Dear Dani Dudeck (Instacart’s Chief Communications Officer),

We’ve recently come across your interview with Jessica Abo, in which you discussed what it is like to be a working executive mom, and how you’ve used your position as Chief Communications Officer, to champion other working women within your workplace. We would love to say that we are refreshed and encouraged by your presence as both a female executive and a working mother, especially amid the overwhelmingly male executive team. However, the fact of the matter is that during your tenure at Instacart, conditions for working mothers that are Shoppers for Instacart have deteriorated at an alarming pace.

Instacart’s Shopper workforce is overwhelmingly women. By Instacart’s own claims, 73% of its over 130,000 Shoppers are women. At over 95,000 women strong, Instacart Shoppers are easily one of the largest predominantly female contingent workforces nationally. We are an incredibly diverse group of women. Like you, we wear many hats. We are working professionals, students, caregivers, and over 65,000 of us, just like you, are mothers that want nothing less than the best for our families. All working mothers struggle in many unifying ways. We all walk a fine line, constantly trying to strike a balance between our work and our familial obligations and responsibilities.

While our struggles as working mothers may be strikingly similar in some ways to yours, Dani, they are inherently not the same. While you struggle to balance the needs of your kids with your workload, we are struggling to keep a roof over our children’s heads. While you struggle to step away from your family to make a work call, we are struggling to make ends meet. While you struggle with your weekly Sunday meal planning, we are struggling to put food on our own tables.

Shoppers are the backbone of Instacart. Every day we deliver so much more than just groceries. We deliver much-needed relief and support for the mothers that comprise more than 50% of your customer base. We love that we are the superheroes of everyday working mothers, saving them invaluable time and energy that they can reinvest in their families and in their careers. We are the smiling faces your customers know and love, and we are forever champions of working mothers. Collectively, Shoppers are both the backbone and face of Instacart. We are working women and mothers too. Why are our grievances less deserving of your advocacy? Do you feel we deserve less than the same right to financial security and the work-life balance that you feel entitled to?

Dani, you said you know how loud your voice can be at the company. So why are you constantly ignoring our grievances? How can you possibly reconcile your claims of advocacy, leading by example, and setting the tone for women at Instacart, with your inaction, sitting idly by while Instacart cuts pay for their predominantly female workforce? How dare you proclaim to be a champion of working mothers when your advocacy begins and ends within Instacart’s corporate walls? Your advocacy and voice mean nothing if you’re not using it to elevate ours.

It cut so deep when you boasted of your sacred phone-free family dinners. We would love the have the privilege and ability to turn our phones off and dedicate our unwavering attention to our families too. You know our ability to do so increasingly slips further and further out of reach, as we work significantly longer and harder to recover from our never-ending wage cuts. The small amounts of time we are afforded with our families are filled with extreme emotional distress due to financial anxiety and insecurity. We share in none of the privileges of your executive salary, your posh home in the Marina, or your predictable pay and ability to protect time in your schedule for your kids. We are happy that your children enjoy the privilege of a mother with a schedule and salary that affords her the ability to read them stories, tuck them in, cook their favorite blueberry waffles and banana pancakes, and foster their brilliance. Do our families not deserve the same?

Instacart has demonstrated at every opportunity possible that they do not respect us. Instacart’s perpetual pay cuts coupled with conditioning customers to provide low or no tip have materially and qualitatively impacted our lives, and by extension the relationships we have with our families in profoundly negative ways. You know damn well, Dani, that every extra batch we have to take, every extra hour of work we put in, comes at the expense of an hour we could be spending with our families. It is our labor and our service that transforms a digital grocery list into the well-stocked fridges and pantries that our customers rely on to feed their families. It is Instacart’s greed that has transformed what was once a livable and sustainable income, into a sub-minimum-wage job we can no longer rely on to feed our own families.

You have been notably quiet as we have pushed back against cut after cut to our pay. While you proudly proclaim yourself an “advocate for a strong and supportive culture for women” in their workplace, Instscart workers are busy advocating for ourselves by planning a protest from November 3–5th. So we ask you: where do your solidarity and advocacy lie? We are extending you this opportunity to regain your “authenticity and follow-through,” and live by your own guiding principle to “mean what you say and say what you mean.” We want nothing but the best for our families too. Will you stand with working mothers that are Shoppers in our demands to eliminate Instacart’s service fee and restore default tipping to at least 10%? Will you be an advocate for us?

