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

workingwa.org

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

#191

Post by wilkskyes »

Latty wrote: post #165
wilkskyes wrote: post #111

What are the poor legitimately at fault for then? I'm tired of this implication that the poor can never be at fault for anything, because they are so poor. It is an overly simplified sympathy that doesn't always reflect reality.

I mean, if you think that's the case, feel free to give examples. The posts here are talking about specific cases, if you disagree with them, say so. You haven't really said anything here, just vaguly created a strawman that people are arguing "the poor can never do wrong", which was never the claim.

I asked a question, I don't think I need to provide some counter argument with it.

If I must argue something, I'd say the housing crisis example wasn't so simple as it was presented. Some people knew exactly what they were doing, albeit it turned out badly for them, but they had so little to lose they took the risk anyway and just bankrupted out. But I'm not at all interested in talking about this, my original question still stands.

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

#193

Post by lenticular »

oarsinsync wrote: post #174
lenticular wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Your comment suggests that it's ok to directly support bad businesses because you're probably also indirectly supporting bad businesses. If that's not what you meant, can you please clarify?

Moreso that participating in modern society is impossible without doing business with companies who have unsavory labor and environmental practices. I'm not commenting on morality.

Expecting some sort of change to come from spontaneous, collective consumer action is ridiculous. This is especially true when most consumers in America are not on financially stable ground themselves, and can't afford to spend more money or time to assuage their guilt.

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

#194

Post by CameronBanga »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #72
adetrest wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is a software developer with companies fighting over them. Some really don't have options, and the choice is either get no income and be unable to pay your bills, or get screwed over but get some money to pay the bills.

> Some really don't have options. Unfortunately, in this economy, it's probably more accurate to say "most people really don't have options" rather than "some"

The job market is as strong as it has been in the past ~30+ years?

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

#196

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#198

Post by Rebelgecko »

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.

What about in states like California where that's illegal, even if their tips make up the difference between their actual wage and the minimum wage?

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

#199

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

jopsen wrote: post #131
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.

No, this is why you have regulation, and need unions. Consumers have enough parameters to optimize for: price of groceries, cost of delivery, fair trade, availability of products, delivery speed, convenience, availability of delivery slots, the list is long. Consumers are relatively good at optimizing for cost, not perfect -- but asking for more than that is unrealistic.

To be pedantically clear about what needs are vs strategies for meeting needs, this is why we need autonomy; unions are a strategy for achieving that.

Learning to empower one's self is a skill we could benefit from teaching in society. Unfortunately, our primary education systems are not oriented toward teaching autonomy. They teach independence & compliance, which is false separation (since we're interdependent, not independent) and giving up power to others, respectively.

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

#200

Post by pkaye »

function_seven wrote: post #76
gowld wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to what ruling? It depends on the agreement between Instacart and delivery staff.

The Fair Labor Standards Act disallows this type of agreement for ordinarily-tipped jobs. I don't know how the contractor status of Instacart drivers affects this. They're not technically employees. But the verbiage of "Tip" in the UI is a strong signal to the customer that the money is directly credited to the driver. It should bear no relation to their fee from Instacart. This is wage theft. A horrible agreement do…

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) covers only employees, not independent contractors.
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