Absolutely crazy. By comparison, Go-Jek in Indonesia ends up paying their scooter delivery workers about about $3-$4 on average per hour (in my experience) depending on traffic, for deliveries (food, shopping, etc). There is also no option to tip in the app, and tipping isn't expected but isn't alien either.
Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
591–600 of 718 posts
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#592Their help section specifically states : "Shoppers appreciate tips as a way of recognizing great service and 100% of your tip goes directly to the shopper delivering your order. For more information about tipping, follow this link." Source: https://www.instacart.com/help/section/200761924#213895126 payment/service fee section If confirmed this is straight out lying to your customers
What you quoted is not a lie. 100% of the tip is going to the shopper. The problem is they are not paying the shopper on top of the tip.
I am sure you are being humorous, but anyway, the FTC says:
"When consumers see or hear an advertisement, whether it’s on the Internet, radio or television, or anywhere else, federal law says that ad must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence. The Federal Trade Commission enforces these truth-in-advertising laws, and it applies the same standards no matter where an ad appears – in newspapers and magazines, online, in the mail, or on billboards or buses."
and:
"Statements that are literally true may be deceptive if they leave a misleading impression".
Unfortunately, the first step the FTC takes if they even get around to it is to direct the advertiser to remove such statements. No fines are levied if the advertiser complies with this request.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And their hourly compensation, as ridiculously low as it may be, is never adjusted to compensate for higher than normal tips. This varies by state. Google "server wage" and your blood will boil. It's illegal in WA, though — servers make standard minimum wage and employers can't take servers' tips.
Yes, minimum wage for servers is lower than for people who don't get tips. But it's still illegal to lower a person's wage below what was advertised because the person got a tip.
I think you're confused.
You're describing "server wage" laws, in which employers are free to steal tips up to the difference between real minimum wage and server wage per hour. In effect, servers in these states make above minimum wage during peak times and at most minimum wage off-peak. But they have to work off-peak or they don't get scheduled for peak hours.
In WA, this form of wage theft is illegal. Your statement, "minimum wage for servers is lower than for untipped workers" is false in Washington state, which is where the wage theft in TFA took place.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#594There'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…
> From my perspective Instacart is stealing from its customers and workers by doing this. This is 100% wage theft.
It may be, Federal Law is more specific on tipping, allocation, role definitions in the restaurant industry, but not well expanded to define other industries. State law can further regulate . In spirit, a tip is an independant transaction between 2 parties and should be accounted as one. You must pay min rate for position (2.xx+?) and employee must make above fed/state min wage with tips once accounted, you must increase your compensation to make up a defecit between wage + tips vs min wage. You cannot pay below a certain wage regardless of tip amount, or maybe that's only in specified roles. I'm not sure.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#595Why $.22? Is that the minimum before the tip has an impact on the nominal rate?
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's absolutely defrauding the customer, in addition to whatever laws there might be specifically about wages. They're asking you for money with a description of what the money is for that is between misleading and an outright lie. That's fraud.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't actually withhold the tip. The sentence you quoted is being sloppy. If the tip was $50, the worker would get the full $50. The problem is that they use the tip as an excuse to pay basically nothing. It's not acting like a real tip.
This is a distinction without a difference. There is no practical difference between paying less "because tip" and not paying the tip. The legal system is not staffed by robots, either. I don't see how they can defend a class action regardless of what words they've written on a TOS.
> There is no practical difference between paying less "because tip" and not paying the tip.
There is, because the pay can't go negative.
> The legal system is not staffed by robots, either. I don't see how they can defend a class action regardless of what words they've written on a TOS.
It depends on what the lawsuit is for. Normally we have things like "minimum wage" but those don't apply if you manage to convince everyone it's a contractor situation. If they can be classified as employees then there's all sorts of lovely anti-tip-taking law. But that's a big if. And I don't think contractors have tip laws? It's not generally illegal to say one thing about how your company allocates money coming in and then do another.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is basically the argument for removing the minimum wage entirely. Some money is better than no money, right? I'd prefer not to live in that dystopia. Or we can just make it very clear that companies that engage in outright wage theft should be put out of business, so no other business ever tries it in the future.
I don't think you understand my argument at all. I'm suggesting that the tips be rearranged so that the working is making significantly more than minimum wage, and the company can't scam their way out of paying what they promised to lure in workers in the first place.
I'm all for bringing a legal hammer down on them! I'm just saying that as far as personal action goes, getting them to lose money while their worker gets a healthy wage is better than a boycott.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#599There'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…
Doordash too, apparently: https://notipdoordash.com/ I've tipped a lot on Doordash. I feel ripped off. My company regularly used Doordash for years and made a point of tipping on orders. Crazy.
Argh! I'll be closing my DoorDash account right now and also sending that website to anyone I know who uses DoorDash.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#600Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Instacart closes down because of this kind of shitty behavior, people may learn a thing or two, and the next company in this space might decide that wage theft is not going to be part of their competitive advantage.
Sure, and meanwhile these workers don't get paid anything. There are ways to fix things without shutting it all down.
There appear to be plenty of other unethical companies to work for so this is unlikely to be a problem.