Instacart Customers,

Over the past four years, the Instacart shoppers you interact with in-person have been fighting for fairness in pay and tips against the corporate Instacart entity which has shown us no empathy or conscience. They are squeezing us-- the workers you've met-- dry, and they are using labor laws that haven't caught up yet in order to get away with it.

You may have heard that Instacart stole the tips you’ve tried to give us-- that’s all true.

You may have heard about the repeated pay cuts, even as we continue to pay for our own fuel and car insurance. All of that is true, too.

You may have heard that they directly retaliated against us for protesting just a few months ago by removing the last pay bonus we were able to earn. That, too, is true. Many of us are earning up to 40% less.

You might have heard that sometimes under the latest pay schedule we make pennies on the dollar. Again, that is true.

But another truth is that our fight against Instacart's corporate cruelty continues, and we are making significant headway in bringing Instacart's actions to light. It couldn't happen without customers speaking up and telling Instacart that they're on our side, so we are organizing two days of action that is centered around the customers who care about the shoppers they interact with and the labor that makes the service possible.

On Monday, January 20, we will be asking customers and the general public to tweet at Instacart, and tell them you stand with their workforce, and that you’ll #DeleteInstacart until they restore fairness and transparency of pay.

The following day, we will be asking customers to email Apoorva Mehta, the CEO of Instacart, directly. We know he hears us, but he has been exceptionally quiet during our current protest. He stopped tweeting @apoorva_mehta because so many people were so visibly upset at him, and asking him to step up, but we can see that he's still lurking on Twitter every day, faving tweets. He works hard to avoid us-- Instacart workers in San Francisco delivering his personal grocery orders have noticed that he no longer answers the door-- he can't even bear to show his face to us anymore. Tell Apoorva to stop hiding from us and start repairing the tumultuous relationship he's created.

We have fought for fair pay, but Instacart continues to lower it. This current protest only has one small demand-- to raise the app's default tip amount back to 10%. This is the same default setting Instacart had originally, but the company has repeatedly lowered it (as well as resorted to outright theft) to take it away from us. Combined with their recent bonus-cutting act of retaliation, workers are now bleeding out of both sides-- our pay is too low AND the default tip amount is too low. In order to continue fulfilling your orders, we must see action from Instacart.