Instacart’s at it again.
Ahead of a full Seattle City Council vote on our PayUp policy to raise pay, protect flexibility, & provide transparency to 40,000 gig workers in Seattle, Instacart emailed customers a bunch of vague threats predicting the end times if Seattle passes a minimum wage for gig workers.
Instacart’s latest doomsday prediction.
They warned that prices “could” go up, that stores “may” not be able to deliver food, and that “earnings opportunities” for shoppers “could drop”—all without ever actually mentioning what the PayUp policy does.
That’s because they know they can’t argue against the contents of this bill. Turns out it’s pretty hard to justify paying workers subminimum wages—so they’ve decided to avoid that topic altogether.
Are these tactics sounding familiar? Two years ago, Instacart said nearly the exact same thing, threatening to leave Seattle if hazard pay for gig workers passed.
You almost have to admire the consistency. Back then, the company told customers that access to same-day grocery delivery would somehow be “at risk” if they were required to pay hazard pay to the people delivering groceries during a global pandemic. They even took out a full-page ad in the Seattle Times claiming that having to pay workers a little more would make it “next to impossible” to continue operating.
But lo and behold, two years later, Instacart is still here. Business is still booming—and since hazard pay took effect, they’ve actually expanded their operations in Seattle.
So we’re once again left to wonder: what will Instacart threaten next? And, with their track record, why should anyone believe their threats this time?