Postmates Workers #GuacOff
It’s not a walkoff…it’s a #GuacOff.
For three days from Wednesday, April 29 to Friday, May 1, Postmates workers across the country are refusing all orders from Chipotle to demand sick leave, hazard pay, and safety protections.
The food delivery business is booming during this crisis, and Postmates is raking in money. And they’re ramping up their partnership with restaurants like Chipotle. While Postmates & Chipotle are teaming up to offer free delivery to customers, they’re not offering much of anything to the workers actually doing those deliveries — not sick leave, not PPE, and certainly not hazard pay.
In the midst of the crisis, Postmates continues to pay sub-minimum wages — and to cover the costs of free delivery, they even cut pay by forcing us to take “stacked” orders, delivering more food for less money.
In fact, Postmates workers make as little as $2 to spend half an hour delivering a burrito bowl.
$2 per delivery is not a wage. It’s what Chipotle charges for a scoop of guacamole. Chipotle has boasted about giving their workers sick leave & a 10% pay bump — but the Postmates workers delivering their food lack any of these essential protections.
Postmates workers are providing “essential work” during this crisis. We need essential protections like sick leave and PPE. And we need pay that accounts for our time, the mileage expenses we cover ourselves, and the extra risk of exposure during the pandemic.
Our demands for Postmates & Chipotle
Chipotle has taken some positive steps for their own workers — but customers may not be aware that the Postmates workers actually delivering their food are lacking these essential protections. Here’s what Postmates workers need to protect ourselves & make sure our company is fulfilling their responsibility to protect public health…
1. we need at least 14 days of unrestricted paid sick leave.
Postmates made headlines last month when they claimed they were providing sick leave — but the reality is, their policy simply doesn’t pay out. Workers who request leave don’t get a response — or worse, they get deactivated from the app & can’t get reactivated. Without access to sick leave, Postmates workers have no choice but to continue working even if we’re sick or immunocompromised — putting ourselves, our customers, and the public at risk.
2. We need hazard pay — a bump of at least $5 per delivery.
The bizarre pay formula Postmates uses gives us 7 cents per minute for the time we spend waiting for orders — that’s $4.20 an hour for work that involves exposing ourselves to risk of contracting COVID, especially at restaurants like Chipotle that churn out hundreds of delivery orders a day.
3. We need safety standards — personal protective equipment, no-contact delivery, and the right to cancel unsafe jobs.
Crowded restaurants like Chipotle don’t always practice safe social distancing or even let us wash our hands in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Postmates has provided no PPE at all to the vast majority of workers. They’ve given customers the option to choose no-contact delivery — but workers don’t get the choice. And if we cancel a job because it’s too risky, we can get kicked off the app.
Postmates cannot get away with putting its workers, and the public, at risk during the crisis.
And restaurants like Chipotle cannot get off the hook when they’re partnering with a company that pays workers less than they charge for a scoop of guac.