Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/27/instacart-strike-coronavirus.html
“They are putting us directly in harm’s way while profiting greatly. We cannot let this be considered normal.”
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How about people just stop using services driven by gig workers? Is that too much to ask for?
It may be literally a life saver for people at highly at risk groups. However if you are still getting paid & feel that you are at risk and use one of these services, please keep in mind they may not be getting any hazard pay except your tips, so do please tip well (I say this not as a gig worker, but as someone who is still getting full pay, and has two risk factors and isn’t exactly young, I’m tipping 30%, and think the terms of this strike sound reasonable and think they should have already be getting everything they are asking for)
Edit: my wife actually does the ordering, and she informed me that “I” am tipping 30%, not 25%; updated text
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In this specific situation you might end up saving your life by risking that of others.
The gig economy is costing lives even without something like coronavirus going on.
Supporting that kind of exploitation is not good.
We need more communist and socialist parties in the US. We need actual leftism represented.
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What would be more sensible would be to advocate for and enact labor protection laws so it was basically impossible for an unknowing “consumer” to be harming others by going about regular daily business.
I hear what your saying, but it’s the same sort of thinking that lead us to thinking we can convince three hundred million Americans to quit using single-use plastic goods, but we can’t convince society that the manufacturers of those plastic goods, the ones profiting by their sale, should share the responsibility for their proper disposal/recycling.
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Of course you also need to advocate for labor protection laws (which we have here in Germany, and we’re doing just fine, we even have rich people over here). But before those better laws are in place, I think it’s still unethical to use a service once you find out they rely on gig workers. I mean if you advocate against something, why would you support it with your money at the same time?
That reminds me of a funny episode at a previous employer, when there were layoffs happening, but the plant in Germany wasn’t directly affected, because of something involving the workers’ council.
Some of us asked what that was, and our project manager, whohad recently come from Europe, was like:
“You don’t have those here? That explains a lot.”
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