
A group called the Gig Workers Collective called for a nationwide walk-out to be held on March 30. In response to the work stoppage, Instacart has told journalists, “We take the feedback of the shopper community very seriously and remain committed to listening to and using that feedback to improve their experience.” The feedback seems pretty clear: Change your app. Instacart workers threatened to strike on Madue to a lack of COVID-19 safety measures. Since Instacart has no interest in treating its shoppers as full-time, salaried workers-and is seeking an exemption to a new California law that would classify many gig-economy workers as employees-its delivery people are vulnerable to things like small changes in interface design. On Saturday, some Instacart shoppers will go on strike, protesting the company’s low pay and lack of communication with its laborers. “One of the things we know from behavioral econ and from experimental psychology is that when you provide choices, whatever is the middle option is what most consumers gravitate toward.” There are other ways to design user interfaces that actually encourage people to tip more, Strahilevitz said, like showing consumers an option of tipping, 15, 18, or 20 percent on an order-similar to how Lyft and the payment service Square show customers multiple options.
#Instacart strike drivers
In another case, two identical orders both paid the drivers $10, despite one receiving a $2 tip and another receiving a $6 tip. In one instance posted on the website of Working Washington, a labor organizing group, an Instacart shopper shared how they made $10.80 total on an order where the customer tipped $10. Law360 (August 19, 2022, 10:03 PM EDT) - Instacart has agreed to pay 1.8 million to the District of Columbia to settle claims it charged customers millions of dollars in deceptive service fees. On Reddit and in private Facebook groups, shoppers started to commiserate. But in 2018, the company tweaked its policy again, guaranteeing a minimum base payment of $10 per order but also counting customer tips toward that base. After shopper outcry, Instacart reintroduced tipping as an option to add after the order was complete. In 2016, the app took away tipping entirely, replacing it with a 10 percent service fee, and told customers that this change would be offset by increasing the commissions shoppers made. Since then, the platform has made all kinds of tweaks that have confused both shoppers and customers.

Back in 2015, the platform suggested customers tip the app’s gig workers 10 percent, according to Vanessa Bain, who started delivering for Instacart that year and is one of the current strike’s lead organizers. Instacart’s tipping policies have irked its shoppers for years.
