[HN Gopher] Instacart to cut 1,900 jobs, including its only unio... ___________________________________________________________________ Instacart to cut 1,900 jobs, including its only union roles Author : Jerry2 Score : 142 points Date : 2021-01-21 19:23 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com) | thismodernlife wrote: | I don't know much about Instacart as I live in Scotland but what | they have done (Andrew Kane in particular) for the Ruby on Rails | community through their open source is incredible. Kudos. | jherdman wrote: | I wasn't aware they had done anything. Do you have an article | on the matter? | thismodernlife wrote: | Check out their GitHub | | https://github.com/instacart | sct202 wrote: | tldr; Instacart is shifting work to the grocery store's employees | to pick and pack grocery orders instead of having Instacart | employees do it. | | FWIW, the union referenced is at a Marianos, and Marianos (and | all Kroger owned groceries) are unionized already. So the work is | shifting from one union to another union. | dfxm12 wrote: | _Instacart Inc. is cutting about 1,900 employees' jobs ... as the | company seeks to boost its ranks of contract workers._ | | It's important to note that "employees", in the US, are entitled | to benefits [0] that "contractors" aren't. As more and more | employers try to glorify the gig economy or fire employees in | favor of contractors, it is more important than ever to make sure | that critical benefits, especially affordable health coverage, | are uncoupled from employment status. | | 0 - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- | finance/12091... | worik wrote: | It should be that if: | | * All your work is for one firm | | * You use their tools and/or premises to do the work | | * You have no realistic opportunity to work some where else - | either a restriction in your contract or due to the hours that | you work | | Then no matter what it says on your contract you are a | employee. | | That used to be the law in Aotearoa for everybody. But when | Peter Jackson turned rouge they changed the law, personally for | him and Warner Brothers, to take those rights from people | working on films. And computer games. | | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nz-government-changes... | | Treating people as interchangeable parts, like machines, is | simply evil. | snarf21 wrote: | You missed the ability to negotiate the price of your work | and not face consequences for not taking jobs that pay less. | JohnGB wrote: | That is essentially how it works in many European countries, | but even stricter. In the Netherlands for example, if 70%+ of | your work is for a single employer and the number of hours is | above some reasonable threshold, then you're an employee. | klmadfejno wrote: | There was a time when janitors were employees. They're not | INDEPENDENT contractors, but they're still filling a much | shittier niche than in decades prior. Mostly we just need | labor protection laws in general and non-employer provided | health care I'd say. | raylad wrote: | One effect of your 3rd point is that companies decide to | reduce the number of hours they offer to employees to keep | them just under whatever threshold is created. | | This happened in NYC with adjunct professors years ago, | according to one of my friends who was working as one. If | they wanted to avoid paying benefits they had to reduce the | number of hours per semester, and it became uneconomical to | keep doing the job for him since the amount of preparation | was almost the same but the pay was much reduced. | clairity wrote: | that's why functions in any public policy should be | continuous to remove obvious points of stress and leverage | used for gaming the system. federal income tax is this way, | even as the derivative function, tax rate, is discontinous | (bracketed). | Pet_Ant wrote: | Wouldn't a simple fix be to say that if you have two part | time positions at the same time for the same skill set you | must merge them into a single full time one. | | Sure, it's heavy handed, but if they are gonna play games | we can't leave things to trust and common sense. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | What do you mean by "merge" them? Have two employees | (more accurately, 4 part-time 29.5-hour employees doing | the work of 3 full-time 40-hour employees) share | benefits: "You get health insurance this month and I get | it next month, you can contribute to your 401k this month | and I can next month" kind of thing? Or prohibit you from | hiring more than 3 'unnecessary' part-time employees? | | I'm abundantly familiar with the sort of antics that are | involved. For another example, my wife used to work in | childcare. To cover 8 classrooms Monday to Friday from | 7:30 to 5:30 with at least one lead and one aide, plus | two floaters (900 hours per week) they employed | approximately 36 part-time workers (several were high | school/college study programs working 16 or 24 hours per | week) and no full-time workers. You're suggesting that | they should be mandated to instead hire 24 full-time | workers and pay benefits? | | In actuality, every teacher and aide except the owners | used to be mandated to work no more than 29.5 hours per | week. You often had short stints of working from after | nap time at 2pm to 5:30pm just so that you could make | hours (which sucked when she was driving 30 minutes at | 16mpg to make $10.75/hour with gas at $4/gallon). Some | people got scheduled mornings, some got afternoons, but | you didn't dare come in for a full day because then | they'd have to give benefits. It was amazing how paranoid | and irate the front office would get at 5:31pm when | couple parents were late for pick-up and they had to keep | staff around for more than their scheduled hours. If | anyone hit more than 30 hours, they'd shuffle the | schedule so they were no longer working afternoon shifts | that might go long, and this was all complicated by | frequently requested shift trades among the underpaid and | underemployed people involved; you weren't allowed to | cover for anyone if you'd gone over 30 hours in any of | the previous 4 weeks. And it was a nightmare for anyone | who tried to have a second job that might need you | between 7:30 and 5:30, you wouldn't know for sure until | Friday night what you'd be asked to work Monday morning. | And they weren't just turning screws in a factory, this | also had negative