- 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.
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.
The biggest problem here is that this is one of the most "expendable" workforces we've ever seen–hiring cost is rock-bottom, training is done through an app (requiring no human interaction or pay), and shoppers are just sent a shirt and prepaid card (Shipt) or a lanyard and card (Instacart).
I feel like the organizers understand this and know that if the overlords decide they don't want to deal with the strike, their accounts can be deactivated with the click of a mouse, wasting less than $50 in resources (though usually less because of the ROI they've already exhibited). All the company has to do is ramp up advertising or add some new hire incentives.
Keeping the demands reasonable is how they're self-preserving. Anything too extreme, and they just get replaced with no change. It's a good _starting point_, but there definitely need to be more protections for our gig economy workers in the future.