Instacart to cut all unionized workers amid large-scale layoffs



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    Clark resident Jen Valencia, center, shops for a customer as she supplements her income working for Instacart at Acme Market on April 27, 2020 in Clark, New Jersey.

Clark resident Jen Valencia, center, shops for a customer as she supplements her income working for Instacart at Acme Market on April 27, 2020 in Clark, New Jersey.
Photo: Michael loccisano (Getty Images)

Instacart has reportedly fired nearly 2,000 in-store shoppers, including all of its employees who voted to unionize last February, a historic first for the grocery delivery platform.

As spotted by Motherboard, Instacart buried the news of the impending layoffs in a blog post Tuesday, describing broader changes in the way the company does business with grocers. As Instacart quickly expanded its business amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, large grocery chains are increasingly using their own employees, as opposed to Instacart’s in-store shoppers, to fulfill orders placed through Instacart’s online platform. Now Instacart says that, among other changes, it is expanding its curbside pickup services to help partner grocers fill in-house orders, and many are converting exclusively to this model called “Partner Pick”.

“As a result of some grocers transitioning to a partner selection model, we will be reducing our in-store operations at some stores over the next few months,” Instacart said. “We know this is an extremely difficult time for many as we navigate the COVID-19 crisis, and we are doing all we can to help in-store shoppers get through this transition.”

Last year, a group of Instacart workers at a Mariano’s grocery store in Skokie, Ill., Decided to unionize by 10 votes to 4, by motherboard. The International Union of Food and Commercial Workers, a group of workers that represents, among others, the unionized workers of Instacart, said Thursday that Instacart had informed the chapter that it was laying off approximately 366 Instacart workers Kroger-owned stores across the country, including those in the Skokie Mariano store.

Instacart is laying off around 1,800 of its 10,000 in-store shoppers across the United States and will offer as little as $ 250 as severance pay, by letter UFCW shared with a labor lawyer representing Instacart.

The company’s decision to lay off its only unionized workers and a slew of frontline workers amid an international pandemic is “simply wrong,” UFCW President Marc Perrone said in a statement.

“As the union of Chicago-area Instacart grocery workers and grocery workers across the country, UFCW calls on Instacart to immediately end these plans and push through the health of their customers first the communities need it the most, ”he said.

Given that unionized workers are already scarce in the odd-job economy, this decision is likely to to discourage workers among other big players like DoorDash, Uber and others who may have sought to form their own unions. Instacart’s only unionized in-store buyers in Skokie were still negotiating their first contract with the company when news of the layoffs hit.

“These layoffs are totally disheartening for all the construction workers who are trying to do something to improve these jobs,” one of these workers told Motherboard on condition of anonymity.

For its part, Instacart says that the choice of its employees to unionize had no influence on its layoff decisions, according to a spokesperson for the company. It’s hard to believe for an obvious reason, especially since the company would have been caught lead an anti-union campaign shortly before the vote in February. Several senior Instacart executives distributed anti-union materials to workers listing propaganda on the impacts of union membership, via motherboard.

Now, less than a year later, those same employees who Realize that these menacing memos are out of work amid a global health crisis. You do the math.

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