Instacart shoppers take CEO to task in scathing open letter

Instacart shoppers are, once again, fed up.

In a scathing open letter directed at the company's founder and CEO, Apoorva Mehta, a coalition of independent contractors voiced their frustration both with Instacart's pay policies and its tipping structure. And they're doing more than just typing: The gig-economy workers are staging a three-day work stoppage to drive home their concerns.

According to the letter, at the time of this writing signed by 212 shoppers, starting Sunday, Nov. 3, and running through Nov. 5, the shoppers — Instacart's term for the independent contractors who fill and deliver grocery orders — will fill no orders. This will be the fourth such work stoppage in four years, and follows on Instacart's much-derided (and later backtracked) changes to its tipping structure.

"You have consistently demonstrated your deep-seated disdain for your workers," reads the letter, "you won't even open the door to face those of us delivering your personal orders to your luxe SoMa apartment."

At the heart of the disagreement is pay.

Namely, the shoppers claim a recent pay cut has dropped their guaranteed pay per "batch" — which one Instacart shopper explained "can include shopping and delivery of up to three separate orders grouped together from a given store" — from $10 down to $7 in almost all markets.

"You have demonstrated a pattern of behavior as CEO of eviscerating our pay and pirating our tips," reads the letter — referencing Instacart's past shady policy of using tips in place of pay to meet a guaranteed base pay to shoppers. "It would cost you, Apoorva, absolutely nothing to restore our previous tip defaults to at least 10%."

Instacart previously prompted customers to leave a 10 percent default tip. According to the open letter, it no longer does so.

We reached out to Instacart for comment on both the threatened work stoppage and the request to restore the default suggested tip to 10 percent. We received no immediate response.

Notably, following its February decision to back off the aforementioned controversial policy, competitors like Amazon and DoorDash made no move to change their similar pay structures. DoorDash did, however, eventually back down in August.

If its past moves are any indication, it will take significant public outcry for Instacart to make the changes its shoppers are demanding.

But hey, if Mehta does end up listening and makes a real change in response, perhaps he'll feel comfortable enough to look his shoppers in the eye the next time he gets a home delivery.