effects on the kids they were teaching | when they'd wake up from nap time to find a relative | stranger watching them. | | Given the demographic, they much preferred shuffling | around colorful magnets on a calendar to spreadsheets or | databases, and there was a lot of shuffling indeed. But | I'd hate to imagine what it would be like to code an | automated time clock for that byzantine system...it would | be generous to call it a game. | ghufran_syed wrote: | how exactly would you "merge" them? | Pet_Ant wrote: | Bundle the hours and responsibilities into a single full- | time position. | | I mean if you have first-year "Introduction to | Algorithms" as a PT, and another PT "Introduction to | NetWorking" then they can easily be taught by a single | person. Create an FT where the job is to teach both. | lacker wrote: | What I have seen is jobs limited to weird amounts like 29 | hours a week. You can't really combine two of those into | one 58-hour-a-week position. | 0xfaded wrote: | This was done in the UK and parts of Europe basically to | appease the taxman. | | See https://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/ir35 | | The consequence, as partially intended, is that companies are | hesitant to work with individual contractors. The problem is | that if you want to start a consultancy, you're going to have | a fun time finding your first client. | | The correct solution is to decouple employment from | taxation/benefits/pension/health-care/everything. | stevesearer wrote: | We employ people that work less than 5 hours/week who get to | make their own schedule and work from their homes. Even | though all of them have other jobs and use it as a small side | hustle, we still classify them as employees. | | Many people choose to forget that there is such a thing as a | part-time employee. | amanzi wrote: | I think your third point is key. For the first two points I | believe that you can still be a contractor if you are | choosing to do all your work for one firm and you're using | their tools and premises to do the work. | lacker wrote: | _You have no realistic opportunity to work some where else - | either a restriction in your contract or due to the hours | that you work_ | | I think this part would need to be more specific. A while ago | I worked as a low level employee at the Gap in Boston, and | the rules were that nobody could work more than 29 hours per | week so that nobody was categorized as full time, but you | also had to be available whenever you were scheduled. | However, many people had two jobs, despite this restriction. | They would be asking other employees to swap shifts every | week and sometimes failing but usually making it work. | Nowadays, with Uber, it's a lot easier to fill in an extra 15 | hours a week that you'd like to work. So who could really | claim to have "no realistic opportunity to work somewhere | else" if any odd hours could be filled as an Uber driver or | similar gig worker? | | It's important to recognize that the different ways of | scheduling part time work are really different. 20 hours a | week that is mandated with three days notice by your employer | really sucks. 20 hours a week that you choose with the Uber | app is far better. | a_wild_dandan wrote: | Yeah, how do we get more specific here? I had a few ideas, | but they all seemed similarly nebulous or else might create | suspicious discontinuities. [1] | | I wonder if categorizing contractors v. employees is like | recognizing porn. "I know it when I see it" says Justice | Stewart. | | 1. https://danluu.com/discontinuities/ | Sparkyte wrote: | No one listened when I said Prop 22 is going to backfire hard. | Bet the 1900 jobs are in California alone. | ppeetteerr wrote: | There are advantages in countries with socialized healthcare to | be an independent contractor (e.g. Canada). In the US, not so | much. | e40 wrote: | ... and if any of these contractors are in CA, then they (edit | to add this: Instacart) will likely be sued by the EDD. The EDD | would view this as a blatant way to get out of paying benefits | (which it does appear to be). | darkwizard42 wrote: | It isn't at all though if you read the article. They are | instead partnering with stores to have the store employees | fill orders from Instacart instead of Instacart's employee | "shoppers." | | The model of Instacart has evolved, it went from any shopper | going into any store and getting you what you need to having | the stores actually be in on it and using Instacart as an | extension to increase demand and orders (think how DD | partners with restaurants for delivery vs. the old Postmates | model where they could just send someone in to order your | food for you) | s3r3nity wrote: | I'm not sure why the onus is on the business here, rather than | the individual: when deciding to be a "contractor" vs. | "employee," I should & do take those risks and decisions into | account, and weigh the trade-offs. | | You want 401k match and other nice benefits? Then become a | full-time employee somewhere. You like more flexibility and | independence, given the trade-offs? Then go with independent | contracting. | Finnucane wrote: | The whole point of the sharecropper economy is to make it so | a lot of people don't really have much choice. | pfooti wrote: | Because, given the opportunity and no regulation, companies | will always push to make all employees contractors. | Independent contractors represent a significantly lower | liability on the balance sheets. Except that those lower | liabilities are just externalizing the cost of employment to | other systems (health and unemployment insurance, etc). If we | don't regulate corporations, they will just race to the | bottom in how they treat labor. | s3r3nity wrote: | I'll grant that I agree this is probably true for low- | skilled labor where supply is high and interchangeable. | | I don't think this is the case for low-supply, high-skill | labor (ex: doctors, engineers, etc.) as well as certain | low-supply trades (HVAC, welders, etc.) Then bargaining | power can properly counteract any such forces. | HarryHirsch wrote: | Acting is certainly a high-skill profession, but even the | in-demand ones are members of the Screen Actors Guild. | They know why it's a good idea. | worik wrote: | "low-supply, high-skill labor (ex: doctors, engineers, | etc.)" | | Doctors, I know, have powerful unions and associations. | Very, very, powerful. