Instacart Workers Feel Squeezed by Constantly Changing App : NPR
In which we discover once again that the gig economy is just another “disruptive” way to cut workers out of pay, benefits, and stable employment.
But then the app inundated her with orders worth half that, $7 or $9 per delivery. For that money, she was expected to go to the store, shop, fill a cart and deliver an order, sometimes driving 10 or 15 miles.
“I thought, ‘Now listen, this is less than minimum wage you want me to drive [for],’ ” Fortier says. After seven months of working for Instacart in west Michigan, she quit the gig in October.
Millions of Americans like Fortier have counted on platforms like Instacart, DoorDash, Uber or Lyft not just as a service but as a job. Quickly, they find themselves at the mercy of an algorithm — ever-changing pay structures, no assurance of a minimum wage, the smallest tweak of the app capable of upending their livelihoods.
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