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

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

#281

Post by sametmax »

RealityVoid wrote: post #260
sametmax wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no democraty if the people don't exercice their power. Voting once for a group of people make it one day democraty, the rest of the year oligarchy. There is litterally no other way to have a democraty that to make your day to day actions matter. Each citizen has to have a life directed to create a society. Now I understand how hard it is. And I don't blame people for failing at it, me included. But as long a…

This kind of assumption (that you must optimize your behavior for common good) is unrealistic. Only "good people" will do so, and that caring will put them at a competitive disadvantage compared to people who simply don't care. No, regulation has the possibility of leveling the playing field and making everyone behave in a certain way, irrespective of how good or bad they are.

> Only "good people" will do so, and that caring will put them at a competitive disadvantage compared to people who simply don't care.

That's always the case. If you recycle, you are at a competitive disadvantaged compared to people who don't care. If you are veggie as well. Or if you help your kids to do their homework.

Do you think it's unreasonable to promote recycling ?

It's not a binary choice, it's a spectrum anyway.

> No, regulation has the possibility of leveling the playing field and making everyone behave in a certain way, irrespective of how good or bad they are.

Regulations are very slow, subject to intense lobbying and conflicts of interest, and assume people in charge are benevolent and compentent.

Regulations are not the base of the society. They come, they go. They change according to the time, the context, the place... People are what's matter.

Again, I understand how hard this is. I also notice that a lot of people don't want to hear about it, because of the resonsibility it involves. But power to the people cannot comes without responsability to the people.

And responsability only truely work if it's chosen, not enforced.

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

#282

Post by gshulegaard »

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.

You would correct if this truly was a free market, but the viability of a free market is dependent on perfect competition where there are identical competing sellers readily available for consumers to "move on" to.

No such market with perfect competition exists, which leads to market externalities and the need for outside forces to get involved to correct (such as regulation).

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

#283

Post by leesjensen »

This really isn't that different than tipping at your favorite bar. Employers artificially pay service workers less than they should with the assumption that the customer will make up the rest. The real answer is to supporting the broken tipping model. Pay people an honest wage and expect them to do their job without expecting a consumer to pay a bribe to get good service.

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

#284

Post by leesjensen »

This really isn't that different than tipping at your favorite bar. Employers artificially pay service workers less than they should with the assumption that the customer will make up the rest. The real answer is to supporting the broken tipping model. Pay people an honest wage and expect them to do their job without requiring a consumer to pay a bribe to get good service.

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

#285

Post by mikewhy »

klathzazt wrote: post #219
cribbles wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would agree, if the app didn't say "tip for delivery person" instead of "tip for instacart" or something maybe more ambiguous like "tip." Take a look at the screenshots of their app being discussed here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2018/04/24/instacart-...

Are you sure those aren't the upcoming changes? There's another older screenshot further down that has more ambiguous wording.

Edit: welp, even that says it 100% goes to the person doing the shopping. Gross.

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

#287

Post by afterburner »

muppetman wrote: post #127

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 the…

Yes, and Canada.

Expected tip amounts have also been going up, I assume now because companies/restaurants want to hide a price rise behind it.

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

#288

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

lkbm wrote: post #236
_t2kx wrote: post #7

How is this not wage theft? They're literally taking the tips from workers and using it to pay them. I'm tipping the worker, not Instacart.

I thought that was simply how tipping worked. Wage+tips have to average (at least) minimum wage. It's obviously a terrible system, but is this different from how most everywhere with tipping in the US works? I've never worked a tipped job in the US.

Many, many decades ago when I worked in a restaurant, the rule was tipped employees needed to be paid at least 50% of the standard minimum wage. At the end of the day, if the employee didn't clear the minimum wage rate with the total of their wage + tips, the employer was required to fork over the additional amount to equal the minimum wage.

However, the absolute bare minimum the employer was allowed to pay was 50% of minimum wage. Not sure if this was just state-specific or if it changed.

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

#289

Post by lenticular »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #149
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?

At least there are federal protections for employees. Companies that offset their operating costs onto an on-demand contract labor force are in a really exploitative gray area. I disagree that collective action is impossible. Consumers become aware of problems, eg. high fructose corn syrup, and act accordingly, eg. buying less sugary junk. Cultural change is slow-moving but it starts with people giving a shit.

The corn syrup example doesn't really work here. People make decisions with their money, and those decisions are primarily based on self interest. Not becoming diabetic is very much in folks' self-interest. That underlies people not wanting foods with corn syrup. It has nothing to do with concerns about wasteful corn subsidies or deceptive food practices.
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