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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

#251

Post by silencio »

kojeovo wrote: post #61
tedivm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do they steal tips, they also jack up the prices of the food itself. I make six figures and honest to god I have no idea how anyone affords to use DoorDash.

The restaurants, like the grocery stores in Instacart's case, determine the cost of food in their respective apps.

this is not always true. my restaurant was listed on doordash without my permission or request, with a butchered menu and completely incorrect prices.

multiple requests asking them to at least fix this info or take me off the platform altogether (because customers were starting to wonder why my prices were so low on doordash - they're not, the couriers paid the current amount in-store...) and they ignored me. it wasn't until i signed up to be contacted about being a restaurant partner that they finally paid attention.

of course, once i registered interest in partnering with doordash, they spammed me with requests to sign the terribly lopsided agreement, and then took my restaurant off as a "bargaining" chip. yeah, okay. works for me.

so, tl;dr, if a restaurant isn't directly partnered with doordash, they can do whatever the heck they want with the prices.

(which, speaking of restaurants setting prices, they all definitely have clauses in there about not charging more than you would on other services. they definitely let you upcharge... i was half tempted to put up burgers for $20 each, for real...)

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

#252

Post by dabockster »

lenticular wrote: post #83
dhimes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. They need to pay reimburse those workers with a penalty fee tacked on.

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…

> There is almost certainly a binding arbitration clause. This removes the possibility of individual or class-action lawsuits.

But it does not remove the ability of the court to overrule the clause itself. So someone could still sue Instacart knowing that it will be thrown out if the court decides to enforce the clause.

In my life experience, these things are almost always up in the air until a judge says otherwise.

Getting to the contractor thing, the most workers can really do is file IRS Form SS-8 and see if the IRS will release them of some of their tax obligations. Other than that, there's really not that much enforcement.

Source: I was a misclassified contractor in 2017 while working in WA state. IRS forgave some of my tax burden, but Labor/Industries and Employment Security are absolutely useless if you don't have a literal Form W2 to use.

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

#253

Post by donarb »

leipert wrote: post #104

German reader here. Because of minimum wage you'd only tip if service was good (or always tip if you have enough money, my parents generation are more frugal than I am). Delivery services often get around minimum wage because they use the "Uber" trick and technically the drivers are "self-employed", always tipping those folks. Anyway: Are tips taxable in the US? Here in Germany tips are tax-free under certain conditi…

Tips are taxable income in the US, even to the point where the IRS will assume a minimum amount of tip income, even if you didn't receive that much.

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

#254

Post by diminoten »

warp_factor wrote: post #113
diminoten wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They will, by being force to pay a correct minimum wage (or lose the worker)

> (or lose the worker)

Not how it works, unfortunately.

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

#255

Post by baroffoos »

School-Cotton wrote: post #62
nsenifty wrote: post #22

This is why the tipping system in the US is absurd. The whole "you must tip because they get paid peanuts" argument is a circular logic. How about making sure that the worker gets paid fairly by their employer and customers can then optionally tip for outstanding service?

The idea that things are the way they are because people are convinced by an "argument" is a common misconception. In reality, the system in the US is what it is because of the mostly random process of cultural development. Changing cultural norms is not easy in any society, even if you have good logical arguments against them.

Especially in the US. Just look at their ancient measuring system.

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

#256

Post by victor106 »

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…

Same here. I’ve been using instacart since 3 years almost everyday. But this is it. I am off it. I can’t believe the greed that some companies go to, to take advantage of people struggling to make ends meet. Shame on them

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

#257

Post by techsupporter »

lenticular wrote: post #130
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?

> Or will you drive yourself to the store and buy it from minimum wage employees who work unstable hours?

No, I will get on a bus operated by union-organized employees and travel to a grocery store where employees are also covered by a union and inside the city limits of a city with a reasonable minimum wage and scheduling rules inside a state with mandated paid sick leave. While there, I will likely pay a bit more than if outside those borders but the people involved in the process will be getting treated minimally well.

People crap on what cities like Seattle and states like Washington are trying to do as “socialist” or “a nanny state,” but workers are humans who deserve to be treated well and “the market” seems terrible at that if left to its own devices.

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

#258

Post by CryptoPunk »

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.

Not all customers/workers feel the same way about every business practice, so it's not fair to appropriate their decision-making power by monopolizing it through one regulatory agency or union that they may not support.

People are entitled to their individual choices. If it's too much information to process, they can individually choose someone they delegate their decision making to. One way they do this is to trust a particular certification and only buy products with the certification seal. But each individual should get to choose which party plays the role of delegate for them.

Resorting to one-size-fits-all regulatory/union monopolies shows a lack of imagination that deprives individuals of their agency and breeds corruption/rent-seeking-behaviour.

As for this case, it's pretty clearly theft, and should be dealt with accordingly by the legal system. Customers/workers shouldn't have to band together to punish theft.

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

#259

Post by crazypyro »

tedivm wrote: post #45
babaganoosh89 wrote: post #37

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

Not only do they steal tips, they also jack up the prices of the food itself. I make six figures and honest to god I have no idea how anyone affords to use DoorDash.

DoorDash seems to be the best value to me with their DoorPass option. I don't find the markup to be completely unreasonable, it makes sense to me and never felt shady, they have to make their money somehow.

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

#260

Post by RealityVoid »

sametmax wrote: post #206
jopsen wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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