241–250 of 718 posts
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.
Sure, INDIVIDUALS are at fault for a variety of options, but if you're looking to blame the poor as a group for something, you're using the wrong criteria, since it's a status that has no direct mapping to choice.
I am 100% in favor of tipping, and all of you people calling to ban it don't understand service jobs. Those doing so should be ashamed, as they are effectively victim-blaming in this context (in what really seems close to wage theft, at least in spirit, by Instacart) to push this cause. This is really much more a story of ethics in software development. Someone had to know they were doing the wrong thing when they wr…
I am not an instacart user myself but I use similar services and I expect that any tip will be delivered to the driver.
I'd be pissed off to find out otherwise.
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.
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That's not necessarily true. Folks in the gig economy are often classed as "independent contractors" and thus are not subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act, including minimum wage laws. They also are not entitled to, nor almost ever receive, reimbursements for work expenses. When you are talking about using your own vehicle and paying for depreciation, mechanical work, and gas, this is considerable. It often winds…
So we need to get rid of this "independent contractor" loophole.
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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?
>Boycotts essentially never work Is this true?
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The very people writing these workers’ paychecks are effectively making this argument.
The very people collected those checks are making those arguments, directly. Lets be honest, service staff prefer the way it is. They can prey on their customers, and they end up making more than they would if paid min wage.
A more interesting and useful comparison would be to poll individuals who have held similar service industry jobs in countries that do and do not have tipping cultures, and ask them which they preferred and why.
Instacart started out by secretly marking up groceries. Once that game was played out, it seems they started secretly marking down employee (oh sorry, contractor) wages
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> More of a civil than criminal matter I think the question though is _why_ is that? If I steal $950 from someone then it's criminal, but if I refuse to pay them what I agreed then it's civil. It's an odd discrepancy IMO.
For one, we probably don't need the police to come and arrest Instacart's CEO in this case.
In this case they're doing something (questionably) legal but terrible.
There are plenty of cases out there of outright wage theft. I wouldn't have a problem with the people in charge of those decisions getting arrested.