On her first day as Instacartâs new CEO in early August, Fidji Simo, a former Facebook executive, acknowledged the tumultuous relationship the grocery delivery company has at times experienced with its workers. Publishing an open letter, she offered change to delivery workers, whom the company treats as independent contractors, not employees.
âI want to be a thoughtful and open partner,â she wrote. She added that workers could email her suggestions on improving working conditions, saying, âMy team and I will read every note, and Iâll respond to as many as I can.â
But members of Gig Workers Collective, a group of more than 13,000 gig workers that formed to advocate on behalf of app-based food and grocery delivery workers for companies like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Shipt, say little has changed at Instacart.
âWe were optimistic that there was positive change on the horizon,â said Willy Solis, an Instacart worker and lead organizer with Gig Workers Collective. âBut our initial optimism was dashed.â
Instacart, founded in 2012, has amassed $2.7 billion in venture capital funding.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the company said business boomed, with the number of orders going up by as much as 500 percent, prompting it to hire more than 500,000 new delivery workers.
While itâs unclear how profitable Instacart is, and grocery delivery businesses overall have begun to slump, the company has indicated it plans to go public before the end of the year.
Yet, advocates say, Instacart workers are not seeing their pay improveâthe fundamental issue at play in a new #DeleteInstacart campaign launched by Gig Workers Collective. The group is asking customers to support delivery workers by boycotting the company until it ârectifies the genuinely inequitable manner in which it treats its shoppers.â (âShopperâ is Instacartâs term for delivery worker). The collective also planned a walk-off on Oct. 16, asking workers to avoid delivering for the company.
âWe take shopper feedback very seriously and remain dedicated to listening and learning from our community to improve the Instacart shopper experience,â said Natalia Montalvo, Instacartâs director of shopper engagement and communications.
âWhile historically the actions by this group have not resulted in any disruption or impact to our service, our relationship with all shoppers is incredibly important and weâre deeply committed to doing right by them.â
Rebecca Givan, an associate professor at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, said the labor clash is not unique to Instacart workersâsheâs seen an overall uptick in gig-worker-led boycotts, strikes, and walk-offs.
âAs the workers are squeezed more, they start to learn successful organizing strategiesâ - Rebecca Givan
âAs the workers are squeezed more, they start to learn successful organizing strategies,â Givan said. âThe workers are explicitly asking for customers to use another option. This is something that is a little bit different when weâre talking about gig workers, because itâs frictionless for both the workers and the customers to switch to another app.â
Instacart workers have taken various forms of collective action against the company in the past. In the beginning of the pandemic, workers demanded hazard pay and access to paid sick leave; and before that, they protested over low pay and how the company allocates workersâ tips.
In this latest round of unrest, Gig Workers Collective has five specific demands, which focus on working conditions and Instacartâs pay structure. The group published this list in an open letter to Simo in mid-August.
Simo has been âconsistently reading and responding to emailsâ and has conducted âa number of one-on-one conversationsâ with workers, Instacartâs Montalvo said. But Solis, from Gig Workers Collective, said individual workers heâs spoken to have gotten âcanned responsesâ from the CEO, and the collective has yet to hear back.
âAt the end of the day, it was nothing more than lip service,â Solis said. âWe need more than placating banter.â
How Much Are Instacart Workers Paid?
Workers say that as pay has declined over time, their earnings have become harder to predict and understand.
When Kelly Harris started working for Instacart in Columbus, Ohio, in 2017, her pay would fluctuate based on what Instacart said was customer demand. She said that back then it was easier to predict what her pay would be: $0.40 per item in each order, plus a set price per order. That price would go up or down depending on what Instacart deemed busy times.
In 2018, Instacart changed its pay structure by getting rid of âbusyâ-time pricing and the $0.40 per item payments. The company started relying more heavily on its algorithm to calculate pay. Workers would get at least $10 per order, and the price could go up from there, but workers say how much and when seemed to be arbitrary. Harris said she began earning less.
Then, in 2019, Instacart changed againâlowering the minimum pay from $10 to $7 per order and bundling up to three orders together for that $7 baseline (or whatever price the algorithm had set).
âThe kind of money that I was making in 20 to 30 hours then, I would probably need to work 100 hours now,â said Harris, whoâs relocated to Steubenville, Ohio. âIâve seen a 70 percent pay cut over the years. Itâs really not worth it; itâs not reliable anymore.â
âIâve seen a 70 percent pay cut over the years. Itâs really not worth itâ - Kelly Harris
Montalvo didnât respond to questions about how the companyâs algorithm calculates worker earnings but said, âThere are many considerations for every order that needs to be taken into account when determining batch payâincluding the volume of customer demand, geographic profiles, retailer mix, items, weight, and projected delivery times.â
When workers open the app, they see available âbatchesâ (Instacartâs nickname for grocery orders), which show a set commission price plus the customerâs tip. If the batch is higher-paying, workers have around 30 seconds to decide whether to take it before it disappears. Workers say the $7 and other lower-paying batches tend to sit there. Harris said batch prices can be all over the map.
âIâve seen batches with 90 unique items for $7, and Iâve seen batches for 12 or 13 items for $7,â Harris said. âThereâs no sense to it.â
Harris provided The Markup with several screenshots of batches in late September. One, for example, was for 107 grocery items and offered $14.92 total pay with no tip. Another was for four items for $22.94 and a $3.33 tip but included a 28-mile drive to the customerâs home.