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | This is absolutely true for engineers. While I did have | employer provided healthcare, I was hired as a contract | worker at Google X on their flagship robotics research | project as a mechatronics prototype engineer and later a | test engineer. I worked for two years alongside full time | employees on the same exact things as full time | employees. But they got stock, parties, and other special | treats that contractors did not. Almost 50% of the team - | I think the legal limit - were contractor roles. | | While I do appreciate that from their perspective it | makes sense, it is also true that if we don't fight to | protect workers, all jobs will go this way. That's | actually why what an up-thread comment said is a great | idea. If we decouple important things like healthcare | from employment, then everyone gets important quality of | life care without employers having to restrict benefits. | If we do not fight for ourselves, we will end up in a | situation where most people cannot access the basic | necessities of life. Already in the US millions of | Americans are without healthcare. | makoz wrote: | What do you think about sports leagues and the fact that | the major ones in US have unions for their players? (low | supply, high demand) | glitchc wrote: | The AMA is a union in all but name [1] and quite powerful | [2]: | | _By money spent, the AMA is the nation's third largest | lobbying organization of the last 20 years, behind only | the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association | of Realtors._ [1] | | [1] | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/09/03/the- | doct... | | [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/06 | /why-we... | esoterica wrote: | What does lobbying have to do with whether or not an | organization is a union? The Chamber of Commerce | obviously isn't a union. | bazooka_penguin wrote: | American software engineers should form a special | interest group. Not sure why so many people are resistant | to the idea. Lobbies too. Its strange that an otherwise | left leaning demographic acts virtually conservative when | it really counts towards their labor | | Edit for word choice | splistud wrote: | Perhaps. But also, given the regulation, you remove | opportunity for those that are looking for the type of | employment you discredit from accepting it from employers | that want to offer it. I very much appreciate the ability | to step into the gig economy when I need to. I assume you | mean well, but I wish you and other's who agree with you | would kindly butt out and let me make my own decisions. | SwiftyBug wrote: | If only it was a matter of choice rather than a very planned | uberization of the workforce. | splistud wrote: | If only you could come reasonably close to proving that. | | Let's say you were correct. Want to stop it? Regulation is | just a wall with holes. The only way to stop it is to | reduce the labor force. | | If this is actually a plan, it's conception requires that | the labor force is going to expand rapidly. In a tighter | labor market, companies are much better off locking up | labor rather than nickel and diming costs. So any said evil | plan is an add-on to opening the gates to immigration, both | legal and illegal. | heavyset_go wrote: | The point is that companies are eliminating full-time | employment roles for employees and replacing them with roles | for contractors. That means there are less full-time | employment opportunities for W-2 employees, and an increasing | amount of roles for 1099 contractors. | rossdavidh wrote: | Speaking as a person who intentionally chooses to be a | contractor, and refuses offers of permanent employment | because I prefer to be a contractor, I respectfully disagree. | I have these options because being a computer programmer | (lately) gives me options. In any occupation where it is a | "buyer's market", the employee has no such option. | | Now, whether things like healthcare and retirement should be | linked to employment in the first place, is a real and valid | question. But currently it is, and the distinction between | "employee" and "contractor" seems bogus in a lot of cases. | willcipriano wrote: | When you say it gives you more flexibility do you mind if I | ask what do you mean? | | I'm in the US and generally my employment has been at will, | either of us are free to end the arrangement at any time. | Having a specific date where that arrangement ends doesn't | seem to be more flexible, if I wanted to leave in a month I | would just give my notice and leave. | | I'm in the same position as you career wise and I often get | offers to join contract roles and they are very unappealing | to me. When I do the math on the benefits I'd lose out on | and the additional taxes, rarely are these offers | competitive let alone when I factor in the greater | volatility inherent in the arrangement and the lack of | unemployment benefits. Also in my experience the recruiters | pushing the contract roles are the most desperate and | aggressive, that doesn't lead me to believe these roles are | all that high quality. | lacker wrote: | Maybe one month you want to work 40 hours a week, the | next you want to work 20 hours a week, the next you want | to work 40 again. That's quite hard to arrange with a | traditional job, but often possible with contract work. | Especially when you work somewhere that has a few | contractors doing similar stuff and you can just arrange | amounts of work between you and your peers. | nicbou wrote: | I'm not OP, and I live in a different country, but my | answer is unlimited vacation between contracts. Software | development contracts cover my yearly expenses in 3 | months. I have the rest of the year to myself if I want | to. | wonderwonder wrote: | I just transitioned to contract based. The pay is | significantly higher than if I was a salaried employee. | In addition all of my salary comes to me, pre tax. This | allows me greater flexibility regarding what I do with my | $. For example I will use all income in the first half of | the year to pay off all of my debt (2 cars, credit cards | and money down for a house refinance). The second half of | the year I will save for taxes and at that stage my | overall monthly bills are massively lower. I get my | health insurance via my wife who is salaried. In addition | it allows me to write off a lot of things for taxes. | Getting paid through my company gives a lot of