Instacart is an app-based grocery delivery service, in the same family as Uber, Lyft, and Waitr. These “gig economy” companies misclassify most of their employees as private contractors, enabling them to deny workers a living wage and benefits. But workers in this sector are fighting back.
A group of part-time Instacart employees in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, voted to unionize early in February. They are hooking up with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1546 so that they can begin fighting for a contract. This is a landmark vote, as this will be the first time that workers have been able to form a union in a tech company that relies primarily on “contract labor.”
Alongside other companies such as Uber and Lyft, Instacart is currently challenging California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), a law recently passed that would make it more difficult for companies to misclassify workers as contractors. This law would also allow many more workers to unionize which is another reason the companies oppose it so fiercely.
By putting pressure on the bosses, gig workers are starting to win some recognition of their long overdue rights.