Some Instacart and Amazon Workers Stay Home, Calling for More Pay in Coronavirus Pandemic
March 30 2020 - 5:55PM
Dow Jones News
By Jaewon Kang and Sebastian Herrera
Some delivery and supermarket workers are staying home to draw
attention to requests for better pay and added protections against
the risks they face as the coronavirus pandemic intensifies.
Some Instacart Inc. workers on Monday declined to accept orders
and asked customers not to place them. More than 50 workers at
Amazon's Staten Island fulfillment center left work, according to
Athena, a coalition that represents Amazon workers. And some
workers at Whole Foods Market, Amazon's natural grocery chain, said
they planned to call in sick on Tuesday, according to a petition
they posted online.
Orders for groceries and other consumer goods have surged as
more people stay home to mitigate the risk of contracting or
spreading the virus. That is straining the capacity of delivery
services and raising pressure on companies to add pay and
protections for couriers.
Sarah Polito, an organizer of the Instacart strike who said she
has delivered groceries for the company for nearly two years, said
she and fellow workers are asking for hazard pay of $5 per order, a
default tip of 10% and sick pay.
"We're being treated as employees but not getting paid as such,"
Ms. Polito said.
An Instacart spokeswoman said the company is committed to
offering its workers a safe, flexible way to earn money. She said
the strike didn't affect its operations and there were 40% more
couriers active on its platform on Monday compared with a week
earlier.
The San Francisco company, which has a workforce of about
200,000, many of them contract workers, said it is providing
disinfectants to its couriers. On Sunday, it introduced a feature
that sets a default suggested tip based on a customer's most recent
order.
Ms. Polito, who lives in Newark, N.Y. and runs a clothing
business, said working for Instacart has become more grueling in
recent weeks, as average orders have roughly doubled in size to
some 30 items. She said she often fills three orders at a time. She
also said she feels work is becoming more risky, as confirmed cases
of the virus multiply.
"Every time I go into a store, my stomach turns into a knot,"
she said.
Tia Schellstede, a television editor who lives in Brooklyn,
N.Y., placed her first Instacart order last week and canceled a
second order on Monday, after reading about the strike on social
media.
"I don't want to go to the grocery store," Ms. Schellstede said.
"If Instacart meets the worker demands, I will place an order
immediately."
At Whole Foods, a group representing workers that say they plan
to call in sick on Tuesday is asking for paid leave for all workers
who must isolate or self-quarantine as a result of the pandemic,
and health-care coverage for part-time and seasonal workers.
A Whole Foods spokeswoman said the company has taken measures to
keep its workers safe, such as deep-cleaning stores and mandating
social distancing between people in its stores.
Amazon has said more than 2,000 people work at the
855,000-square-foot Staten Island fulfillment center where workers
walked out Monday.
Dania Rajendra, director at Athena, which represents Amazon
workers, said workers at the Staten Island facility aren't being
given adequate cleaning supplies or enough time to wash their
hands, and that the company hasn't properly enforced social
distancing measures.
"They are not able to take their public responsibility of social
distancing seriously because Amazon won't let them," Ms. Rajendra
said.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company has "taken extreme
measures to keep people safe, tripling down on deep cleaning,
procuring safety supplies that are available, and changing
processes to ensure those in our buildings are keeping safe
distances." The company said it has also added daily temperature
screenings at the warehouse.
The facility is one among at least 15 Amazon warehouses
throughout the country where at least one worker has tested
positive for the virus or been placed in quarantine, according to
the company. Amazon workers in cities such as Chicago and New York
have called on Amazon to close any warehouse where a worker has
tested positive and send workers home with full pay.
Amazon has said any facility with at least one confirmed case is
temporarily closed for cleaning and reopens once the process is
over.
Since the pandemic began, Amazon has extended unlimited unpaid
time off to employees through April and raised hourly pay for
workers in the U.S. and Canada by $2. The company has also said
that any employee who shows symptoms or is diagnosed with Covid-19,
or who is placed in quarantine, is eligible for up to two weeks of
paid time off.
Write to Jaewon Kang at jaewon.kang@wsj.com and Sebastian
Herrera at Sebastian.Herrera@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 30, 2020 17:40 ET (21:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024