zlacker

>>onewho+(OP)
Here are their demands: https://medium.com/@GigWorkersCollective/instacart-emergency...

- Safety precautions at no cost to workers — PPE (at minimum hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes/sprays and soap).

- Hazard pay — an extra $5 per order and defaulting the in-app tip amount to at least 10% of the order total.

- An extension and expansion of pay for workers impacted by COVID-19 — anyone who has a doctor’s note for either a preexisting condition that’s a known risk factor or requiring a self-quarantine.

- The deadline to qualify for these benefits must be extended beyond April 8th.

>>elicas+z2
honestly, i'm surprised that their demands are so few and so modest. i was expecting significantly higher numbers for the hazard pay portion of their demands.

i can't understand what might prevent amazon and instacart from assenting to these demands as soon as they have the logistical ability to provide the necessary items to their staff.

the national situation isn't permissive of corporations dragging their feet when essential services are down at the moment.

on the other hand, workers treated to a hopefully quick victory will not forget this when the pandemic ends. if we're lucky, the balance of power will shift to their favor.

>>cryosh+p8
Workers can only demand what the market will bear, and considering there are a lot of people looking for any sort of work right now, and training up to become one of these workers doesn't take long, these workers aren't in a position to demand much.

Hazard pay is moot for workers who have already caught COVID-19 too, which I would guess is a reasonably chunk of delivery workers by now.

>>london+9b
You’re getting downvoted, but this is absolutely correct. There is no reason at all you would expect the pay of low-skilled workers to increase during a period of increasing unemployment. For every union member that refuses to work without increased benefits, there’ll be a queue of newly unemployed people willing to work for less. The unions have no sway over the supply of labor here, the only thing they can exploit is the threat to temporarily disrupt service during a crisis. Something which won’t go over well with all the country’s unemployed, and everybody who’s going to have to pay the increased prices.

>>Americ+2n
As a counter, low skilled workers absolutely should get a pay increase because their work is more valuable and the hazards they face are more extreme - "professional class" workers should expect a real income pay reduction during this crisis since their labour is relatively lowered in value compared to during a normal world state.

Additionally, we, as a society, should value minimizing the number of people working in these roles and their interactions to ensure they remain healthy and don't become transmission vectors.

>>munk-a+PJ
It depends on the job. For warehouse employees, they are absolutely necessary since packaging is both hard, tedious work, and also specialized enough that you can’t have customers do it for themselves.

But Instacart is just grocery shopping. At a certain price point, people will go into stores themselves, or self organize to do bulk purchases for a small group. Right now in NYC, some people have started a charity to deliver goods to older residents in apartments for free. Instacart can’t compete with that.