tax | benefits. | | The contract is for a year, with the option to extend. | The job I just left was salaried but actively laying | people off. So while both positions have risk, the | contracted one provides a much higher income and | flexibility to use it as I see fit. Plus any work I do on | the weekend for the contract position is paid, as a | salaried employee its not. | mjcohen wrote: | Key point: "I get my health insurance via my wife who is | salaried." | | What if you had to provide your own health insurance? | rootusrootus wrote: | Would you mind sharing why you prefer to be a contractor? | true_religion wrote: | Because they don't give you that flexibility. They require a | high number of working hours to stay in the system, and | require you to work peak hours anyways. | | No one really gains as a contractor working 39 hours a week | without benefits. | vladojsem wrote: | i am really curious about the labor market in the few months. | especially here in eu, the companies were holding their | employees due to state subventions. that can end up badly when | it is over. | theinverseidea wrote: | I always get a kick when businesses do exactly what the numbers | said they would do and other people act surprised. | jasonshaev wrote: | To be fair, there were only TEN unionized employees at | Instacart who were let go (out of 1900 jobs cut). With such a | small percentage of the workforce unionized, it's highly | unlikely those employees enjoyed any additional bargaining | power or job security that could result from having a | significant fraction of the workforce unionized. | | With such a small fraction I don't think you can draw | conclusions in either direction. | | [edit] In other words: these employees would have lost their | job regardless of their union status [/edit] | tyingq wrote: | _" In other words: these employees would have lost their job | regardless of their union status"_ | | 10 unionized employees out of thousands isn't enough critical | mass to count as a union for the things that matter. The | power is in numbers. | ardy42 wrote: | > 10 unionized employees out of thousands isn't enough | critical mass to count as a union for the things that | matter. The power is in numbers. | | That may be so, but laying off those 10 could be a strategy | to kill the union in the crib by keeping the number from | ever getting to the thousands. Employees faced with future | unionization votes may vote against the union _because they | 're afraid management will find a way to lay them all off | if they vote for it_, before they're strong enough to | resist. | jasonshaev wrote: | I agree (hence my original statement: "With such a small | percentage of the workforce unionized, it's highly unlikely | those employees enjoyed any additional bargaining power or | job security that could result from having a significant | fraction of the workforce unionized. With such a small | fraction I don't think you can draw conclusions in either | direction.") | | However I then, uh, went on to draw a conclusion anyway in | contradiction of my own statement saying we shouldn't draw | conclusions because of the sample size. Methinks it's time | for more coffee :). | [deleted] | theinverseidea wrote: | Oh I was referring to the unions and the other job losses as | well -- I cant imagine the new federal minimum wage makes it | easier to employ an army of low wage workers who can come and | go at will. | moate wrote: | >>In other words: these employees would have lost their job | regardless of their union status | | IDK that we can make that assumption. Instacart management | has made themselves out to be anti-unionization (a common | view by management in the US). If you're an anti-union | manager, and you're about to make a massive, 2,000 person | layoff declaration, you're going to make sure the unionized | group of 10 people is on that list. Can't let that sort of | thought spread to other locations, and this serves as a good | example to those trying to organize in the future. It's easy | to avoid a NLRB loss if you bust the union as part of a | larger layoff. | | The only thing that would have been telling is if they had | announced a huge layoff and NOT taken out the union shop. | jasonshaev wrote: | You're right -- my last statement was a bit too much of a | leap. In this case I wonder if it would have even mattered | if a significant percentage of the workforce was unionized. | moate wrote: | It might have. Unions are political forces. You get a few | thousand people calling and screaming at politicians and | news outlets to create a negative stink about it, maybe | the company looks at other ways to make themselves more | financially healthy. I'm not saying it would, just that | it could. That's a big part of the appeal of a union, | having a group of people with diverse backgrounds and | experiences able to bring those backgrounds to the table | to help in fights against management. | xrd wrote: | From what I understand from these comments, it sounds like | Instacart is going to leverage labor at union staffed stores, | like Kroger, to fulfill on its business opportunities. | | This seems like a clever form of arbitrage, or shall we call it, | disruption? | | Is this the new frontier (or perhaps I'm just late to the game in | understanding it) where larger online businesses (like Amazon) | shift away from full time employment (with the costs associated | with it) and let some other "local" or "brick and mortar" legacy | businesses try to keep those employees with living wages and | healthcare employed while those same "frenemies" (purchasing from | them, but also competing with them) avoid those costs? | | I spoke to an accountant friend the other day who works for a | local independent grocery store. They are really trying to keep | their low wage workers on payroll, despite having revenues cut in | half because of COVID. Everyone is shopping at Amazon+WholeFoods. | If those workers lose their jobs, will they be homeless? I don't | think consumers care or think about them, even though they might | be their neighbors. | darkwizard42 wrote: | Less arbitrage and more benefit to Instacart/the stores. | | Who probably knows a store better: random Instacart shopper or | employee of the store? | | In the end, Instacart gets faster fulfillment and more accurate | fulfillment for a price (whatever cut Kroger etc. take to do | this). The stores get direct access to the order data and can | then