Some Instacart workers are frustrated over the delay in safety kits the company promised them on April 2; Instacart says it caps the daily number of kit orders
containing masks, hand sanitizer, and thermometers—but two weeks later, Instacart workers told me they've been nearly impossible to order and have yet to materialize. #scoop for @WIRED: https://www.wired.com/... @wired : “I really want to believe they are looking out for us but I can't help but feel like the safety kits—if they do exist—are a PR thing or for optics.” https://www.wired.com/... Shaula Evans / @shaulaevans : Here is the latest about the #InstacartStrike. I'd rather do without my standard groceries and EAT DANDELIONS FROM MY YARD than cross this picket line. #Solidarity https://www.wired.com/... Caitlin Kelly / @caitlin__kelly : Essentially this left Instacart workers—who are already slammed trying to deliver groceries to America—constantly checking the order page for these kits. They've been confused, frustrated, and angry for weeks. https://www.wired.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The kit delay lands two weeks after Instacart's promise of free health and safety kits — masks, hand sanitizer, thermometers — a pledge made directly in response to the nationwide strike workers called in late March over hazard pay, sanitizer, and paid leave. Workers telling Wired the kits are 'nearly impossible to order' under a daily cap turns that concession into a credibility test.
The stakes are higher than optics alone: Bloomberg's related coverage has Instacart adding 300K shoppers in eight weeks and posting its first-ever monthly profit in April, so a workforce questioning whether safety gear 'exists' beyond PR is a labor-relations problem for a company claiming financial health.
First-order effects
- Full-service shoppers remain exposed without masks, sanitizer, or thermometers while fulfilling orders during the pandemic, because the daily order cap leaves demand for kits far exceeding supply.
- The strike organizers' core grievance — that Instacart's protections were inadequate — is reinforced rather than defused, giving the picket line fresh evidence two weeks after the April 2 announcement.
Second-order effects
- With Instacart reporting its first monthly profit in the same window, the gap between profitability and undelivered safety promises strengthens workers' leverage in any renewed strike push and invites scrutiny of how much of that $10M came at shoppers' unprotected expense.
- Rival gig delivery platforms face pressure to make their own PPE provisions verifiable and auditable, since 'we announced kits' is now demonstrably not the same as 'workers have kits' in press coverage.
Third-order effects
- If platform-announced benefits keep failing at the distribution layer, expect calls — and eventually regulatory interest — in making gig companies liable for actually delivering worker protections they publicize, not just announcing them.
- The episode feeds the longer argument, visible in coverage dating back to 2016, that on-demand labor models struggle to fit conventional employment obligations like workplace safety.
The trend: Gig platforms are discovering that pandemic-era worker protections announced for optics become labor and reputational liabilities when distribution lags the promise.