Dear Dani Dudeck (Instacart’s Chief Communications Officer),
We’ve recently come across your interview with Jessica Abo, in which you discussed what it is like to be a working executive mom, and how you’ve used your position as Chief Communications Officer, to champion other working women within your workplace. We would love to say that we are refreshed and encouraged by your presence as both a female executive and a working mother, especially amid the overwhelmingly male executive team. However, the fact of the matter is that during your tenure at Instacart, conditions for working mothers that are Shoppers for Instacart have deteriorated at an alarming pace.
Instacart’s Shopper workforce is overwhelmingly women. By Instacart’s own claims, 73% of its over 130,000 Shoppers are women. At over 95,000 women strong, Instacart Shoppers are easily one of the largest predominantly female contingent workforces nationally. We are an incredibly diverse group of women. Like you, we wear many hats. We are working professionals, students, caregivers, and over 65,000 of us, just like you, are mothers that want nothing less than the best for our families. All working mothers struggle in many unifying ways. We all walk a fine line, constantly trying to strike a balance between our work and our familial obligations and responsibilities.
While our struggles as working mothers may be strikingly similar in some ways to yours, Dani, they are inherently not the same. While you struggle to balance the needs of your kids with your workload, we are struggling to keep a roof over our children’s heads. While you struggle to step away from your family to make a work call, we are struggling to make ends meet. While you struggle with your weekly Sunday meal planning, we are struggling to put food on our own tables.
Shoppers are the backbone of Instacart. Every day we deliver so much more than just groceries. We deliver much-needed relief and support for the mothers that comprise more than 50% of your customer base. We love that we are the superheroes of everyday working mothers, saving them invaluable time and energy that they can reinvest in their families and in their careers. We are the smiling faces your customers know and love, and we are forever champions of working mothers. Collectively, Shoppers are both the backbone and face of Instacart. We are working women and mothers too. Why are our grievances less deserving of your advocacy? Do you feel we deserve less than the same right to financial security and the work-life balance that you feel entitled to?
Dani, you said you know how loud your voice can be at the company. So why are you constantly ignoring our grievances? How can you possibly reconcile your claims of advocacy, leading by example, and setting the tone for women at Instacart, with your inaction, sitting idly by while Instacart cuts pay for their predominantly female workforce? How dare you proclaim to be a champion of working mothers when your advocacy begins and ends within Instacart’s corporate walls? Your advocacy and voice mean nothing if you’re not using it to elevate ours.
It cut so deep when you boasted of your sacred phone-free family dinners. We would love the have the privilege and ability to turn our phones off and dedicate our unwavering attention to our families too. You know our ability to do so increasingly slips further and further out of reach, as we work significantly longer and harder to recover from our never-ending wage cuts. The small amounts of time we are afforded with our families are filled with extreme emotional distress due to financial anxiety and insecurity. We share in none of the privileges of your executive salary, your posh home in the Marina, or your predictable pay and ability to protect time in your schedule for your kids. We are happy that your children enjoy the privilege of a mother with a schedule and salary that affords her the ability to read them stories, tuck them in, cook their favorite blueberry waffles and banana pancakes, and foster their brilliance. Do our families not deserve the same?
Instacart has demonstrated at every opportunity possible that they do not respect us. Instacart’s perpetual pay cuts coupled with conditioning customers to provide low or no tip have materially and qualitatively impacted our lives, and by extension the relationships we have with our families in profoundly negative ways. You know damn well, Dani, that every extra batch we have to take, every extra hour of work we put in, comes at the expense of an hour we could be spending with our families. It is our labor and our service that transforms a digital grocery list into the well-stocked fridges and pantries that our customers rely on to feed their families. It is Instacart’s greed that has transformed what was once a livable and sustainable income, into a sub-minimum-wage job we can no longer rely on to feed our own families.
You have been notably quiet as we have pushed back against cut after cut to our pay. While you proudly proclaim yourself an “advocate for a strong and supportive culture for women” in their workplace, Instscart workers are busy advocating for ourselves by planning a protest from November 3–5th. So we ask you: where do your solidarity and advocacy lie? We are extending you this opportunity to regain your “authenticity and follow-through,” and live by your own guiding principle to “mean what you say and say what you mean.” We want nothing but the best for our families too. Will you stand with working mothers that are Shoppers in our demands to eliminate Instacart’s service fee and restore default tipping to at least 10%? Will you be an advocate for us?