stock their stores better, capture the extra demand, and | keep their employees engaged in revenue generating work | (Instacart probably pays the store for this service of in-house | shopping) | adamcstephens wrote: | Not all positions at Kroger are unionized. | | Amazon already outsources like this for last mile deliveries. | windthrown wrote: | Keep in mind that after Prop 22 in California, some grocery | chains (Vons, Albertsons) are replacing their employees with | contractors: | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/06/vons-albe... | [deleted] | HarryHirsch wrote: | Dumb question: is this in any way related to California | Proposition 22? | bbatsell wrote: | It is entirely due to Prop 22. | s3r3nity wrote: | The article loosely hints at this context, but provides no | evidence either way. | | Looking at Instacart revenue / margin numbers, they hit | profitability _for the first time ever_ in April 2020 alongside | the COVID pandemic. Further, margins are CRAZY THIN - meaning | maintaining profitability is really difficult in an environment | of increasing competition from Uber / Google, among others. | (Ex: Uber bought Postmates, as the latter had similar margin | difficulties.) | | My read is that this type of move was planned as an option for | Instacart for a while, and Prop 22 maybe pushed up the timeline | slightly. | | EDIT: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. I know the article | tries to build this narrative as much as possible (without even | mentioning Prop 22) but then doesn't even provide the financial | details that show that Instacart has really tight margins - and | if they're trying to IPO, at this rate they're going to stumble | there. | huac wrote: | The article doesnt mention Prop 22 by name but the last | paragraph is very clearly about Prop 22 | | > San Francisco-based Instacart and other gig companies | including Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. last year | bankrolled a successful $200 million campaign to pass a | California ballot measure exempting them from a state law | declaring workers were employees if they did work in the | "usual course" of their bosses' business. Emboldened by that | victory, the companies are pushing for similar changes | elsewhere that would make it easier to claim workers are | contractors. | s3r3nity wrote: | Completely agree, but I would argue that the article is a | bit deceptive in that it's trying to build that context | without any evidence or data that this is the driver for | Instacart's move. | | correlation <> causation, etc. etc. | kirillzubovsky wrote: | At the end of the day, the people will get hired back by somebody | who needs their groceries delivered. Meanwhile, this makes Insta | more of a software company, and lets the stores deal with hiring. | | The market is going to love this because it will de-risk | Instacart. Grocery stores should love this because they will be | able to increase utilization of their employees. And of course | employees, despite the popular narrative, will actually gain more | power because they would have more localized work, and less | competition. It's a win-win-win. | breck wrote: | I would love to live in a world where we do away with the term | "employee". | | Where people were just part of a team. | | Where your boss didn't have to be concerned with which doctor you | went to. | | Where you could work for $5 an hour for a cause you believed in, | and not have to worry about making ends meet. | | Some day we need to #RefactorAmerica. | hising wrote: | Read about them earlier today, they are getting ready for IPO. | Can't help to think news like this has to do with building a | better offer. The market likes these kind of news. | petra wrote: | The future of grocery pickup delivery is clearly automated - | automated warehouse , and as we start seeing , automated | delivery robots. | | What value does Instacart offer in the world ? Why would people | want to buy their stock ? | halfdan wrote: | Look, we're profitable after firing half our workforce!!! | dfxm12 wrote: | _The market likes these kind of news._ | | When someone points to a rising stock market as possible | evidence of a strong economy, just keep in mind that the market | likes it when a company fires a ton of employees. | vmception wrote: | Jobs for the sake of bragging about how many people are | employed is just as useless. | | Do what helps you make revenue, don't do what doesn't. | | I am a fan of one-off utility of people, I think of | everything like a commissioned trip to a new continent. Take | risk, get the gold, return, distribute payments, disband. | Reach out again if there is a similar project. | | Keeping people around for no reason is folly and merely | trendy. | vkou wrote: | > Jobs for the sake of bragging about how many people are | employed is just as useless. | | They aren't useless in a society where the only means of | survival is having a job. | | In fact, in a society where the only means of survival is | having a job, part of the social contract is 'everyone | should be able to get a job'. Otherwise, you may get to | meet a lot of angry, desperate people, with nothing to | lose. | vmception wrote: | Yeah we should fix that and is a separate issue. | | Vilifying a corporation that suddenly remembered they | have a lot of random people don't help generate revenue | is odd. Similarly, assuming distress of a corporation | when they remember to cut its workforce is just as odd. | Its probably an _accurate_ assumption, it just doesn 't | have to be and it would make more sense for corporations | to be more nimble. | kansface wrote: | Jobs aren't useless, but a job can produce net negative | value. Consider other politically mandated jobs like gas | station attendants in Oregon. These sorts of jobs (and | the government guaranteeing a job for everyone) are | downright dystopian - and further still, I can't imagine | the path to a healthy society. | vkou wrote: | A lot of jobs produce net negative value, but the guy who | pumps my gas, or the Wal-Mart greeter isn't at the front | of that list. The guy who cold-calls me with | telemarketing crap would be, though. | | Everyone having an opportunity for employment is not | dystopia. A real dystopia is when you have no good social | safety net, but also have a large, unemployed underclass, | which has no ability to make a living for themselves. | triceratops wrote: | > I think of everything like a commissioned trip to a new | continent | | It's a great model for the exploration business (or fields | similar to it, such as construction projects, entertainment | production and so on). It's not applicable to every single | industry though. | vmception wrote: | I think of all software projects like this. | | I view the Instagram purchase as the most correct | example. 