Why GoPuff workers are on strike

Hundreds of GoPuff workers from dozens of warehouses across the country are on strike Tuesday November 23rd for better pay, flexible access to shifts, and protection from unfair deactivation.

Drivers are refusing to work their scheduled shifts that day and co-workers are refusing to pick up those shifts. GoPuff has built its multi-billion dollar valuation on the promise of ultra-fast convenience delivery — but with no drivers, there's no GoPuff. 

Updates: Multiple Philadelphia warehouses started the day scrambling for drivers, trying to cajole workers to break ranks with bonuses of $3 per delivery, rising higher over the day. On a normal day deliveries typically only pay a few bucks — so this is basically *doubling* pay. The Athens, GA warehouse had to shut down this morning for lack of work. In Richmond, VA, only a single driver showed up for work, and managers were left scrambling. In Milpitas, CA, they continue to add shifts but nobody is working them. The Dallas warehouse is offering $6 boosts to try to pull people in. And Philly media turned out in force as a delegation of worker leaders protested at the company's corporate headquarters in Center City.

What it’s all about

Many of us depend on the flexibility of gig work to accommodate caretaking needs, disabilities, and other jobs. But on GoPuff, we can be terminated for missing a single shift, with no protection or sick time. Others turn to gig work because we’ve faced discrimination in traditional jobs, and want the freedom of working without a boss. We value the flexibility of gig work — but GoPuff is failing to deliver on that promise.

GoPuff recently landed a $1 billion dollar investment — and the very same week they slashed pay, cut bonuses, and limited access to shifts. Now GoPuff workers around the country are coming together to take action, united around the following demands:

• Better pay: Raise the hourly guarantee to at minimum $20/hour, PLUS the cost of our mileage during work time at the IRS rate. We are responsible for gas, repairs, and all other expenses — so the hourly subsidy should cover all the hours we work, whether it's scheduled or unscheduled.

• Flexible access to shifts: We need GoPuff to give a guaranteed minimum number of hours to all drivers, and give us the ability to drop & schedule shifts freely. We need the flexibility we’ve been promised.

• Deactivation protection: We need a clear explanation of causes for termination, no terminations without a specific cause, and a third-party appeal process.  If GoPuff calls us independent contractors, they shouldn't let warehouse managers decide on terminating us.

The latest…

• ‘We built this company’: Workers at Philly-based Gopuff mount one-day strike (WHYY, 11/23/21)

  “What do we have left?” Hinson said. “A lot of us suffer from food insecurity because we have to make sure we have somewhere to live and then we have to make sure we have a vehicle to drive to get the money to live.”

• Gopuff contractors strike for better wages and treatment (Fox 29 Philly, 11/23/21)

  “One of my bags was 8.4 miles away," Moody said. "20 minutes each way because of the traffic. When I got back to the warehouse my car takes about 29 cents a mile for just the gas. If you deduct the gas from that commission of $2.75 I earned 46 cents."

• Drivers for Philadelphia-based Gopuff stage 24-hour strike (Axios Philadelphia, 11/24/21)

  “It's super important for workers to have a piece of that future, and to make sure that when companies are building new business models … [they] include decent pay and decent conditions for people doing the work."

• Gopuff Delivery Workers Plan National Strike Ahead of Thanksgiving (Vice, 11/23/2021)

  “We're tired of the unfair treatment, the unfair wages, and the flip-flops,” said Yalewa Melvin, who works as a Gopuff driver in Philadelphia.”

• Gopuff drivers plan a wave of strikes across the US, organizing around the phrase 'Gopuff Yourself' (Insider, 11/22/2021)
  "What we're trying to do is announce to GoPuff there is solidarity between drivers," said David Rozian, a Gopuff driver in Michigan. Gopuff "will suffer significantly from any mass deactivation that will make it difficult to do business in a college town or major market."

• Gopuff Drivers Go On Strike In Philadelphia, Nationwide Demanding Higher Wages, Better Working Conditions (CBS 3 Philly, 11/23/21)

  “Protests weren’t only happening at Gopuff’s headquarters on Spring Garden Street. Hundreds were set to strike here in Pennsylvania as well as several states across the country, demanding better pay, flexible shifts and termination protection from the owners of Gopuff.”

• Ready to Rumble (Philadelphia Weekly, 11/24/21)

  “the workers at the locally-based GoPuff and all of its satellite munchies shops have created a truly original and thoroughly Philadelphian motto for its strike signage in “Go Puff Yourself.”  

• Some Gopuff drivers went on strike for a day to demand better pay from the fast-growing delivery app (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/23/21)

  “Some of us have to work 12- to 15-hour days just to make what we were making back in 2019, 2020,” said Candace Hinson, a driver from the company’s Manayunk facility. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

• Gopuff drivers strike for 24-hours for better pay and working conditions (Al Dia News, 11/23/21; also in Spanish)

  “In Manayunk, Gopuff cut the hourly earnings floor from $12 to $7.75 in September, according to company emails. A weekly bonus for delivering 120 orders dropped from $110 to $75 in Manayunk too, according to smartphone screenshots. A company email from October told drivers that the bonuses can now change weekly.”

• Using the slogan ‘Gopuff yourself,’ company drivers plan a 24-hour strike over pay (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/20/2021)
  “We’re human and we deserve to be paid for the effort that we put in,” said Candace Hinson, a driver for Gopuff’s Manayunk facility who is helping organize the strike. “We deserve for all of us to be compensated appropriately.”

• Gopuff workers plan to strike, demanding better pay and protection from deactivation (Philly Voice, 11/21/2021)

• This $15 billion startup promises 30-minute deliveries. Now it's facing a worker backlash (CNN, 8/20/2021)
  "As Gopuff drivers, we work on set shifts, have no ability to reject orders, and even report to managers who control almost every aspect of our work, from what jobs we get to whether we're fired," a group of workers said last month in an open letter done in collaboration with Working Washington, a Seattle-based workers' rights organization.

• Gopuff often gets driver pay wrong and has to issue back pay after disputes, a sign of the $15 billion startup's chaotic growing pains, workers say (Insider, 8/24/2021)
  ”The company has already faced a backlash after it cut the minimum guaranteed pay for drivers soon after raising $1 billion from investors such as Blackstone.”

• Gopuff cuts pay after raising billions (Financial Times, 8/2021)
  ”According to Working Washington, which gathered data from 71 Gopuff locations across the US, drivers at approximately half had seen their guaranteed minimum hourly rate decrease, by an average of about $4 per hour.”

• ‘The Worst of Both Worlds’: GoPuff’s Gig Workers Have Bosses and No Benefits (Vice, 7/12/2021)
  "Initially my paychecks were great," said Aeh, the gig worker in Athens, Ohio who has worked at GoPuff for almost a year. "But the real kicker is that I've had days or chunks of my day where my pay doesn't add up to minimum wage, and I have quite a few orders with no tips or $1 or $2 tips."

• GoPuff drivers demand better treatment from company (The Hill, 7/1/2021)
  “A lot of people don't like that because we're independent contractors,” she told The Hill. “It’s like you're trying to treat us like W-2 employees, without giving us” benefits.

Follow online for more info at #GoPuffYourself