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Risking Your Life for $8.71

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, and Instacart have announced mass strikes across the country. Though demand for these services is high, pay and protection is low.


What exactly do we owe to the delivery workers at the front lines of the pandemic? And with these companies hiring in record numbers, can the strikes succeed?


Guests: Heidi Carrico, founding member of the Gig Workers Collective, and Johana Bhuiyan, tech accountability reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

 

Host

Lizzie O’Leary


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Heidi Carico is a shopper for Instacart.

0:07.6

If you're not familiar with it, Instacart is a company that allows users to send someone else to the grocery store to do their shopping for them.

0:15.7

Right now, for obvious reasons, it's really popular.

0:19.9

And Heidi is scared. What's it like working as an Instacart worker right now?

0:27.7

Terrifying. It's gotten a little bit better because fewer people are in the stores, but there's still whole families going out shopping right now, treating this like it's, you know,

0:38.0

vacation time. I worry about going out and picking something up and bringing it home to my family,

0:44.0

but I don't really have the option to not work right now. We have bills to pay.

0:51.2

Heidi lives in Portland, Oregon, and she's 55. She's been working for Instacart for three years.

0:57.4

Right now, she's being as careful as she can.

1:01.1

When I get into the store, I just carry my sanitizer with me. I use it frequently while I'm picking stuff in the store.

1:08.4

When I check out, I stay as far away as possible. I bag my own groceries

1:12.9

in any store that will allow it right now. I bag my own groceries. I want as few hands touching

1:17.1

stuff as possible. When I get back into my car, of course, I use the hand sanitizer again. I use

1:21.6

wipes all over my steering wheel, my car door, my phone. Then when I get to the client's house, I open up my hatchback, and that's when I put gloves on,

1:31.4

when I pick up their groceries and take them to their porch.

1:34.8

I knock on their door.

1:36.1

I walk off by six to 12 feet.

1:39.2

I wait until they come out and acknowledge that they know their groceries are sitting there.

1:43.8

And then when I get back in my car, I take my gloves off and I re-sanitized again.

1:49.6

How much do you get paid for doing a trip like that?

1:55.4

Sorry.

1:58.3

Right now, I am seeing orders going for $8.71 to three different families, about 15 miles,

...

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