30 employees and bought out for 1 billion. | | I know so many investors and founders that are shy of | certain dollar figures solely because there aren't like | 1000 people involved or some other arbitrary number of | employees or personnel. Compared to the most accurate | question "can I make a return on this amount of money, | and what are those probabilities". | | Obviously there also are founders and investors that do | ask the most accurate question, and they grow in number. | | It does aggravate me to see this other slower moving | culture with irrelevant perceptions of reality based on | how many employees a company has. It seems rooted in a | prosperity philosophy, where wealth accumulation is | granted by compliance with morality, and high employment | numbers satisfy that morality. And its like, wow how many | times does that have to be disproven to those people, | aren't they adults? | aklemm wrote: | While I like and use Instacart, the model is wrong. I am paying | too much for a slightly unreliable service and the employees | aren't getting paid enough. The stores should provide the | shoppers, delivery should be a separate service, and the cost | should be about a $15-30 premium for a large grocery order (15+ | minutes of order picking + delivery similar to a cab ride). That | leaves the ordering platform, which might be a nice niche for | Instacart to provide across multiple stores. | | Anyway, this has been a tough business all the way back to | Webvan! | ketamine__ wrote: | Wouldn't Kroger save money by doing direct delivery? Groceries | could be shipped direct from the distribution center. | mrlala wrote: | Having used instacart (through Costco) and walmart grocery | delivery almost exclusively for the past 10 months.. I'm more | amazed at how cheap it is, and I'm a bit worried that employees | are not getting paid enough. | | Costco is probably the more 'reasonable' one. They mark up the | products probably 5-10%. So this one I feel that the delivery | people are probably being paid ok.. although my nearest costco | is 16 miles away (about 25min).. so it kind of feels like a | steal to be able to get delivery from them for what feels like | not a whole lot more. | | Walmart is closer, but there are no markups.. and I pay | whatever $10/mo for free delivery from them. Order multiple | times a month. | | I'm honestly not sure I'm going to go back to the stores as | often even when things are normal. | DGAP wrote: | This is how it works in Texas at HEB and Central Market. It's | about $10 to do curbside grocery pickup, more around $15-$30 I | believe for delivery, which is done through Favor, a delivery | subsidiary of HEB. | boringg wrote: | Agree with this. The premise is nice but the execution and | shadiness of raising prices so you don't really know how much | you are paying for the instacart premium feels bad. | | You'd think this business would be going through the roof | during the pandemic. If it can't work now, how is it ever going | to work? | rtx wrote: | Imagine if these unions start a competitor, it would be glorious | and we can call it a co-operative. | heavyset_go wrote: | Good luck raising money to start a co-op. | tehjoker wrote: | The main barrier I imagine is access to capital. | pfooti wrote: | that, and the instacart business model is only feasible with | large VC infusions (so yeah access to capital) and via | externalizing other costs of doing business (living wage, | insurance, benefits) to the social safety net instead of | providing such services to their labor. | fermienrico wrote: | I always hear progressive views about unionization which I agree | with and they make sense. What are some of the disadvantages of | unions? | | Edit: Before you hit that downvote button, can we not have a | balanced discussion about pros and cons of Unionization? I am a | progressive and a Democrat but I want to know both sides of the | coin. For people saying this question is of bad faith, I am not | really asking "What are the advantages of murder?" here, | Unionization is a complex topic and it would be interesting to | understand that it's not just companies exploiting employees, but | there is a lot more to it than that. | eeZah7Ux wrote: | A lot of the answers describe problems that can exist in any | human organization rather than being specific to unions. For | example: | | - Prioritizing the organization survival or growth over the | needs of those who should benefit from it. Ironically, this is | the default of for-profit companies. | | - People at the top being corrupted, prioritizing personal gain | over moral values | | - Becoming slow and bureaucratic after becoming big and/or old | jawns wrote: | Unions can be tremendously helpful when there is a wide | disparity in bargaining power between employer and employee. In | the late 19th and early 20th century, labor unions made | tremendous strides in improving worker conditions and | pay/benefits. | | Among the criticisms I've heard ... | | Sometimes market forces can get you adequate conditions and | pay/benefits without the need for collective bargaining. For | instance, software engineers tend to be well paid even without | needing to unionize. So if you don't feel that you need a | union, but you're forced to be in a union (and pay dues) | against your will -- as happens in many industries -- you may | feel those dues are taking money out of your pocket | unnecessarily. In fact, the union leadership might actually be | making decisions that benefit them or the members collectively | but that don't benefit you individually. | bombcar wrote: | The union workers I know generally are annoyed to hate the | union, both for the dues unceremoniously ripped and for | "protecting lazy co-workers". It's usually held to grumbling | but they always have an eye out to grab a higher-paying non- | union job if one shows up. