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I've just been reading up on Shipt industrial action planned for today and you'll be shocked to know I have some thoughts. Bottom line: I don't think these retail strikes and walkouts that we're seeing have a lot to do with COVID-19. COVID-19 is just a useful pretext. (1/several)
Again, from @washingtonpost yesterday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/06/facing-covid-19-low-wage-service-workers-are-striking-across-country-heres-why-why-it-matters/
"Well before the coronavirus crisis... barely any [retail] workers were unionized: The union membership rate for the retail sector in 2019 stood at 4 percent, compared with 6 percent for all private-sector workers."
"Well before the coronavirus crisis... barely any [retail] workers were unionized: The union membership rate for the retail sector in 2019 stood at 4 percent, compared with 6 percent for all private-sector workers."
So, retail unions already had a strong incentive to engage in high-visibility industrial action before COVID-19— namely, that their power and prowess relative to, say, the California Nurses Association was lesser.
No one likes looking like the entity that doesn’t deliver within a pool of competitors. And typically, unions have found big, high-visibility industrial actions to be a good way of making themselves look useful and at least getting non-members to take a fresh look at them.
This is why we’re seeing strikes— and why we will see them across retail, and less so in other sectors. This theory is borne out by some reporting by VICE (note the CAPS): https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3b9kw/shipt-workers-are-staging-a-walkout
"One of the most important demands of the walkout, workers say, is to halt the transition to a new pay structure that workers say has brought down their earnings... SHIPT BEGAN THE SWITCH FROM A CLEAR, COMMISSION-BASED PAY MODEL TO AN OPAQUE ALGORITHMIC ONE LAST YEAR...
...which weighs a number of factors like distance travelled + time spent shopping. Shipt previously told Motherboard that wages have remained the same if not increased. But Motherboard spoke to workers...who say that w the new model, they’ve seen their wages drop by 40 to 50%.”
More from VICE: "Shipt walkout organizers are also calling for a more transparent and easy tipping process, as customers have reported difficulties tipping their shoppers in recent days, and asking that the Shipt reinstate its orientation process for new workers..."
