Instacart Shoppers Misclassification Class Action Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: An Instacart shopper has ordered up a class action lawsuit against the owner of the app-based delivery service.
- Why: The shopper claims Instacart misclassifies its workers as independent contractors and fails to pay them the minimum amount required by law.
- Where: The class action lawsuit wants to represent Canadian Instacart shoppers and is pending in Ontario Superior Court.
Instacart misclassifies its workers as independent contractors and fails to pay them the minimum amount required, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
Ontario resident Garnet Taylor claims Instacart is in violation of employment standards legislation by misclassifying and underpaying its full-service shoppers.
In his class action lawsuit lodged against Maplebear Canada, also known as Instacart, Taylor wants to represent all current and former Instacart shoppers in Canada who have worked for the company since July 2015.
Instacart’s Shopper Practices Violate Canada’s Labor Laws, Says Class Action
The plaintiff claims Instacart shoppers have no control over the conditions of their employment and risk getting low ratings or being disqualified from working if they don’t follow strict guidelines set by the company.
At the same time, Instacart is depriving its workers of benefits and minimum wage by classifying them as independent contractors instead of employees, Taylor argues.
The class action lawsuit also points out that, in addition to earnings being dictated by Instacart, shoppers also incur vehicle and mobile phone expenses that cause many workers’ final pay to come out to less than minimum wage.
“Instacart shoppers have played an essential role during the pandemic and stepped up at a time when many Canadians were unable to leave their homes and do their own grocery shopping,” said the lawyer representing Taylor, Tassia Poynter of Sotos Class Actions. “Instacart shoppers deserve to be treated fairly and paid what they are entitled to under employment standards law.”
Under similar circumstances, Uber offered its drivers in Canada a “Flexible Benefits Fund” last month in response to Class certification being given to workers who argue they should be classified as employees.
Are you an Instacart shopper who feels you are being misclassified as an independent contractor? Let us know in the comments!
The plaintiff is represented by Tassia Poynter of Sotos Class Actions.
The Instacart Shoppers Class Action Lawsuit is Taylor v. Maplebear Canada Inc., et al., Case No. CV-21-00670603-00CP in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
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38 thoughts onInstacart Misclassifies Shoppers, Fails To Pay Minimum Wage, Says Class Action
Instacart is just getting worse, it amazes me how Canada is letting this company take advantage of the working class. Currently if I want to make $1000 a week I have to work 75 hrs which is way below the minimum wage. Tip baiting is also a huge issue where customers purposely give a large tip to get their order done fast and then reduce it when the order is delivered. For example, yesterday I did a 61 item order from Walmart for $14 instacart pay and $20 tip. It took me 2 hours and 20 mins and the customer reduced the tip to $1 for no acceptable reason as I did nothing wrong. Therefore, I made $15 in 2 hours and 20 mins which is less than $7 an hour. Toronto, Canada needs a solution like how San Francisco got one. Why is Canada not standing up for its residents and letting an American company exploit people who are unable to find a job? The majority of people doing instacart including myself are doing it because the job market is so bad, this is the only option. Instacart is indirectly telling workers they are worth $4-$7 an hour. The government needs to step in and regulate Instacart so that shoppers are paid an hourly wage and back pay for the past. Pay instacart shoppers what there worth! Instacart keeps on saying they are thankful for being able to deliver groceries to customers during Covid, but who made that happen? Shoppers did! Without Shoppers, Instacart’s business model will fail. Show your shoppers some appreciation.
All of this is completely accurate, and paints a pretty dark image for the company which claims they are helping the average person get groceries when they can’t make it to the store. In order to operate in a way that seems affordable for the consumer, the drivers are all getting ripped off. It literally gets worse every time I sign into the app, it’s like last time I got $30 for doing the same order theyre offering like $18 for. Seems like they’re constantly finding ways to take money out of my earnings and add extra distance or items, and they started doing this on the fly while I’m already working on an order so I don’t have time to decline the order which is now requiring more work and distance than I agreed to. They have literally asked me to pick up 70 items and bring it 40 km out of town, and offer me $45. That is absolutely insane, and they don’t seem to realize that I still have to drive another 40 km to get back to town because I don’t live out there, and they still show my batch distance as only 40km. They even do this when I’m nowhere near the store so I have to take money out of the own pocket to get there and then don’t even get paid close to enough for my gas, let alone the time spent shopping which can be excruciating sometimes if they ordered obscure items. I would love to do this more because I enjoy helping people get their essentials but I feel scammed every time. And somehow I keep ending up doing it because I’m desperate. This is lovely.
