Workers for Cornershop, an online grocer that employs all of its delivery workers, say they fear deteriorating working conditions following Uber's acquisition
Charis McGowan / Rest of World : Tweets: @cengizyar , @charis_mcgowan , and @leomschwartz Tweets: Cengiz / @cengizyar : Chilean unicorn Cornershop's employees had something notoriously absent from the gig-economy: workers' rights... then Uber acquired the app. @charis_mcgowan reports, with photography by Tamara Merino for @restofworld https://restofworld.org/... https://twitter.com/... Charis McGowan / @charis_mcgowan : “Cornershop has the heart of a grandma. But Uber is a machine that is coming to destroy everything” Cornershop workers enjoyed full contracted rights. Now Uber's taken over the Chilean startup, they fear a deterioration in their working conditions. https://restofworld.org/... Leo Schwartz / @leomschwartz : Cornershop was an anomaly among delivery apps, hiring its “shoppers” as employees with fixed contracts as opposed to independent workers. That changed after Uber acquired the Latin America company. @charis_mcgowan for @restofworld: https://restofworld.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
When Uber bought Cornershop in 2019 — a deal that only happened because Mexico had blocked Walmart's bid for the same company months earlier — the Chilean grocer stood out for employing its delivery workers directly rather than classifying them as contractors. Since then Cornershop has expanded under Uber's ownership, including a US launch in Miami and Dallas, while fending off an Instacart lawsuit over allegedly copied product data.
Rest of World's reporting now captures what workers themselves say that ownership change means: the contracted rights that made Cornershop 'notoriously absent from the gig-economy' may not survive integration into Uber's platform, whose driver-management practices — automated deactivations, fast onboarding — are documented elsewhere in its operations.
First-order effects
- Cornershop's directly employed couriers in Chile and across Latin America now face the concrete possibility that their employment contracts are converted to contractor status as Uber folds the grocer into its app and cost structure.
- Uber inherits a workforce with rights its own drivers never had, creating immediate internal pressure on the labor model it applies to every marketplace it operates.
Second-order effects
- Rivals like Instacart — already litigating against Cornershop — can position employment-based delivery as a differentiator if Uber strips those benefits, turning worker status into a competitive weapon in Latin American grocery.
- Regulators and unions in Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Canada gain a test case: whether an acquirer can legally absorb a fully employed fleet and reclassify it, which shapes how future acquisitions of 'ethical gig' platforms are structured.
Third-order effects
- If Uber converges Cornershop onto its contractor model, the pattern suggests acquisition, not market competition alone, is how employment-based delivery models get erased — pushing labor advocates toward pre-emptive regulatory conditions on platform M&A.
- The alternative outcome — Uber keeping the employed model where regulation demands it, as its own retreat from driver-friendly policies in California shows the economics strain — points toward regionally fragmented labor standards across the same global app.
The trend: Platform consolidation is absorbing the few grocery-delivery companies that employ their workers directly, testing whether acquired labor protections survive contact with gig-economics unit costs.