Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

workingwa.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 718 posts

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#91

Post by mannykannot »

_t2kx wrote: post #18
tedivm wrote: post #10

There's a related blog post up on Medium by this same group (Working Washington) where they placed the same order, once with tip and once without, so people could directly compare. From my perspective Instacart is stealing from its customers and workers by doing this. I'm a huge fan of instacart (my fiance and I use it regularly), but this is definitely going to push me away from the platform. At a minimum I'm going…

> From my perspective Instacart is stealing from its customers and workers by doing this. This is 100% wage theft.

And while it is not as important an issue, I, as a tipper, feel that I have been defrauded when this happens (now that I am aware that this does happen, I assume that it has probably been done with some tips I have made.) To be clear: this is not an alternative way of looking at the issue, it is an additional indictment stemming from the practice.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#93

Post by ABeeSea »

parshimers wrote: post #14

What absolute garbage, it defies the entire point of tipping. Is this even legal? If a restaurant got caught doing this, they would definitely lose many customers or even get run out of business.

It’s 100% illegal in Washington state. Probably not other states though.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#94

Post by B-Con »

jetrink wrote: post #56
B-Con wrote: post #32

> That's right: the customer's tip doesn't get added to the worker's check — it just gets deducted from what Instacart pays. In other words, up-front tips go to Instacart, not to the worker. My understanding is that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow for employers to whithold tips.[0] Gratuity/tip is a legally recognized concept. You can't just throw the word in your app and do what you want with the money i…

> My understanding is that the Fair Labor Standards Act does allow for employers to whithold tips I think this sentence says the opposite of what you intended it to.

Correct. I fixed it.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#95

Post by rkho »

gowld wrote: post #60

How about paying people who serve you instead of passing the "buck" to the someone else? Why start tipping for outstanding service, instead of setting the floor at $0 for 0 service? Answer: because people like to pay less for stuff and let the company eat the blame.

Tipping is frowned upon and considered bad manners in the parts of Asia that I frequent.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#96

Post by hathawsh »

This makes me wonder why people bother working for Instacart when there are so many alternatives. I googled for "service economy gig" and got this huge list:

https://www.wonolo.com/blog/best-gig-economy-apps/

I guess this Wonolo service is for choosing the right services to work for. Now I'm wondering how many Wonolo clones there are. :-)

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#98

Post by diminoten »

warp_factor wrote: post #17

people should simply NOT tip. At restaurant maybe because it is socially mandatory, but anywhere else, a signal should be sent that it is stupid and doesn't make any economical sense to tip!

The signal is not sent by not tipping. You can disagree with it all you want, but the people who decide to institute tipping will not hear you if you don't tip.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#99

Post by deepsun »

_t2kx wrote: post #18
tedivm wrote: post #10

There's a related blog post up on Medium by this same group (Working Washington) where they placed the same order, once with tip and once without, so people could directly compare. From my perspective Instacart is stealing from its customers and workers by doing this. I'm a huge fan of instacart (my fiance and I use it regularly), but this is definitely going to push me away from the platform. At a minimum I'm going…

> From my perspective Instacart is stealing from its customers and workers by doing this. This is 100% wage theft.

Many many places do that. I worked in PizzaHut in NJ, and they pay you less than minimum wage initially. Then you report your earnings, and if your tips + salary / hoursworked So you have incentive to report 0.0 tips. But then our manager at PizzaHut let go everyone who reported 0.0 tips (when asked why, he said they called customers to confirm we did receive tips).

And that's not only PizzaHut, that's everyone doing that, at least in NJ.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#100

Post by cribbles »

B-Con wrote: post #32

> That's right: the customer's tip doesn't get added to the worker's check — it just gets deducted from what Instacart pays. In other words, up-front tips go to Instacart, not to the worker. My understanding is that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow for employers to whithold tips.[0] Gratuity/tip is a legally recognized concept. You can't just throw the word in your app and do what you want with the money i…

Instacart delivery workers are classified as independent contractors, which allows the company to flout basic labor laws. This is commonplace in digital age 'gig economy' jobs, but dates back to the early days of food delivery - e.g., most pizza delivery drivers are classified as independent contractors.

That having been said, the concept of defining contractor wages in relation to customer tips is new to me. I could see a legal argument being made in the employer's favor if the worker gave due consent to the transaction.

The idea here would be: Instacart states somewhere on the order prior to pickup 'if you choose to accept this order, you will receive $10, of which $.80 will come from us.' Since the delivery worker isn't running a 'shift' as an 'employee,' but just coincidentally happens to be running Instacart orders for 10 hours straight, this counts as one of many transactions that they've accepted and hence waived the legal right to complain about.

If this legal fiction sounds absurd to you, you're not alone.

Post reply on HN