HAZARD PAY, SANITIZER
San Francisco-based Instacart - which lets customers place online orders from grocers, retailers like Costco Wholesale Corp and CVS Health Corp's CVS Pharmacy - said in a statement that the strike of its contractors had "absolutely no impact to Instacart's operations."
On Monday, Instacart said it had 40% more shoppers on the platform than on the same day last week and sold more groceries in the last 72 hours than ever before.
"The health and safety of our entire community - shoppers, customers, and employees - is our first priority," it said in a statement.
It was not clear how many Instacart workers were participating in the strike, Bain told Reuters. Bain has created a Facebook group with 15,000 members. She said hundreds more have reached out to her in light of Monday's campaign.
In posts on social media, people who said they were Instacart workers demanded hazard pay to account for the dangers of working while most people stay home to comply with state, local and federal government guidance.
They also asked for the company to provide hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and soap to clean their cell phones, cars and shopping carts.
"We don't have to have 100 percent participation to ... force Instacart to maneuver on these issues," Bain said in a phone interview.
Instacart said on March 23 that it wanted to hire another 300,000 gig workers because of a surge in demand.
Staff in one supermarket of French retailer Carrefour will receive protective masks after some walked out over health risks, a union said on Monday.
Employees of McDonald's Corp, as well as people who said they worked at Walmart Inc, supermarket chain Harris Teeter, Waffle House, Family Dollar and Food Lion, boycotted work at North Carolina locations on Friday.
