Comment on Are Instacart tipping reccomendations insane or am I being miserly?
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Fucking insane. Instacart is being miserly by not paying their workers a fair wage.
Just to be clear - tipping culture in restaurants is a big social issue that will be hard to fix… but… Grocery delivery had no tipping culture pre-instacart! They’re just cheap assholes.
Chozo@kbin.social 7 months ago
Instacart is paying their workers fairly. It's just that the driver is not an Instacart worker.
They're not employees, they're contractors. And when you, the customer, place an order, they are now your worker as you've entered into a contract with this person. They aren't working for Instacart or the store, they're working for you. And you're the one who pays for their time and labor, that all comes out of the service charges on your order.
That's how all these apps work. They don't get paid anything by the app, they get paid by you through the app.
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Legally speaking they’re contractors… but I’m calling BS on that - instacart has an immense amount of control over whether they are available, how they perform their job and what their downtime looks like.
You’re absolutely correct in a legal sense but what we call contractors today is completely divorced from the intention.
ericisshort@lemmy.world 7 months ago
This is simply a company using legal distinctions to shift the blame. These delivery drivers should be employees of the company. Besides, tipping is not topical for traditional contractors. Any payment is agreed upon ahead of time in the contract, and payment is made in accordance with said contract. Tips never enter into it.
vithigar@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Tipping food delivery drivers was definitely a thing pre-gig apps. It was quite normal, at least around here, to tip a pizza delivery driver, for example.
ericisshort@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I didn’t say tipping wasn’t a thing for delivery drivers before apps, but it was in no way expected. Del drivers back then were also given a livable base wage and were reimbursed for mileage and gas on their vehicle, which the apps do not do. It was also normal to tip less than 10% of the purchase price for delivery, but the suggested tip values in app are always 10% or more.
What I originally said was tipping is not topical for contract work. There is no other type of contract work where tipping 10-20% is expected other than these types of apps.