Instacart axes 1,900 employees, including its only unionized workers
More On:
layoffs
Job cuts in media topped 30,000 in 2020
US workers file 803K jobless claims as COVID-19 pressures labor market
Marriott axes more than 800 workers at Times Square hotel
Jay Penske’s WWD cuts jobs as DOJ clears his Hollywood Reporter merger
Instacart will lay off its only unionized workers as part of a plan to axe nearly 1,900 employees stationed in supermarkets across the country.
The grocery-delivery firm employs several thousand shoppers who pack grocery orders at stores for pickup or delivery. That’s unlike the roughly 500,000 independent contractors who pick up items from various locations and deliver them to customers.
Instacart revealed plans this week to lay off some 1,877 of those in-store shoppers as part of a shift in how grocery retailers use its services. The affected staffers work at stores that will start using their own employees to fulfill pickup orders placed through Instacart, the company says.
Among them are 10 shoppers at a Mariano’s grocery store in Skokie, Illinois who became the only Instacart employees to join a union last year.
Instacart says the cuts had nothing to do with the fact that the workers are unionized. But the move outraged the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents the Mariano’s staffers and has pushed for stronger protections for grocery workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Instacart firing the only unionized workers at the company and destroying the jobs of nearly 2,000 dedicated frontline workers in the middle of this public health crisis, is simply wrong,” Marc Perrone, the union’s international president, said in a statement.
The Mariano’s store is one of several owned by supermarket giant Kroger where some 366 Instacart shoppers will be cut as soon as mid-March, according to a Tuesday letter Instacart’s lawyers sent to the UFCW.
The San Francisco-based startup — which is reportedly preparing to go public this year — said the layoffs resulted from retailers’ decisions to fulfill orders with their own workers rather than Instacart’s.
But it’s also “significantly more expensive on a cost-per-delivery basis” for Instacart to use in-store shoppers in certain places compared to its full-service contractors, who can both fulfill orders and deliver them rather than picking items up from the store-based workers, lawyer Joseph Santucci said in his letter to the union.
Instacart says it will transfer laid-off shoppers to other stores where it has positions open or try to help them get hired by the retailer that runs their current store. Those who are cut will get severance payments ranging from $250 to $750 depending on experience, Santucci wrote.
“We know this is an incredibly challenging time for many as we move through the COVID-19 crisis, and we’re doing everything we can to support in-store shoppers through this transition,” Instacart said in a statement.
Share this article:
Source: Read Full Article