This class action has been dismissed and the raesons are not publically available. Can we have an update on this?
i am also joining .its exploiting drivers and greedy of a company ,not paying minimum wages ,they should pay minimum gae as in other provinces, there is no humanity. we all should speak ,its a democratic country ,and we need to fight for our rights
How to sign up?
Yeah I’ve been a driver with Instacart for awhile now and the amount Instacart is paying out versus the job performed is ridiculous. We are forced to rely on the good of the customer and hope for a decent tip because the app pays POORLY. Yet alone we are using our own vehicle, gas , and none of us live at the grocery store so travel time as well. An order for 1 person worth over $20 in my area is very rare these days. Most orders sadly aren’t worth making $5 for over an hour’s worth of work. Which makes me sad because some people really need this service as they can’t get their own groceries and are forced to deal with this ridiculous service
Also!! 1/2 of Instacart’s profits for 2020-2021 & 2023 should be given back to their shoppers and demand to be out out of business plz. I would love to see intacart shut down & hopeful to have the market open up for a more honest law abiding business in Canada.
Instacart already made the news on CBC network for the discrepancies of KM pay in Canada as they were paying us in Miles instead KM and of course they denied it all.
I want to be part of the class action suit in Ontario. I live in BC. This company is shameless! For one it needs to be shut down. 2 open up for other companies to get into that same market in the same way but obiding by each provinces labour laws. Instacart breaks most labour laws and gets a way with it by classifying its workers as independent contractors. We are not as if I was, I should be able to ask for what I want and think is fair for my services. I don’t Instacart dictates how much they pay you for each batch! I certainly WILL NOT PAY MYSELF 5-7/ per hour. My car got hit & run twice parked in the shopping Center while I shopped that came out of my pocket. No compensation or protection for this, what about high mileage & wear n tear on my vehicle that cannot be covered under the 5-7 per hour pay. There is so much much more wrongs with this company.. such as fairness of pay/batches given to shoppers it would seem they can stop batches from showing up to veteran shoppers in Order to give them to new shoppers etc.. their practices is appalling & illegal almost everything they do and offer does against every labour law rules we have. Plz let me know how to join this lawsuit: thank you .. I want to see Instacart pay & I wan them not to be able to practice their bad business here anymore.
10 dollars for 57 items 78 units and 5 km to drive that’s ridiculous it will take you about one hour and a half to finish the total delivery that leave you at $7.50 a hour minus the gas that you paid lol and to send you 50km on a 30 dollars pay and 50 items to pick up it’s about 6 dollars a hour many people wanna complain but scared of being deactivated whatever instacart says it’s all a lie I have seen that they promise to make 22 a hour or if you are more efficient you can make 45 a hour that’s all a big lieeeee
I am joining
I am an instacart delivery driver and I feel that instacart has been treating us unfair we used to supposedly get minimum wage it says when you sign up $22 to $30 per hour I have been taking batches and it seems like they’ve changed so much just keep changing where they are like forcing us to take $5 batches $7 batches and big orders lot of mileage you know I did a order just tonight and it said that I would get a $5 tip and I contact instacart and I was told that I didn’t qualify for it when when I took the batch it said I did then I contact them again with another person I spoke with they said I would get it in an hour still haven’t received it so I just feel the instacart is treating the the workers unfair because we sit for hours and it’s tell us to go to places with highlighted spots and we sit there for hours and then they give us batches for like $5 $10.14 and sometimes it’s two and three orders for these batches that’s only mostly playing 15 at the most sometimes if you’re lucky 1918 or 20 which requires some heavy lifting I’ve had people order cases of waters like 10 cases and we’re only getting paid like $15 for this batch for order like that I feel that we should be getting paid way more especially if it’s two or three orders what the workers don’t understand sometimes when they’re new that you may get a batch and it may say 10 items but if you look at the units it can say 22 units meaning that the customer is ordering multiple items of the same item so if they’re ordering water it can be one water but it can be 10 cases so yes I feel that as a worker for instacart yes we’re treated unfairly and the longer you’ve worked for instacart the less you start getting paid