Supposedly today. Can’t blame them for wanting proper protections in place, but it sure puts a hitch in things for a lot of people who can’t go to stores to shop.
We were expecting delivery tomorrow from two different stores in our area. This strike means that we are going to have to forage for ourselves. While some stores here have senior hours, it still means interacting with people and surfaces, so we’ll have to set a procedure for ourselves. I have compromised immunity, so this really gives me pause.
Anybody else going to have problems with this happening?
If they truly aren’t being given adequate protections, no.
In NYC there is this thing, I believe it started in Madrid, where at 7 pm every night people go to their windows and clap and shout in support of the essential workers. My brother lives in Manhattan and last night he said it was like something out of “Network”.
Well, I am sure the workers appreciate it. But they need to be safe and paid more money until this is over.
I think it’s a bad time to be calling a strike. There’s a lot of people who aren’t working their regular job and would be happy to replace the strikers.
I think the Instacart shoppers deserve a pile of money. The demand for shopping services has gone sky high and it is all because we’re all too scared to go shop for ourselves. I don’t see why they don’t add on temporary hazard pay. They can easily pass on the cost to the customer and I don’t think any customers would complain. I certainly wouldn’t. And with demand so high, any customer who walks will be replaced by another eager customer ready to pay the shoppers what they are worth (which is a lot).
We took a delivery yesterday. We had to place the order last Tuesday, and yesterday (Sunday) was the earliest availability. Come on, simple economics. Pay the shoppers more and charge the customers more. We heard about the strike and tipped our shopper more since it educated us on their concerns and we agreed with the shoppers on this one.
Here’s an interview with one of the organizers of the “strike” at Instacart. The BS they are being asked to do is ridiculous and I think they are absolutely right to push back.
If you manage to schedule a delivery, be sure to tip well.
Yeah, I was just thinking about this: delivery services don’t actually reduce the chances of infection and spread of the virus. It just foists the risk from one person to another. It’s probably worth it for some, but maybe not for healthy younger people? Might it be that the better thing for them to do is to grocery shop themselves and leave the delivery for people like the immunocompromised?
It can definitely reduce the chances of infection and spread IF the shoppers are given proper equipment, training, and testing. If everyone does their own shopping, most people won’t have gloves and masks, some won’t be washing their hands properly, and some will even be actively sick. If you centralize that activity with smaller group that has the PPE they need, has training on sanitization, and is being tested, the chances are greatly reduced.
Of course, Instacart is doing none of those things, so you are correct that in its current state, it isn’t helping anyone much other than the immuno-compromised.
By “problems”, I didn’t mean “Does anybody think this is wrong?” I meant, “Is anybody going to have accessibility issues without food delivery?” Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
We did have a couple of insta-cart people at my store today, but mostly it was other shopping/delivery services. There might have been a strike, but it wasn’t universal - which shouldn’t be surprising with “independent contractors” doing the striking.
My employer did raise our pay, will pay for any necessary covid-19 testing, and 2 weeks paid leave for those quarantined or sick and recovering. Which seems a minimum to me. Oh, and lots more cleaning, we all have gloves and sanitizing equipment, and so on.
I thanked a few of the workers in the grocery last weekend for being there. I’ll never take those who work at the store for granted again. Man, if those guys start to fear going to work, or actually stop going to work, my life gets way shittier. Imagine if the grocery store was unavailable for, say, a few months.
I occasionally used Peapod, an online grocery service, but they moved out of Chicago, ironically, right before the virus freakout. Had they stuck around, they would have been quite busy.
People who supply the food, in whatever fashion, should be made to feel like they are appreciated. That means paying them and protecting them as best as is possible.
The way I read your post did seem to be out of character for you.
To your question, I am not sure. I went to the grocery store about a week ago, because I could not get delivery, all booked up for a couple of weeks, at 10 pm and there are very few people there. I stayed 6 feet away from everyone, and used self-checkout.
When I first visited the site, it put a popup in front of the content, and I could not find a way to X out of it. It wasn’t a paywall, but it did ask me to subscribe. I didn’t get a popup when I visited just now.
I briefly looked at InstaCart and made a sample shopping cart. Is it really almost $50 to use the service?? And the pickers/deliverers get $8. Do people really pay $50?
The article must have been updated today. It now says:
It doesn’t look like they mounted much of a strike so it doesn’t look like the strike disrupted services much. From the side of the workers, that might be a bummer. From the side of the customers, business as usual.
No, when I’ve used Instacart, delivery was only $3.99. Additional taxes and fees were probably another $4.00. Then there’s a tip on top of that if you add one. You probably pay about $10 extra on top of the price of your groceries.
