Instacart Employees Ready To Strike After 'Insulting' Proposal

Instacart's gig-workers appear to be set on striking after declaring the company's proposals to be "insulting" and "a sick joke," the Gig Workers Collective & Instacart Shoppers group wrote in a Medium post.

What Instacart Workers Want 

Instacart's grocery delivery gig-workers demanded the company grant them new compensation amid the growing coronavirus pandemic.

The delivery workers requested hazard pay of an additional $5 per order, a guaranteed 10% tip and safety equipment. But the company countered with hand sanitizer within a week, a default tip amount based on prior orders and a fixed bonus of $25 to $200 instead of a per-order bonus, the group said. 

The workers wrote on Medium that management was not responsive to earlier demands, most notably hand sanitizer.

Instacart's inability to act sooner is "abhorrent" and demonstrates that a "strike will work to change their behavior," according to the workers' group. 

Instacart's delivery workers shouldn't place themselves in a high-risk environment "for pocket change," the blog post said, adding that  demands for a hazard pay "went completely unaddressed" by management. The the average pay per order is "well under" $10, according to the group. 

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Photo courtesy of Instacart.