After food delivery app cuts pay 30%, thousands of workers call for “Blitz Up” to raise pay
June 15th mobilization by Postmates workers will mark first-ever nationwide action by food delivery workers in the gig economy
After billion-dollar food delivery app Postmates cut pay by 30% and even eliminated a $4-per-job pay guarantee, workers are fighting back & taking action to raise pay. They’re calling it a Blitz Up, and it’s the first-ever nationwide action by food delivery workers in the gig economy.
More than 2,500 Postmates workers have already committed to join the Blitz Up — which is easily critical mass for what's already been called “a brilliant plan” to “turn the quirks of app-based employment against itself”.
Here’s how it’s going to work: workers joining the Blitz Up on June 15th will refuse to accept jobs that do not have extra Blitz pay attached. Blitz mode is like surge pricing — it’s the extra pay Postmates adds to jobs when there aren’t enough drivers taking jobs to meet customer demand. So if enough workers reject jobs that aren’t in Blitz mode, the app will have to go into Blitz mode to make sure customers get their food — meaning workers will literally be able to make Postmates pay more for the day.
Who: Thousands of Postmates workers who recently saw pay cuts of 30% — cuts that were made overnight, and without warning.
What: Join together to raise pay with a nationwide Postmates Blitz Up — a day when workers will refuse jobs that don’t have a Blitz (surge) attached. This will force the app to go into Blitz mode — meaning that workers will literally be able to make Postmates pay more for the day.
When: Saturday, June 15th
All day long on Saturday: Postmates workers Blitz Up — watch the action online at #BlitzUp
Where: Nationwide, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, Charlotte, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Nashville, and many more cities across the country. See map below showing zip codes where workers have already pledged to Blitz Up.
Postmates workers have come together to fight back against low pay with the Blitz Up as part of the Pay Up campaign, which unites gig workers on Instacart, DoorDash, and other platforms around three key demands to reboot the gig economy: a minimum pay floor of $15/hour + expenses for each hour with an active job; tips on top of pay; and a transparent, detailed breakdown of pay.
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Contact: Sage Wilson, Working Washington: sage@workingwa.org
Pay Up is a national effort uniting thousands of workers on Instacart, DoorDash, Postmates, and other platforms to reboot the gig economy with new laws and policies that make these multi-billion-dollar companies pay up. The Pay Up campaign was sparked by Instacart workers who organized to take back their tips & push back against pay cuts, and has been established as a project of Working Washington, a workers’ rights organization based in Seattle that has led numerous groundbreaking efforts to advance labor standards at the local, state, and corporate levels. For more information on Pay Up, visit payup.wtf. For more information about Working Washington, check out workingWA.org