Instacart will lay off its only unionized workers as part of a plan to destroy nearly 1,900 employees parked in supermarkets across the country.
The grocery delivery company employs several thousand shoppers who send grocery orders to stores to pick them up or deliver them. Unlike the nearly 500,000 independent contractors who collect items from various locations and deliver them to customers.
Instacart revealed plans this week to lay off some 1,877 shoppers in the store as part of a change in the way grocery retailers use their services. The company claims that the affected employees work in stores that will begin using their own employees to fulfill collection orders placed through Instacart.
Among them are 10 shoppers at a Mariano grocery store in Skokie, Illinois, who became the only Instacart employees to join a union last year.
Instacart says the cuts have nothing to do with the fact that workers are unionized. But the move outraged the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents Mariano’s employees and has pushed for stronger protection for grocery store workers during the COVID pandemic. -19.
“Instacart firing the company’s only unionized workers and destroying the jobs of nearly 2,000 front-line workers in the midst of this public health crisis is simply wrong,” said Marc Perrone, the union’s international president. in a statement.
Mariano’s store is one of the properties of supermarket giant Kroger, where some 366 Instacart shoppers will be cut as early as mid-March, according to a letter Tuesday sent to Instacart lawyers at the UFCW.
The San Francisco-based start-up, which is reportedly preparing to go public this year, said the layoffs resulted from retailers’ decisions to fulfill orders with their own workers instead of Instacart .
But it’s also “significantly more expensive based on cost per delivery” for Instacart to use in-store shoppers in certain locations compared to full-service contractors, who can fulfill orders and deliver them instead of picking up items to workers. the store, said attorney Joseph Santucci in his letter to the union.
Instacart says it will transfer laid-off shoppers to other stores where it has open positions or try to help them get hired by the retailer that runs its current store. Those who cut back will receive compensation benefits ranging from $ 250 to $ 750, according to experience, Santucci wrote.
“We know this is an incredibly challenging time for many as we go through the COVID-19 crisis, and we are doing everything we can to help shoppers shop through this transition,” Instacart said in a communiqué.