By Jaewon Kang and Sebastian Herrera 

Some delivery and supermarket workers are staying home to draw attention to requests for better pay and added protections against the risks they face as the coronavirus pandemic intensifies.

Some Instacart Inc. workers on Monday declined to accept orders and asked customers not to place them. More than 50 workers at Amazon's Staten Island fulfillment center left work, according to Athena, a coalition that represents Amazon workers. And some workers at Whole Foods Market, Amazon's natural grocery chain, said they planned to call in sick on Tuesday, according to a petition they posted online.

Orders for groceries and other consumer goods have surged as more people stay home to mitigate the risk of contracting or spreading the virus. That is straining the capacity of delivery services and raising pressure on companies to add pay and protections for couriers.

Sarah Polito, an organizer of the Instacart strike who said she has delivered groceries for the company for nearly two years, said she and fellow workers are asking for hazard pay of $5 per order, a default tip of 10% and sick pay.

"We're being treated as employees but not getting paid as such," Ms. Polito said.

An Instacart spokeswoman said the company is committed to offering its workers a safe, flexible way to earn money. She said the strike didn't affect its operations and there were 40% more couriers active on its platform on Monday compared with a week earlier.

The San Francisco company, which has a workforce of about 200,000, many of them contract workers, said it is providing disinfectants to its couriers. On Sunday, it introduced a feature that sets a default suggested tip based on a customer's most recent order.

Ms. Polito, who lives in Newark, N.Y. and runs a clothing business, said working for Instacart has become more grueling in recent weeks, as average orders have roughly doubled in size to some 30 items. She said she often fills three orders at a time. She also said she feels work is becoming more risky, as confirmed cases of the virus multiply.

"Every time I go into a store, my stomach turns into a knot," she said.

Tia Schellstede, a television editor who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., placed her first Instacart order last week and canceled a second order on Monday, after reading about the strike on social media.

"I don't want to go to the grocery store," Ms. Schellstede said. "If Instacart meets the worker demands, I will place an order immediately."

At Whole Foods, a group representing workers that say they plan to call in sick on Tuesday is asking for paid leave for all workers who must isolate or self-quarantine as a result of the pandemic, and health-care coverage for part-time and seasonal workers.

A Whole Foods spokeswoman said the company has taken measures to keep its workers safe, such as deep-cleaning stores and mandating social distancing between people in its stores.

Amazon has said more than 2,000 people work at the 855,000-square-foot Staten Island fulfillment center where workers walked out Monday.

Dania Rajendra, director at Athena, which represents Amazon workers, said workers at the Staten Island facility aren't being given adequate cleaning supplies or enough time to wash their hands, and that the company hasn't properly enforced social distancing measures.

"They are not able to take their public responsibility of social distancing seriously because Amazon won't let them," Ms. Rajendra said.

An Amazon spokeswoman said the company has "taken extreme measures to keep people safe, tripling down on deep cleaning, procuring safety supplies that are available, and changing processes to ensure those in our buildings are keeping safe distances." The company said it has also added daily temperature screenings at the warehouse.

The facility is one among at least 15 Amazon warehouses throughout the country where at least one worker has tested positive for the virus or been placed in quarantine, according to the company. Amazon workers in cities such as Chicago and New York have called on Amazon to close any warehouse where a worker has tested positive and send workers home with full pay.

Amazon has said any facility with at least one confirmed case is temporarily closed for cleaning and reopens once the process is over.

Since the pandemic began, Amazon has extended unlimited unpaid time off to employees through April and raised hourly pay for workers in the U.S. and Canada by $2. The company has also said that any employee who shows symptoms or is diagnosed with Covid-19, or who is placed in quarantine, is eligible for up to two weeks of paid time off.

Write to Jaewon Kang at jaewon.kang@wsj.com and Sebastian Herrera at Sebastian.Herrera@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 30, 2020 17:40 ET (21:40 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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