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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

#311

Post by ddingus »

bargl wrote: post #279
victor106 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

OP mentions the tip 22c and then the rest in cash to show instacart they shouldn't be doing this. I think it's a fair approach to see if they can be persuaded to make the right call.

That works, until it doesn't.

They are extremely likely to make another, more subtle bad call.

People who think this is OK can be very difficult to motivate.

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

#312

Post by dzonga »

Problem here: Isn't Instacart but the so called rich-hipster millenials that need / want / to use Instacart. Or lazy or just for the sake of convenience at the sake of a poor soul, don't wanna shop groceries for themselves. If your time is limited then you could easily use Amazon fresh/ Walmart / Boxed for your groceries. But nah, it's SV 2.0 Human exploitation at it's finest, Capitalism as usual. & to people building these services, put humans first. It's sad to see someone in HEB wearing a green tshirt shopping for someone - it's like society has rendered these people useless only fit to serve master. Basically slavery 2.0 with a little wage on top.

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

#313

Post by donarb »

lixue wrote: post #43
standardUser wrote: post #11

This isn't uncommon or new. Many states allow for tips to offset wages, even if wages fall below the minimum wage. Some states even have a separate minimum wage for tipper workers that is below the standard minimum wage. If you want to blame someone, I suggest looking for the actual culprit and not a law-abiding company. This has little to do with Instacart and everything to do with state wage laws.

This was posted by "Working Washington", so it seems reasonable to look at Washington state law: It requires tipped employees to be paid minimum wage. So does the rest of the west coast, including California (where Instacart has it's HQ). https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm It is, of course, entirely possible that the worker in question is not on the west coast, but Instacart is still welcome to pay a fair wage…

> It is, of course, entirely possible that the worker in question is not on the west coast

The receipt was for a store named Wegmans. Those stores are located on the East coast (New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey).

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

#314

Post by bambax »

Startup culture is a study in psychopathy.

- lack of empathy: Uber, Instacart, etc. etc. etc., exploiting the poor

- parasitic behavior: aggressive tax optimisation/tax evasion, Amazon employees relying on food stamps for subsistance

- superficial charm: get rich quick

- pathological lying: cf. Facebook denying they ever did anything wrong

- manipulativeness: "make the world more open and connected"

and my personal favorite,

- grandiosity: "change the world!", "solve physics for good!", "be immortal!"

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

#315

Post by siphor »

mesozoic wrote: post #188
pjc50 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's illegal to steal tips, but actually enforcing that is another matter. Companies will blatantly build illegal business models. And of course some developer coded this automated tip stealing.

Can you cite any statute that says this is illegal?

Might fit under fraud. I hope it does. When I first learned of this tactic, I felt tricked. I assumed with a tip, that I was boosting someone’s salary for a job well done. I’m sure it’s debatable, and that my assumption was wrong? But I imagine most people feel this what a tip is.

Fraud n. the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right.

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

#316

Post by dnautics »

tivert wrote: post #278
berbec wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott

The consumer collective-action economic effects of that boycott changed nothing . What did change things was the government action it triggered : > Pressure increased across the country. The related civil suit was heard in federal district court and, on June 4, 1956, the court ruled in Browder v. Gayle (1956) that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional. As the state appealed the decision, t…

also keep in mind that the segregation rules were unpopular with the bus companies themselves (think about the infra you need to enforce segregation), as soon as the court ruled against the local laws, the montgomery bus company was rushing to flip over to desegregated.

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

#317

Post by perpetualpatzer »

passivepinetree wrote: post #242
throwaway5752 wrote: post #208

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…

Why are you in favor of tipping? Can you justify your reasoning?

Not parent commenter, but the common argument is that for the class of service jobs where the employee's role is to interface with the customer and provide them a service, customers are in a better position to assess the employee's job performance than a manager. For that class of jobs, giving customers influence over the employee's "merit bonuses" is a more accurate system of rewarding performance and requires less managerial oversight to ensure good service.

There seems to be some logic to that to me. Whether that justifies a reduction in the minimum base wage for tipped roles, etc. I think of as a separate question, but I don't see tipping as a structurally problematic norm as long as the job interacts with many customers and a significant portion of the population actually tips.

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

#318

Post by Jolter »

Sargos wrote: post #145
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.

There's no alternative at least where I live. I either use their service or don't get the items (since the reason I'm using them is because getting them myself is a problem). A cash tip fixes this problem. I can't do anything about the business itself.

So before Instacart, you starved?

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

#319

Post by sametmax »

xmonkee wrote: post #305
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…

Nope, what you are describing is capitalism, not democracy. Unfortunately we are so deep into the game now that it's had to imagine a world without it. I understand that it's hard, but try to imagine a world where workers can demand a living wage and not have to rely on the generosity of "good people" for the right to live.

I don't see any link between what I said and capitalism. Thinking of the policical and societal impact of your day to day actions does not only largely go beyong economy, but also doesn't assume the nature of the economic system you are in.

The instacart topic is just an example. An example saying, "if your economic system is currently capitalistic, and based on money, then voting with your wallet makes sense".

> I understand that it's hard, but try to imagine

That's so condescending.

> a world where workers can demand a living wage and not have to rely on the generosity of "good people" for the right to live.

Life is not binary, you can work on both. But your solution delegate the action to a small 3rd party, so it's still an oligarchy.

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

#320

Post by babaganoosh89 »

DATACOMMANDER wrote: post #138
babaganoosh89 wrote: post #37

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

Why the scare quotes? They’re not “stealing” tips. They’re stealing tips.

Quotes are because it's probably legal what they're doing.
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