Vegan Instacart Customer? Stand for Worker’s Rights and Ditch the Service

In our world grocery delivery seems like the ideal solution to overflowing schedules. “I can just schedule delivery and my groceries show up at my house?”.

Vegan Instacart deliveries seemed to be the answer to all my prayers.. Until they decided to start abusing their contracted employees, that is. It’s time to stand up to corporate cruelty, we won’t sit by while our communities are mistreated.

Now, I’ve been an Instacart member for almost a year.

What does that mean?

I’ve been paying $35 a month to get nearly free delivery on my groceries.

Considering how busy we are, and how far the closest health-food store is; this was a great deal for our family.

Unfortunately, Instacart found themselves to be the latest company fighting against contracted employees.

Uber, Lyft, Door Dash.. and now Instacart? Why is it these companies feel freelance employees aren’t worth the bare minimum of rights?

A Little History on Instacart and “Contracted Employees” in General

First, we should start by defining what it means to be a contracted employee.

Despite the name, these people aren’t considered employees at all. Instead, they’re referred to the “gig workers” or freelancers of their respective industries.

And, as a freelance photographer myself, I can already tell you: this isn’t going to be a picnic for these workers.

These people, who sometimes work 40+ hours for these companies, have:

No hourly wage

Zero benefits

No legal protection

80¢ wages!?

Is this a third world country we’re talking about?

Nope: we’re talking about the good ‘ole US of A. Where we have a, you know, federal minimum wage.

And yet, these people are somehow exempt from these protective laws?

How?

Uber, Lyft, and other gig companies have convinced us that these people aren’t true employees. Despite working full-time hours, they “make their schedules”, so that disqualifies them.. right?

Wrong.

In fact, California passed a law requiring all “gig companies” to transition their contractors into employees.

But, before the law was even signed, Uber announced it will file a lawsuit to fight the movement.

Worst of all?

Uber “will certainly not treat its drivers as employees.”

And wouldn’t you know it? Lyft, Door Dash, and Instacart have all banned together to fight this new mandate.

How Did Instacart Find Itself Wrapped up in This?

Believe it or not, Instacart has a long history of protests.

The biggest of which, started back in 2018 when Instacart experimented with a new tipping model.

Instead of a guaranteed payout plus tips, the tip was now counted towards your payout minimum.

What did this mean for drivers?

In this example, you can see the customer tipped $10.80.

The minimum payout was supposed to be $10 from Instacart itself.

What happened instead?

They claimed “tips now go toward payout minimums”, so this driver was paid a whopping 80¢ for his 70 minutes of work.

As a result, the media had a field day tearing Instacart apart for this abuse and the company reversed the decision.

One Year Later and They’re Doing What??

Now we find ourselves in the present day.

Instacart shoppers plan a three-day strike to protest the company changing the recommended tip from 10% to 5%.

As the organizers put it:

Strike Organizers You have demonstrated a pattern of behavior as CEO of eviscerating our pay and pirating our tips, […] It would cost you, [Instacart], absolutely nothing to restore our previous tip defaults to at least 10%.

Instacart responded:

Instacart [We have] more than 130,000 shoppers in North America, so it’s a long shot that strike organizers will rally enough people to make a dent in […] business.

So Instacart did the right (and free) thing and restored the tip default to 10%… right? Right!?

In contrast, they took the opposite route and cut shoppers pay further, in what seems to be pure retaliation.

Two days after the strike, Instacart announced it’s removing all bonuses for 5-star reviews.

Previously all shoppers would receive a $3 bonus for every perfect review they scored… Some shoppers argue this change could cut their pay by as much as 40%.

Instacart, however, maintains this isn’t a form of retaliation… Which simply isn’t true.

Sure, they’ve played with the payout system in the past; but every time something was removed, another incentive was put in its place.

“This is the first time they’ve ever been like, ‘We’re taking away something. Bye!’” a company worker said. “What I think they’re trying to do is discourage us from protesting more.”

Vegan Instacart Users Shouldn’t Stand for This Abuse

One Struggle One Fight: Human Freedom Animal Rights

You’re probably wondering: what does this have to do with veganism?

It’s simple: vegans stand for the rights of all living beings (and that includes humans).

You can’t buy vegan items from a company committing these atrocities and call it ethical.

We need to stand up to Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, and now Instacart.

Enough is enough.

“Contracted employees” is a fancy word for an employee. We deserve rights. We deserve fair pay. And we deserve legal protection from corporate cruelty.

From the open letter Instacart workers have posted:

Instacart Workers This is clearly a retaliatory act. The company has made its intentions known — they do not seek to work with us or even attempt to compromise. This is corporate cruelty, plain and simple, with no other explanation. Their only goal was to hurt us.

So, instead of trying to negotiate with evil entities: I cut my ties to Instacart.

I canceled my membership, called for a refund, and let the customer service representative know exactly why I did it.

If Instacart workers can’t convince corporate to treat them better, perhaps their plunging profits will.

Wondering where to do your shopping now? Check out my guide (and price comparison) of vegan-friendly grocery stores here.

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