Delivery workers for Instacart vow to go ahead with strike
Shoppers asking for hazard pay; Whole Foods group seeks ‘sickout’
Angry delivery workers for groceries-to-yourdoor giant Instacart vowed Monday to go ahead with a planned strike over working conditions, calling the company’s response to their coronavirus-related pay and safety demands “a sick joke” and “insulting for a number of reasons.”
It was not clear how many Instacart shoppers had stopped working Monday or when. Over the weekend, the San Francisco-based company, which last week said it planned to recruit thousands more shoppers to fill increased demand across the country, responded to some of the workers’ demands.
A separate online petition by a group called Whole Worker is calling on Whole Foods employees to “engage in a mass sickout” Tuesday over coronavirus safety concerns and pay.
Instacart, in a Medium post, said Monday it had worked with another firm to make an alcoholbased spray hand sanitizer for shoppers, “which will ship in the next week.” Instacart also said it had worked with retailers over the past few weeks to provide disinfecting supplies for shoppers, and sanitation stations.
A group of workers issued a series of demands last week, including $5-per-order hazard pay, an increase in the ordering app’s default tip amount to 10% of the order total from what workers say has been zero to 5%, and safety items like hand sanitizer and wipes. The workers also demanded increased and extended pay for shoppers having “a doctor’s note for either a pre-existing condition that’s a known risk factor (for COVID-19) or requiring a self-quarantine.” The group, which has said it represents thousands of shoppers across the U.S., said in an online post that Instacart was “profiting astronomically off of us literally risking