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _both for the dues unceremoniously ripped_ | | I mean, yeah, you owe dues. How else should it work? When I | was part of a union it amounted to 2 hours of wages per | month, not exactly onerous. | ars wrote: | > I mean, yeah, you owe dues. How else should it work? | | It's a bigger problem in non Right to Work states, where | you can be forced to join the union (and have dues taken | from you). | | In places where joining the union for their benefits is | voluntary I don't see the problem. | | There are also places where you don't have to join the | union, but they still take some of the wages (at a lower | rate than full members) for nebulous "benefits" the union | offers. Those are especially contentious because not all | the employee believe they get any benefits at all. | | The US should shift to the European model where multiple | unions are available at each employer, and they compete | with each other for membership. I believe joining a union | is required there, they don't have any non-union jobs, | but a European union is not the same as a US one. | elefanten wrote: | Counterexample: the nascent Google employees union is | taking 1% of total comp. | | That's pretty ambitious when the employees are Googlers. | sib wrote: | >> itsoktocry 2 hours ago [-] | | >> When I was part of a union it amounted to 2 hours of | wages per month, not exactly onerous. reply | | >> elefanten 2 hours ago [-] | | >> Counterexample: the nascent Google employees union is | taking 1% of total comp. | | Not sure it's really a counterexample as there are - in | theory - about 200 work hours per month, so 1% of comp is | pretty much equivalent to 2 hours of wages per month. | legerdemain wrote: | Could unions be ad-supported? Maybe you put a TV monitor | playing a continuous stream of ads in the employee break | room. It's win-win. | moate wrote: | The union workers I know generally are pleased by their | union, especially if they worked in their location prior to | organization. They are able to remember and appreciate the | difference between how management treated them before and | after. Even my friends who worked as management in union- | shops appreciated what the org was able to do for the | people they supervised (even if it was frustrating during | 2018 strikes to have to manage entire hotel restaurants | short staffed). | | Out of curiosity, what field are your union friends in, and | do you happen to know what union represents them? | heavyset_go wrote: | Statistically, white collar union workers have higher | compensation[1], better benefits and more time off. They | also report higher rates of life satisfaction[2]. | | [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf | | [2] | https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321 | whydoibother wrote: | The lazy worker argument applies to any job. I work in a | F500 and have 'lazy' coworkers. I can't just go to my | manager and get them fired. | heavyset_go wrote: | > _For instance, software engineers tend to be well paid even | without needing to unionize._ | | Compensation for the majority of software engineers has not | kept up with cost of living increases, inflation nor the | amount of revenue they generate for their employers. | | Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and | eBay all colluded with one another[1] to keep tech worker | compensation below their market rates. | | > _So if you don 't feel that you need a union, but you're | forced to be in a union (and pay dues) against your will -- | as happens in many industries_ | | No one is forced to work a union job. If your employer makes | a decision that you don't like, you aren't forced to work for | them, either. If a union makes a decision you don't like, you | aren't forced to work for it. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- | Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... | jkingsbery wrote: | > No one is forced to work a union job. | | This is technically true, but this is also an argument | against unions. It's true that if you don't like that your | company is unionized you can go work for a company that's | not unionized, but it's also true that if you don't like | that your company is not unionized you can go work for a | company that is. | ink_13 wrote: | You are probably being downvoted because this is not really an | appropriate venue for such a discussion. If you are genuinely | curious, surely you have access to a search engine where you | will get much more thorough discussion of both sides. | bhupy wrote: | Why isn't this an appropriate venue? | [deleted] | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | > What are some of the disadvantages of unions? | | Corruption. Over and over again, decade after decade. | whydoibother wrote: | So... the same as most corps? | [deleted] | itsoktocry wrote: | > _What are some of the disadvantages of unions?_ | | As someone who spent a lot of time as a member of a once | powerful Canadian Union, the downside is that you get what you | get, losing individual bargaining ability. You have a vote, but | majority rules, and overnight you could be working under terms | and conditions you don't necessarily agree with. Promotions and | internal transfers are handled by seniority. The collective | trumps the individual. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but | you can't please everyone. | fat_pikachu wrote: | It isn't uncommon to find yourself on the losing end of the | union contract negotiation with little you can do about it. You | give up your agency. The only things that matter are the | interests of the existing majority which will often be | prioritized at the expense of the minority (e.g. LIFO layoff | practices). | | I made one tenth the salary as professor while teaching as an | adjunct in grad school despite having a similar course load. My | uncle's union negotiated lay-offs of his division over another | one. A lot of us have stories like this that left a bad taste | in our mouths about unionization. Corporations can also be | guilty of favoritism but they aren't supposed to be on your | side of the negotiating table. | rahimnathwani wrote: | FIFO or LIFO? | fat_pikachu wrote: | LIFO. Thanks, corrected it. