Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by lupire » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:00 AM UTC

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…

Are "contractors" covered by employee wage law?

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

#422

Post by gbear605 » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #350

mikewhy wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Insidious, right? 100% of the tip technically does go to your shopper. Welcome to the world of 'tipped wages'. In my state, every paycheck, the first $520 worth of tips effectively goes straight to your employer for the purposes of paying your minimum wage and then you can have whatever is left over.

What’s more, this article is made by employees from Washington state, where they don’t even have a separate tipped minimum wage.

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

#423

Post by usaphp » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:03 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #314

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 f…

> startup culture...

> Amazon > Facebook

I don’t think amazon and Facebook are startups

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

#424

Post by mxfh » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

bena wrote: post #401

mruts wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it should start with you right? Are you willing to never tip again in your entire life? If so, let us know how it goes (or maybe is going?) Or, alternatively, maybe you don't live in a country with a tipping culture. And if so, then tipping doesn't really affect you. People like to tip. I like to tip. Waiters and waitresses like to be tipped. My wife used to work as a waitress and would clear over $300 a night i…

And that's why tipping won't die because the few people who can make bank off of sob stories and bad logic. Sorry, waiting tables is not a really complicated skill. Tipping is not related to quality of service. Most people don't think about tipping. They do it because it's expected and maybe the waitress is hot. If pressed, they would likely prefer not to do it. Servers are also some of the most disingenuous people I…

Some people like to be in control, that's ok. Tipping bundles a simple service task to the in most jobs needless component of giving the customer the illusion of attention. If you're a waitress by choice and tipping works for you, that's fine too, but it simply doesn't scale to a large scale gig based economy. Being able to extract that amount of tips is a skill, that not everybody has. If venues could, they probably would take money for customer facing service job opportunities to work there for tips to exploit that skill, which would be the more honest free market model in my opinion.

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

#425

Post by usaphp » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

Why do they even have a “tip” field is beyond me, you already paid for delivery, what do you tip for??!!! And on top they ask you for a tip amount before the service is even performed. Tip is to reward for extra work that server did, what extra work is there in food delivery service? And how do you measure it before you even got the food??

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

#426

Post by lenticular » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #367

lenticular wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is absolutely illegal. They are defrauding customers. No one would voluntarily add money to an order if it was labeled as "donation to Instacart" instead of "tip". They are deceiving customers to get money from them.

This really probably doesn't add up to fraud. There's a difference between being scummy and crime. This should be illegal of course, but it really probably isn't. Restaurants illegally take tips from their employees all the time, which would be a fraud against customers in the same way as this case. However, they don't get into trouble for fraud against customers, but wage theft. That of course doesn't apply to Instacart.

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

#427

Post by basil-rash » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #92

Why doesn't the headline read "Instacart (YC S12)"?

They don't add that to companies most people will already recognize:

Airbnb: https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+ai...

Stripe: https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+st...

Cruise: https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+cr...

etc.

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

#428

Post by gbear605 » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:10 AM UTC

tchaffee wrote: post #362

bambax wrote: post #314

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 f…

That's quite a broad generalization. For sure a lot of the biggest names have done ethically questionable things. It's no doubt that growing that fast and gaining that much power is going to hugely amplify whatever ethical flaws the founders have. And no one is ethically perfect. That's not to excuse Uber, Facebook, Google, Amazon or any of the more egregious companies. But it's just a case of confirmation bias if yo…

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook as of 2014, so unfortunately all the same issues with Facebook apply to them too.

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

#429

Post by starpilot » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

rafiki6 wrote: post #110

More evidence as to why tipping culture needs to die. Tipping fundamentally takes away the responsibility of paying someone for their work from the employer to the customer. In what other business context do I pay an employee of a company I deal with directly outside of the service industry where tipping is common? Wages are a cost of doing business. Pay the worker enough. If you want to still provide them an incenti…

Too bad every restaurant in the US that has tried to eliminate tipping has failed. Servers end up with less money, patrons end up paying more than with tips, and many patrons actually like tipping.

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

#430

Post by mxfh » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

rafiki6 wrote: post #390

mxfh wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tipping is the "trickle down"-myth's small scale cousin. It doesn't only take away responsibility of paying, but adds emotional and mental load cost to the customer. It's hilarious that people accept that in exchange for an illusory level of control (you being the mini manager/boss of your service task) over quality of service.

I think many people just haven't traveled to for e.g. many European countries where tipping culture is mostly non-existent because over there people the service industry receive appropriate wages and the prices of things are adjusted accordingly. The quality of service is good, and the people working seem much happier. They have a guaranteed income for their time.

As a customer tipping culture is highly annyoing to me, I don't want to be upsold three times per dining at least. The attention given, coming form european non-tipping culture, just feels absurdly fake to me.

I feel sorry about this, but from my experience, the only other business that comes to mind, that is so build on 1-on-1 flattering "good choice sir" and selling attention to me is prostitution. I mostly don't need that much attention, when I just wand to have a beer or lunch.