Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by purple-again » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

I’m confused and hoping someone can clear it up. My understanding is you are allowed to pay well below minimum wage to employees that receive tips. If the sum of those tips plus what you pay them does not equal or exceed minimum wage the employer is required to pay them more money until they reach minimum wage. This isn’t often an issue because tipped employees will beat minimum wage significantly.

Is this not Instacart doing the same thing where your wage is .82 plus tips as long as that amount is above x wage. If it’s below x they will pay you x.

However in this instance it’s an issue because the tipped employees are not often making more than x even with tips therefore the consumer is misled about who their tip money is going to.

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

#122

Post by dependsontheq » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

Verdex wrote: post #84

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.

Yep, personally, when I go to mcdonalds, I like to pay the guy at the register, the people cooking, the manager, and the unfortunate individual on trash duty all separately. Additionally, I refuse (on basic principle) to eat at any restaurant where I haven't mapped out their entire supply infrastructure. I made myself an app that keeps track of how much I spend at each of these restaurants in any given month and then…

“the customer can decide how much he wants to pay everybody in the supply chain” sounds a bit to too much like a possible pitch for a startup.

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

#123

Post by jonesdc » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

nsenifty wrote: post #29

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!

It is not "socially" mandatory as much as the workers suffer otherwise because they are paid less than minimum wage.

If an employee who earns tips does not make the equivalent of minimum wage pay his or her hours worked, then the employer is required to pay difference (i.e., employees will be paid at least minimum wage for their work)

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

#124

Post by warp_factor » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

nsenifty wrote: post #29

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!

It is not "socially" mandatory as much as the workers suffer otherwise because they are paid less than minimum wage.

They suffer because we made it socially mandatory to tip, allowing at the same time the businesses to pay under minimum wage for workers.

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

#125

Post by vkou » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

hathawsh wrote: post #96

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. :-)

What makes you think these other jobs haven't adopted, or won't adopt the same 'business model'?

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

#126

Post by Someone1234 » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

babaganoosh89 wrote: post #37

DoorDash does the same thing of “stealing” tips. Either you should tip in cash or not at all.

I want the worker to receive 100% of the tip as much as anyone.

But does anyone else find it obnoxious that all these digital services exist, often starting out with no tip straight pricing, then tipping re-appears, and then you suddenly need physical cash to morally use the service at all?

Obviously workers should get fairly compensated. The problem is tipping culture itself, just set a price that customers are willing to pay and workers can enjoy a reasonable standard of living.

Plus the whole tipping thing is extremely inconsistent. Floral delivery? No tip. Pizza delivery? Tip. Some brands support credit card tipping, others don't, and even the ones that do you have to research how much using it hurts the employee...

The US needs law changes that outlaw tipping. It will be culturally painful while we adapt but once we do both workers and customers will be better for it.

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

#127

Post by muppetman » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

It's funny (to me, anyway) that this sort of things affects only America (and I guess Canada?) This odd culture you have there of tipping and how it's so tightly integrated into your society.

As a non-American I had to read the article a few times to understand what the problem was - I thought this was just how tipping worked in the US.

I always read of service workers who only manage to "stay afloat" by the tips they earn, this seems to be almost the same thing, but reading it again I can see it isn't.

Here in NZ there is sometimes a "tip jar" at the counter of a cafe where you might throw in a coin or two (say $1 or $2) as a way of thanking the staff overall. High end restaurants will also offer a place for you to add a tip if you feel you got exceptional service, but there's also no hard feeling or death stares if you don't put anything there.

I hope tipping dies in the US and people get paid fairly regardless. But then you have bigger problems to solve first of all :)

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

#128

Post by chrisseaton » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

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.

Why is 'service' seen as a separately billed item, paid for by the tip, in a restaurant in the US? Why isn't it included in the bill for the food, like everything else is?

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

#129

Post by rebuilder » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

I guess this is how you actually disrupt a labour-intensive industry. You lower costs, or provide a much better service that somehow established companies haven't been able to provide profitably.

Sure, you can try to use technology and innovation to reduce overhead. That's the pitch usually, I think. If you can provide a service with a lower headcount, you can be much more cost-efficient. But it seems a lot of the companies aiming for disruption aren't able to actually do that, so instead they reduce payroll costs by simply refusing to take on the responsibilities employers are traditionally expected to take.

It'll be interesting to see how long this model of "disruption" can be sustained.

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

#130

Post by lenticular » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

atom-morgan wrote: post #97

Seriously, this is the responsibility consumers have in a free market. If there's behavior you don't like, move on. You don't get to complain about bad actors when you're literally keeping them in business.

Collective action is essentially impossible among consumers though. Boycotts essentially never work. Not only that, but who are you going to use instead of instacart: Amazon Fresh? Uber? Or will you drive yourself to the store and buy it from minimum wage employees who work unstable hours? Also, what do you think the working conditions were like for whoever picked that asparagus?