Fed-up Instacart shoppers ask customers to delete the app

The shoppers have had enough.

A group of contractors for the grocery-delivery app Instacart published an open letter Monday asking for customers to immediately delete the app. At issue, according to the non-profit Gig Workers Collective, are longstanding pay and safety concerns.

"Over the last 5 years, Instacart has been relentlessly gutting shoppers' wages, exploiting its improperly classified workforce, and outright stealing shoppers' wages and tips on its path to its highly anticipated public offering," reads the letter in part. According to CNBC, Instacart is looking to go public.

For the unaware, Instacart bills itself as a digital platform connecting shoppers and customers. Customers use the service to place a grocery store order, and then shoppers (as their name would suggest) shop for and deliver the items.

Beyond low pay, the letter highlights what it says are unsafe working conditions brought about by the pandemic.

"Working for Instacart is not safe, and workers must be protected on the job," reads the letter. "The last 18 months have been especially dangerous for Instacart shoppers."

When reached for comment, Instacart was quick to highlight what it says is the "highest shopper sentiment in company history," and to insist that it's taken the pandemic seriously.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, we've invested in countless new measures to support the health and safety of the shopper community," read the statement in part. "We take shopper feedback very seriously and remain committed to listening to and using that feedback to improve their experience."

Despite Instacart's claims to the contrary, Monday's letter follows years of shopper complaints that Instacart has not, in fact, taken their safety seriously. What's more, the letter says the company has structured tips in an exploitative way. It lays out five demands, and asks for customers' support.

Specifically, shoppers want Instacart to:

1. Pay shoppers by order, not batch. "If we shopped a single order," they write, "the base pay would be $7, but if we shopped three orders at once, the base pay would be $7 for the lot."

2. Re-introduce item commission. "[Nearly] every order now pays $7 regardless of the size. A single two item order pays $7, and a triple 50 item order pays $7."

3. Reform the rating system, which "unfairly [punishes] shoppers for issues outside their control."

4. Provide occupational death benefits.

5. Raise the default tip to 10 percent, up from the current 5 percent.

SEE ALSO: Strikers say Instacart's homemade hand sanitizer efforts are 'abhorrent'

"We are asking customers to delete the app today — because there is only one thing Instacart and its executives and investors care about: money," reads the letter. "And we ask that customers refrain from reinstalling the app unless and until Instacart rectifies the genuinely inequitable manner in which it treats its shoppers."

UPDATE: Sept. 20, 2021, 12:56 p.m. PDT: This story was updated to include a statement from Instacart.