

I've never seen this to be the case that finding a low skill job is hard. In my area tons of people refuse to work but all kinds of places are constantly hiring like restaurants, etc. Many may require passing a drug screen though which it seems most people aren't able to do.

In my pricey metro area, there are many such "low-skill" jobs advertised in restaurant windows. (Side note: can we use another qualifier? Restaurant jobs in fact require quite a bit of skill - social awareness, customer service, observational, strategic time management, etc. Maybe it's not programming, but it's not really data entry either.) These jobs, even while paying $15 an hour, remain unfilled because there's nowhere within a 2 hour commute that an adult can rent a room and have money left over for food & life on that wage.

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

#94

Post by rokhayakebe »

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…

If this correct I will never order from DD and I will ensure anyone I know does not either.

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

#95

Post by mvid »

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.

I've used those services. They were buggy and broken to the point where I frequently ended up walking in the rain because I couldn't get a ride.

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

#96

Post by mdpopescu »

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.

Oh come on, you want people to be RESPONSIBLE? Inconceivable!

Most people have a herd mentality and it's very hard to get out of it, especially with the huge amount of propaganda telling everyone that everything is someone else's fault. Disgusting.

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

#97

Post by dboreham »

bcherny wrote: post #43
jeremyt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

It doesn't have to be a thought experiment : just travel to pretty much any other country in the world besides the USA. Surprise: people are running restaurants, not going broke, and waiters are paid for their time like most other workers.

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

#98

Post by tbiwiti »

I've said this before, but I think a key component of contractors' rights going forward will be legislating their employers' ability to "lock them in" with loyalty programs and the like.

In this case, a large part of the issue seems to be certain orders from people (and companies) that have found loopholes in the pricing (bulk orders of large, heavy goods).

If contractors could decline these orders with no repercussions, they wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. Instacart would fail to deliver these orders and quickly learn they need to change their pricing structure.

The argument could be made that you can go too far in giving contractors the right to decline. I can imagine various forms of extortion occurring or problems being unable to blacklist problematic contractors, but it's a tradeoff that seems to be too far in the company's favour right now. Maybe disincentiving contract work in service-critical environments is a good thing, considering the complaints about rising part time and contracted work and not enough full time work.

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

#99

Post by fourstar »

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…

Doordash for whatever reason just deactivated my account. No warning, no explanation. Just deactivated. Sorry, but your service isn't worth my time to try to re-activate. Bye!

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

#100

Post by GhostVII »

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…

Seems really odd that they make you send a tip before the food gets to you - my understanding of tips is that they are supposed to reflect and encourage the level of service you received - if you pay them before you were served, they don't really do much. Not a fan of them either way, but this seems even more pointless than normal.
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