Grocery workers at Walmart, Giant, and Trader Joe’s have already died of the coronavirus. It’s impossible to know yet how many grocery deliverers have also become infected with the virus. Their jobs are no doubt riskier than those who are able to work from home, due to repeat exposure to other people at the supermarket.
For consumers who are able to do so, the easiest way to support the people who bring food, medicine, and essential supplies to their doorsteps is to tip generously. But only the delivery companies or the government can make sure that the workers are treated fairly and safely, says Aron Cramer, the president and CEO of the nonprofit organization BSR, which stands for Business for Social Responsibility.
“We need good business and policy solutions,” Cramer says. “Businesses can ensure a reasonable wage, safe and healthy working conditions, and advocate for policy protections that workers need, especially now.”
The trouble is, the gig-economy companies have fiercely opposed all efforts to provide safety-net protections for their workers. Only after California enacted a law known as AB5 that classifies most gig workers as employees did Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart put forth a California ballot measure that would give workers limited benefits, including a guarantee of at least 120% of minimum wage while on the job and a stipend for healthcare.
That’s a modest improvement over what they get now but not nearly enough, critics say. “These are predatory employers,” says Kathryn Wells, a fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown. “They always have been.” She won’t use Uber, Lyft, or Instacart because she claims their business models are designed to exploit and deceive workers.
The trouble is, the gig-economy companies have fiercely opposed all efforts to provide safety-net protections for their workers.
All of this is a discomfiting reminder that while the virus itself may not “discriminate based on national origin, race, gender, or zip code” (in the words of Joe Biden), the burdens of the coronavirus pandemic are falling most heavily on the poor, the working class and black people. As Justin Ward wrote of the widening racial disparities: “To some, the outbreak is an inconvenience. To others, a waking nightmare.”
Gig workers have been fighting back. Groups like Gig Workers Collective, Gig Workers Rising and Rideshare Drivers United have organized workers to press for better wages, benefits, workplace protections and the right to unionize. #PayUp has published horror stories of gig workers who aren’t getting promised time off, even when ill. Some workers have called for strikes.
“We’re collaborating to really lift each other’s voices up and to build a narrative around worker power that I think our country has severely lacked for a really long time,” Vanessa Bain, who leads Gig Workers Collective, told the Washington Post back in December, as part of an article that details the way Instacart squeezes its workers.
Under pressure, the gig companies are responding, promising protective gear and sick leave among other things. Instacart says it is distributing health and safety kits. DoorDash says it is buying masks. But the Gig Workers Collective says these changes don’t go far enough: “There is still no meaningful progress in protections for [Instacart workers] who will fall ill. We are still without any sort of hazard pay, without accessible sick leave, without quarantine pay for those with a doctor’s note, and the in-app default tip amount is still not 10%.”
What are ethical shoppers to do? Those who should avoid stores — older people and others at high-risk of being infected — should seek out delivery services or companies that treat their workers better or, at the least, provide workers with health insurance. Those options include Peapod, whose workers are unionized, as well as Hungry Harvest or Imperfect Foods, smaller companies with an environmental mission, to reduce food waste by selling produce that is off-size or off-color.
Hungry Harvest “checks my caring for the planet box,” explains Susan Wexler, an agricultural economist in Bethesda, Maryland. “They also have good benefits for their employees and they donate food boxes to food-insecure individuals.” Still another option is Dumpling, a technology platform that enables gig workers to start their own delivery businesses.
Some communities have organized mutual aid groups, built around the idea that we can meet one another’s needs — like shopping — at the hyperlocal level, rather than relying on gig workers.
As for those who must rely on Instacart or other gig-economy firms, they can speak up on behalf of workers, or support one of the nonprofits trying to organize. Karen Stohr, the Georgetown University philosopher, says: “People who are benefiting from delivery service should feel a moral obligation to advocate for better protection for these workers.” One Fair Wage, which advocates for gig workers, is seeking volunteers and donations to support an emergency fund for delivery workers, car service workers and restaurant workers.
One benefit of the crisis could be that we no longer take for granted those workers who, while not facing the same risks as the doctors or nurses who care for COVID-19 patients, are no less essential to our well being.
“The pandemic has made crystal clear how much we all depend on various workers who keep the economy going,” says BSR’s Aron Cramer. “Their well-being needs to be taken seriously.”