zlacker

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+(OP)
That’s an abstract view of value, based entirely upon your own personal views and opinions. The labor is only worth the equilibrium point between what somebody is willing to pay for it, and what remuneration somebody is willing to accept for it. The truth is that for all of these low skilled industries that are seeking pay rises, there is currently an influx of available labor that could fill those positions. If they are not willing to work for that level of pay, there are most certainly others who would be willing to do so. They do not have the power to prevent people from applying for those roles, should they become available. The only card they have to play is to exploit the threat of a temporary disruption to service. They may have some luck exploiting this, but it can only get them so far. It’s also no different from any of the other price gouging that’s often derided here on HN. When huge portions of the population are facing unemployment, there is no reasonable basis for demanding pay rises, especially in low skilled industries, where the labor can be so easily replaced.

>>munk-a+(OP)
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.