Signed,
Instacart Full Service Shoppers,
A Belle Graves
Addison Trice
Airica Haag
Alberta Helen Atkinson
Alicia DiCorcia
Alyson Westpfahl
Alyssa Longobardi
Alyssa Rogers
Amanda Jones
Amanda Llanos-Giovino
Amanda Marsell
Amy Hardin
Amy Karallen
Amy Lothrop
Amy Silverman McCarthy
Andrea Cullens
Angel Ihrig
Angie Cripe Burns
Angie Kufner
Ann Marie Stillman
Annaliisa Amy Arambula
Anne Lorenz-Ray
April Elliott
Artist An
Aryn Grayeski
Ashley Atwood
Ashley Hawkins
Ashley Knudson
Astrid Mills
AT Vallett
Audra Wright
Aurora Knight Sfx
Auset Ma’at Bast
Becky Needham Hebert
Ben Heinlen
Bo Dombroski
Bobbie Vaughan
Bobby Thornton
Bonnie Binger
Brenda Cohen
Britt Adele
Brittany Hubbard
Brittany Trivette
Brittney Nicole Jacques
Cammy Hardwig Thompson
Candy Dellinger Zander
Carla Shepard
Carol Bliss
Carol Chantiny
Carolyn Wilson Phelps
Cassie Chandler Moungey
Cat Wols
Cathy Coleman
Cathy Young
Ceci Letzgus Mellendorf
Cerena Cooper Conrad
Chantel Michael Wise
Charlene Pinney
Chelli Evans Bassler
Chloe Deogaygay
Christina Alexander
Christina L Wideman
Christina O’Connor
Christine Gregory
Christine Swartz Morra
Cindy Meredith
Clarissa Stewart
Cleo Natt
Connie Aguirre Lara
Danielle Bozarth West
Danielle Dassero
Dante Cassius
Danyell Cote-Casciano
Darlene Conner
David Walter
Dawn Clarke
Dawn M Perry Lewis
Deanna Greer Mincher
Deanne Olsen Brown
Debbie Alexander Vincent
Denise Lawrence Clymer
Des Iree
Desiree Mariah Scott
Diana Micire
Diane Hersom
DiAnne Marchese
Dominique Wells
Don Chugg
Donna Dudek Withers
Donna Price
Donna Silva
Dora Margarita Polin
Doshia Eagles
Dru Vega
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Elizabeth Inglut
Elizabeth O’Dell
Elle M EssBee
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Eric Vallett
Erica Albert
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Fran Valdes
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Gina Neal
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Jessica Honsinger
Jessica Lebron
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Kristen White
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Lala Muhammad
LaTerra Everhart
Latocia Albury
Latoya Thompson
Laura Dudley
Lauretta Nichols
Laurie Campbell
Leah Enking
Leia Cameron
Lena Jonson
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Lisa Beguelin
Lisa Farris
Lisa Hughes
Lisa Hutchison
Litina Jackson
Liz Walton-Antener
Lori Olson
Lori Wiggins
Lori Brejcha
Lorie Dial-Bowie
Luanne Barron
Lynne Marr
Makeba Scott Hunter
Mallory O’Neill
Mando Behr
Mandy Lynn
Maria Crawford
Maria Pacheco
Mariah Thomas
Marie-Ann Alacs
Marquise Gibson
Mary Alexander
Mary Vance Vaughn
Maureen Foote
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Melanie Thompson
Melissa Elmahy
Melissa Rose
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Mercedes Maltese
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Michael Alexander
Michael Montgomery
Michael Shawn Reid
Michelle Abriani
Michelle Hendrickson
Michelle Lowery
Michelle OToole
Michelle Reschly
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Monica Charnel
Morgan N’JBright
Natalie La Voie
Natasha Beck-King
Neener Paris
Netty Kock
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Nicole Hansen Hembd
Nicole Sheffer
Oscar Lopez
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Rae Rae
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Rebecca Naef Gwaltney
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Rose Tye
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