Signed,

Instacart Full Service Shoppers,

A Belle Graves

Addison Trice

Airica Haag

Alberta Helen Atkinson

Alicia DiCorcia

Alyson Westpfahl

Alyssa Longobardi

Alyssa Rogers

Amanda Jones

Amanda Llanos-Giovino

Amanda Marsell

Amy Hardin

Amy Karallen

Amy Lothrop

Amy Silverman McCarthy

Andrea Cullens

Angel Ihrig

Angie Cripe Burns

Angie Kufner

Ann Marie Stillman

Annaliisa Amy Arambula

Anne Lorenz-Ray

April Elliott

Artist An

Aryn Grayeski

Ashley Atwood

Ashley Hawkins

Ashley Knudson

Astrid Mills

AT Vallett

Audra Wright

Aurora Knight Sfx

Auset Ma’at Bast

Becky Needham Hebert

Ben Heinlen

Bo Dombroski

Bobbie Vaughan

Bobby Thornton

Bonnie Binger

Brenda Cohen

Britt Adele

Brittany Hubbard

Brittany Trivette

Brittney Nicole Jacques

Cammy Hardwig Thompson

Candy Dellinger Zander

Carla Shepard

Carol Bliss

Carol Chantiny

Carolyn Wilson Phelps

Cassie Chandler Moungey

Cat Wols

Cathy Coleman

Cathy Young

Ceci Letzgus Mellendorf

Cerena Cooper Conrad

Chantel Michael Wise

Charlene Pinney

Chelli Evans Bassler

Chloe Deogaygay

Christina Alexander

Christina L Wideman

Christina O’Connor

Christine Gregory

Christine Swartz Morra

Cindy Meredith

Clarissa Stewart

Cleo Natt

Connie Aguirre Lara

Danielle Bozarth West

Danielle Dassero

Dante Cassius

Danyell Cote-Casciano

Darlene Conner

David Walter

Dawn Clarke

Dawn M Perry Lewis

Deanna Greer Mincher

Deanne Olsen Brown

Debbie Alexander Vincent

Denise Lawrence Clymer

Des Iree

Desiree Mariah Scott

Diana Micire

Diane Hersom

DiAnne Marchese

Dominique Wells

Don Chugg

Donna Dudek Withers

Donna Price

Donna Silva

Dora Margarita Polin

Doshia Eagles

Dru Vega

D’Shace VanTage Driver-Taylor

Elizabeth Inglut

Elizabeth O’Dell

Elle M EssBee

Ellen Rivera

Eric Vallett

Erica Albert

Erica Osborne

Fran Valdes

Galina Ciboch

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Gina Neal

Glen Meyers

Hali Moore

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Heather Bynum

Heather Gilmore

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Iron Rikki

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Jamie AndRichard Aponte

Janelle Galvan

Janet Devers

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Jennifer Kennedy

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Jennifer Marie

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Jennifer Meyers

Jessica Honsinger

Jessica Lebron

Jessica Lewis

Jessica Moyer

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Jill A Gardner

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John Nicks

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Jordan Anderson

Jordan G Kessler

Judy Banks

Julie Lancaster

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Julie Young

Justine Ann

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Kathy Samoun

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Kimmy Nicole

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KJ Doyle

Kristen Price

Kristen White

Kristin Klatkiewicz

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Lala Muhammad

LaTerra Everhart

Latocia Albury

Latoya Thompson

Laura Dudley

Lauretta Nichols

Laurie Campbell

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Lena Jonson

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Litina Jackson

Liz Walton-Antener

Lori Olson

Lori Wiggins

Lori Brejcha

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Mallory O’Neill

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Maria Crawford

Maria Pacheco

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Marquise Gibson

Mary Alexander

Mary Vance Vaughn

Maureen Foote

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Melanie Thompson

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Michael Shawn Reid

Michelle Abriani

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Michelle Lowery

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Monica Charnel

Morgan N’JBright

Natalie La Voie

Natasha Beck-King

Neener Paris

Netty Kock

Nichole Nenninger Parkhill

Nicole Hansen Hembd

Nicole Sheffer

Oscar Lopez

Patricia Dougherty

Paulyn Beyan

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Rachael Kosobucki

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Raquel Arevalo

Raymond Mount

Rebecca Naef Gwaltney

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Rose Tye

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