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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

#511

Post by RoadieRoller »

Our team of 5 went to a good restaurant/steak place in LA last week, ate and drank for $300, enjoyed the ambience and ate great food, enjoyed the warmth of the service, spent great time together and tipped $75

Who should the tip go to?

- To the owner who spent/spends a fortune running it in LA?

- To the chef who catered to our needs without seeing us?

- To the person who immediately and happily tended to us everytime we raised our heads and looked around

- To the person who cleared the used plates and never let us wanting for crockery

- (we tipped the valet guy separately)

I wonder what as a customer should I do? How do I know the share goes to all? I cannot pay cash for that amount. I carry barely $5 with me in cash.

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

#512

Post by nerpderp83 »

lenticular wrote: post #228
gowld wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to what ruling? It depends on the agreement between Instacart and delivery staff.

Not sure why this is being downvoted, as you absolutely are not wrong about this. They are independent contractors who entered into a contract just like a restaurant could contract with a food supplier. They aren't employees in the least as far as the law is concerned.

How and why are you so vehemently defending instacart when it comes to WA state law?

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

#513

Post by mattbreeden »

paxy wrote: post #417
B-Con wrote: post #32

> That's right: the customer's tip doesn't get added to the worker's check — it just gets deducted from what Instacart pays. In other words, up-front tips go to Instacart, not to the worker. My understanding is that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow for employers to whithold tips.[0] Gratuity/tip is a legally recognized concept. You can't just throw the word in your app and do what you want with the money i…

Isn't this exactly what restaurants all over the country do? Tips count as wages, and then the employer pays on top of that to make up the difference.

My understanding is that wages from the restaurant are fixed and tips do not count towards them unless the employee does not hit minimum wage- at which point the restaurant has to pay them more. I have never heard of a restaurant paying an employee less because they got more tips.

But I have never worked in a restaurant so I could be completely wrong.

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

#514

Post by smileysteve »

mruts wrote: post #380
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…

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…

> Waiters and waitresses like to be tipped

Waiters and waitresses HATE to NOT be tipped in a world where it's their livelihood. And studies have shown that this leads to racist, classist, and sexism within the service industry.

- Studies show that non-caucasians receive worse service because they are perceived as likely to tip less.

- Studies show that a high class restaurant server gets more in tips than a medium class restaurant, even when the food and service is of lower quality.

- Studies show that men often get tipped less than women for similar service.

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

#515

Post by noddingham »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #458
MisterTea wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At a minimum I'm going to be tipping in cash. Do the right thing. Take a stand for human decency and make a compromise by closing your instacart account now . Absorb the inconvenience and do your own shopping. And make sure to tell instacart to (insert profanity of choice) if you can while closing your account. That behaviour is low down and dirty. Shady craigs list used car dealer level stuff. I just walked three…

You didn't explain why that's "the right thing". Making sure the worker is paid well is the most important part. It's also possible that instacart will lose money on the sales where they can't scam tips; that means you can use the service and pay the worker well and punish instacart and increase the incentive for them to change their policy.

Respectfully, I think you're being a bit naive. At the moment, the evidence points to Instacart _not_ being the kind of company that will respond to "incentive to change policy", but that they _are_ a company that will commit wage theft. Pull the ripcord, delete accounts, tank all the metrics (MRR/DAU/WAU/MAU), and force the company to change or collapse. Subtle hints won't be effective here, as the response their community support indicates.

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

#516

Post by manigandham »

MisterTea wrote: post #420
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…

> At a minimum I'm going to be tipping in cash. Do the right thing. Take a stand for human decency and make a compromise by closing your instacart account now . Absorb the inconvenience and do your own shopping. And make sure to tell instacart to (insert profanity of choice) if you can while closing your account. That behaviour is low down and dirty. Shady craigs list used car dealer level stuff. I just walked three…

Good for you, but arbitrary moral judgements against everyone else never goes well. Walking miles to gather food and water is the reality for billions of people.

Using Instacart is a luxury in the first place, but having everyone close their account only hurts the very people you seem to be for. In case you missed it in the article, there is a workaround so that your tips are correctly considered, or you can always pay cash: http://www.workingwa.org/22cents

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

#517

Post by fuckthecops »

I remember interviewing for an engineering role with these guys a few years back. The people I spoke at Instacart were more elitist than any of the other tech companies in SV or SF. They really did think they were the best of the best and had no shame saying it out loud. Great quote from of the lead devs: "We're a team of 10x engineers".

Seeing this now only reaffirms my decision to reject their offer. People like that who really believe they are better than others have no moral dilemmas committing disgusting things to those they think less of.

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

#518

Post by TheCoelacanth »

lenticular wrote: post #426
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Insta…

Would customers give the money if it were not labeled a "tip"? No. Is it a tip? No. Does Instacart gain something of value from this deception? Yes.

That is textbook fraud.

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

#519

Post by pfarnsworth »

tareqak wrote: post #476

Isn’t this similar to what DoorDash (a YC company) is doing? https://notipdoordash.com These sorts of stories confirm my feelings about tipping that I’ve had all along: tipping is just a way to subsidize employers by pitting employees against customers and guilt-tripping the latter. Follow-up update: Aren't all the gig economy start-ups (Uber/Uber Eats, Lyft, Caviar, Eat24/Yelp, Fiverr etc.) potentially doing the sam…

Uber/UberEats drivers get 100% of every tip, that is completely outside the equation for their pay.

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

#520

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

MisterTea wrote: post #420
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…

> At a minimum I'm going to be tipping in cash. Do the right thing. Take a stand for human decency and make a compromise by closing your instacart account now . Absorb the inconvenience and do your own shopping. And make sure to tell instacart to (insert profanity of choice) if you can while closing your account. That behaviour is low down and dirty. Shady craigs list used car dealer level stuff. I just walked three…

Yep, exactly. I started using Instacart when it first came out. It was very convenient. But then I started to see more stories about how the company was changing the compensation structure. It got so bad that the delivery people were leaving flyers in the bags, made by that person, explaining how Instacart was basically screwing them.

I haven't used Instacart since then.

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