Several other screenshots also showed long drives, two batches bundled together for the same price or orders with more than 100 items (which can take up to two hours to fulfill). All payments were within a $7 to $22 range.
Some Instacart orders are for more than 100 items, which workers say can take up to two hours to fill.
In its demands, Gig Workers Collective is asking Instacart to reinstate three of its previous payment methods. It wants workers to be paid per order and the company to stop bundling batches together.
It wants the per item payment reestablished since orders with a lot of items take more time. And it wants Instacart to restore the default in-app tip to 10 percent, rather than 5 percent, where itâs set now. (Customers can choose their own tip amount; the default is a suggested prompt.)
We âremoved the ânoneâ option in the customer tip settings, requiring customers to manually change their tip to $0 if desired and making it less likely that a customer will remove the shopper tip altogether,â Montalvo said. She added that, âWe have a customer tip default setting which allows customers to save their default tip based on their last order.â Montalvo didnât comment on Gig Workers Collectiveâs other demands around pay.
In the past, Instacart has said it wouldnât raise the appâs default tip because it âserves as a baseline for a shopperâs potential tip and can be increased to any amount.â When the company changed its pay structure and stopped the $0.40 per item payments, it said that was to âprovide clearer and more consistent earningsâ for workers.
âOver time, it just started to deteriorate,â Solis said. âWe feel those [demands] are reasonableâŚ. Theyâre stuff that we had before, and we just want them back.â
What Else Do Instacart Workers Want?
Along with changing how Instacart pays workers, Gig Workers Collective is asking the company to adjust the rating system by which customers evaluate delivery workers. Currently, customers rate workers on a five-star basis, and Instacart can reward high scores by giving those workers first dibs on orders. Workers with lower ratings can get offered less lucrative batches.
âShoppersâ access to batches is determined by a number of factors, including customer demand and shopper location,â Montalvo said. âIf there are more shoppers than there are available batches, weâll use additional criteria like timeliness, accuracy, and customer rating to determine access to batches.â
Workers say customers often ding them for things like sold-out grocery store items and slower delivery because of long lines or traffic. According to a Los Angeles Times article, some customers report missing or damaged items to get free or discounted groceries, and Instacart tends to blame the delivery workers in those situations.
âEven when we provide photos of deliveries, Instacart can either lower our rating (which prevents us from seeing good offers for weeks) or deactivate us from the platform entirely,â Gig Workers Collective wrote in its open letter. âInstacartâs inability to properly investigate customer complaints should not result in blame unfairly placed on shoppers.â
Montalvo said in cases when the company determines a customer has been fraudulent, the workerâs low rating in that instance may be âforgiven.â
Workers in Facebook groups, Reddit threads, and on Twitter often complain of being unfairly deactivated. Some say itâs possibly because their ratings dipped. Others say maybe itâs because they requested extra pay on heavy orders too many times.
A couple of workers say they thought they were deactivated after their phone accidentally took a photo in their pocket, which they believed Instacart thought was a fraudulent selfie check (something the company occasionally requires).
Gig Workers Collectiveâs final demand is for Instacart to provide workers with occupational death benefitsâto help their families if something goes wrong. They say working for the company can be dangerous. Not only have workers tested positive for COVID-19, but theyâve also been robbed, assaulted, and had guns pulled on them. Lynn Murray, one of the people killed at a supermarket during a mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., was working for Instacart at the time.
Montalvo said the company offers âShopper Injury Protection,â which âincludes coverage for certain medical expenses, disability payments, and accidental death benefits.â She said workers can file claims directly with Instacartâs insurance provider. Montalvo didnât respond to questions about how many workers have received the benefit. Instacart workers who spoke with The Markup said theyâd never heard of the program.
Because Instacart classifies its workers as independent contractors, they donât have employee benefits, like life insurance, health care, workersâ compensation, and sick days.
âThis work is becoming increasingly dangerous,â Solis said. âWe feel like we need basic protections.â
What Could Boycotts, Protests, and Strikes Accomplish?
Such collective actions have happened before, to mixed results.
When thousands of Instacart workers announced an emergency walk-off in March 2020 over inadequate personal protective equipment and sick leave, the company told reporters, âWeâve seen absolutely no impact to Instacartâs operations.â
Yet, days before the strike, it changed its policyâpledging to send workers PPE kits and confirming 14 days of sick leave pay for those diagnosed with COVID-19.
Similarly, a year before, when Instacart workers filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for subsidizing their wages with customer tips, founder and former CEO Apoorva Mehta issued a rare apology and ended the practice.
The case was resolved as part of a class action settlement. Workers have seen other changes because of their protests. At one point, Instacart had paid some workers as little as $1.50 per order, and the company raised those types of prices after workers spoke out.'
âThe companies never want to admit that if they change a policy, itâs because workers are demanding it,â said Rutgersâ Givan. But âInstacart workersâ organizing skills get sharper and sharper as they build a movement.â
While Instacart has made concessions in the past, however, workers say they still havenât seen the structural changes theyâve long demanded.
âWith our protests, they donât have the immediate effect that we want them toâbut they do have an effect,â Solis said. âThatâs why we continue to do it.â
Written by: Dara Kerr
This article was originally published on The Markup and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.