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Somebody's law (don't remember whose): Organizations tend to | preserve the existence of the problem to which they are the | solution. That is, unions often try to protect the _union 's_ | interest, not the _members_ interest. | whalesalad wrote: | Living in Detroit and knowing a lot of people who work in the | auto industry I can tell you that for every ounce of goodness | that comes from a union there is an equal and opposite ounce of | badness. The shit that I hear people get away with is | remarkable. And yet they continue to come to work day after day | with seeming impunity, continuing to assemble vehicles, etc... | | I am personally anti-union because inevitably they become so | large that they succumb to their own internal forces and become | beurocratic and misguided. | sojsurf wrote: | Also from Detroit metro, and was coming here to say the same | thing. I moved here from out of state and the more I talk to | folks who work in the auto industry, the more I'm convinced | that unions are a large obstacle to the revitalization of | Detroit's auto industry. | | While they bring stability and job security to workers who | are invested in excellence and quality, they also bring | stability and job security to workers who have no desire to | be productive. This is demotivational for anyone who needs to | work with these employees and has an outsized effect on the | organization. To quote a friend, "I love my work, but I can't | get anything real done because I need sign-off from X, but he | sits around all day, doesn't really work, and no one can fire | him." | whalesalad wrote: | The whole "he just sits around - no one can fire him" is | painfully true. | tharne wrote: | Unions tend to incentivize low performers and prevent companies | from adapting to changing conditions. | | Since it's next to impossible to get fired from a union shop, | lower performers and less ambitious tend to stick around | because it's easy work and they can't really get fired. And | because pay in union shops is often tied more to tenure than | performance, your higher-performing workers tend to get | resentful and leave, as they are not rewarded for their | contributions. | | In terms of inflexibility, markets and conditions can change | very quickly, which means people's roles and responsibilities | need to change. | | Unions tend to (but as a rule to "have to") push back against | this, even when the employer is offering re-training programs. | Typically unions define what a "job" is and then fight to keep | said jobs, which can prevent companies from making the changes | they need to. Ironically, this often leads to more, not fewer | job losses, since the company can't adapt. This is why many | cities in the Northeast still have "typists" officially on | their payroll. The union will fight to keep a person's job, _as | it was defined the day they were hired_. You can get away with | this sort of thing in government, up to a point. In the private | sector it can gradually grind companies down, as it prevents | them from making the necessary transformations the need to in | order to succeed longer term. | Grazester wrote: | This is the idea of have of unions. NYC MTA is all union | workers and when I hear stories (from a relative that works) | of the kinds of things people get away with before being | fired along with their ridiculous compensation, I can't | easily shake my opinion of unions. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | This is a huge issue Volkswagen and other car companies are | having. As they shift to electric cars the Unions are pushing | back hard as it takes a fraction of the employees to | manufacture electric cars. | [deleted] | draw_down wrote: | Topic is Instacart layoffs not union debate | eldavido wrote: | Unions bring democracy to the workplace. | | Democracy ensures some modicum of fairness, but is slow, | inefficient, and can lead to very bad outcomes when dealing | with highly technical questions. There's probably a place for | big, large-scale political questions (who should be president, | should we stay in the EU) to be decided by direct democracy, | but I wouldn't want that for trade or monetary policy. | | The big problem I see with democracy, in general, is that it's | highly susceptible to special-interest takeover. When a small | group stands to gain disproportionately from a particular | outcome, they will lobbby--HARD--to get that outcome. Even when | doing so might be so harmful to the overall system, that it | collapses, even if they get what they want. | | The US analog is the SEIU/AFSCME organizing so hard that the | entire government of a state, like Illinois, becomes beholden | to what they want. | | How did AB5, the TNC bill, pass, when it was overwhelmingly not | supported by drivers and the electorate didn't want it, either? | Teamsters pushed their agenda. Hard. | | Unions will make no bones about running an employer, | government, or other organization absolutely into the ground in | the name of advocating for their members' interests. They do | not care about taxpayers, customers, or any other constituency | other than themselves and their members. And when it all falls | apart, they'll just go to the next state/company/etc. and run | the same playbook, over and over. It's very harmful. Some | things need to be outside the reach of democracy/the masses. | whydoibother wrote: | Everything you said negative about them applies to | corporations as well. Not sure why you single unions out on | this. | eldavido wrote: | Because the thread was about unions. Though you're right. | | I think people who are really big "repeal citizens united" | types need to realize that it cuts both ways. | darkwizard42 wrote: | It seems pretty clear the motivation here is that Instacart | doesn't need/can't afford the workforce and is instead probably | finding that store employees are able to fill the orders via some | partnership with the big chains for a cut that is more margin | efficient than hiring their own "shoppers" to do so. | | Also just generally this makes sense... a Safeway/Shoprite/Whole | Foods employee can probably navigate and fill a cart faster than | a random shopper who might not be as familiar with every store's | layout. For Instacart this is a huge win, faster fulfillment and | probably even higher accuracy of fulfilled orders. For chains | this is also a great win since they can utilize their employees | more, make a little extra off Instacart, and potentially even | optimize their store layouts better to cater to this new style of | shopping. | | Also the headline is quite misleading given that there are only | TEN union workers... so "all of its union roles" is | misrepresenting the whole thing a bit. | jiofih wrote: | [paywall] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-21 23:01 UTC)