They're trying to deliver a veto.
Instacart, which posted $3.3 billion in revenue last year, is ramping up its effort to push Mayor Adams to veto a Council bill that would expand the landmark delivery worker minimum wage to its shoppers, placing op-eds in local papers, funding a fake grassroots group and targeting individual Council members.
Intro 1135, which passed with a veto-proof 36 votes, would expand the minimum pay standard that restaurant delivery apps pay to include grocery delivery companies, like Instacart. Streetsblog exposed this loophole in the minimum wage last year, showing that Instacart workers were making less money to do essentially the same job. The mayor has until mid next week to sign the bill.
Instacart has been fighting the pay parity bill since it passed on July 14. There’s been newsletter ads, multiple op-eds placed in friendly outlets, commercials, threats of legal action and even vans parked outside of City Hall the day of the vote displaying anti-minimum wage messages and photos of Council members that the company targeted.
Instacart's message is “more affordable groceries,” but the campaign is misleading since the bill will only affect groceries delivered using apps, which tack on extra costs for delivery. The bill also doesn't require Instacart to charge more for its services; the company will only be required to pay its workers a minimum wage.
One ad that has been running in the City and State “First Read” newsletter, urges New Yorkers concerned about grocery prices to tell the mayor to veto the bill. The ad doesn’t say anything about Instacart, instead it shows up as “a message from New Yorkers For Affordable Groceries” (small print on that website reveals it is paid for by Instacart).
This message of "grocery affordability" is so simple that it masks the complexity of what makes groceries less affordable. After all, no one opposes "grocery affordability," even groups with missions that don't align with Instacart's effort to block a minimum wage for workers.
For instance, the non-profit NYC Black Chamber of Progress is listed as a supporter of New Yorkers for Affordable Groceries on the Instacart-funded website, yet its own president had no idea that her organization's logo was placed prominently on a website funded by Instacart — or that the goal of New Yorkers for Affordable Groceries is to get Mayor Adams to veto the minimum wage bill.
NYC Black Chamber of Progress President Tosha Miller was very confused when contacted by Streetsblog. She needed a Streetsblog reporter to clarify the issues related to the minimum wage bill that Instacart opposes.
“They just asked if we were interested. With the prices of food going up the way that it is, we're just trying to be supportive of that,” Miller told Streetsblog.
She became confused when Streetsblog pointed out that the group was funded by Instacart and was specifically addressing grocery delivery while opposing a minimum wage for workers. That's when said she was no longer available to speak, and hung up.
A few minutes later she called back.
“So, it's not about affordable groceries, is that what you’re trying to say?” she asked.
Streetsblog then read Miller the website which specifically addresses Intro 1135 and calls for the mayor to veto it. After some back and forth, Miller said she needed to ask New Yorkers For Affordable Groceries more questions, but maintained that grocery affordability for struggling New York City families is very important to her.
“I'll go back to them and ask them, ask them more questions,” she said. “But I think that there has been an affordability issue as it relates to groceries and it's not getting any better, but I'll go back to them and ask.”
Miller also penned an opinion piece in the Daily News, which ran before the vote titled, City Consumer Dept. Hurts Small Businesses. In it, she says the Department of Consumer and Worker protection has “quietly become one of the most aggressively out-of-touch city agencies in the five boroughs.”
But she also mentioned the minimum pay bill, calling it “the department’s last crusade,” despite knowing almost nothing about the bill when reached by Streetsblog for comment.
Miller got back to Streetsblog via text message hours later and changed her confused tune, offering a statement of support for New Yorkers for Affordable Groceries and against the minimum wage expansion bill. Someone obviously got the memo:
"The Black Chamber of Commerce is a member of New Yorkers for Affordable Groceries because we believe that as the cost of living in New York surges to historic highs," the text read. "City Hall must do everything in its power to keep grocery costs down. As written, Intro 1135 would not only raise delivery costs, but it would also reduce access to flexible work — making it harder for Black families to secure affordable groceries and for workers to earn a living."
The other group listed on the site, the National Supermarket Association, has been more open about opposing the bill. The group wrote a letter against the pay-parity legislation to Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on July 8, according to amNY.
One of the group's executive board members, Pedro Goico, donated $1,000 to Eric Adams's mayoral bid last June.
At least two other op-eds have been published that push back on the minimum pay expansion law, and attempt to link it with general high grocery prices in the country. In March, the Daily News ran one by the Rev. Al Sharpton entitled, New York should lead on grocery affordability. The article came out when the bill was first introduced and attempts to draw a link between grocery delivery and food insecurity.
“A recently introduced bill in the City Council could make it harder to access and afford an essential service relied on by hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers: grocery delivery,” the article reads. “Research shows that Black families face a higher risk of experiencing food insecurity, grocery delivery in recent years has proven to be an invaluable tool in addressing food deserts.”
Council Member Sandy Nurse (D-Bushwick), the prime sponsor of the bill, doesn't buy the argument, especially since those who make deliveries for companies like Instacart are often low-income New Yorkers themselves.
“Many of the workers who do grocery delivery service are the same workers who need to be able to make a living wage to buy groceries and to feed their families and to sustain their families,” Nurse told Streetsblog. “So providing minimum wages also helps people be able to buy groceries. It's at [Instacart’s] discretion how they decide to manage a business where they're going to be required to pay living wages. If Instacart wants to punish their consumers, that is their discretion. We really hope they don't make that choice.”
And a mystery op-ed!
The third op-ed opposing the minimum pay expansion was published in PoliticsNY on the Sunday before the vote. The author, Jean Marie Padilla, claims to be an Instacart worker and a single mother.
Streetsblog was sent the article by Instacart spokesperson Andrea Koskey as an example of an Instacart worker who is opposed to the minimum wage.
The story had no specific details, or even a photo, to make it possible to verify that Padilla is indeed a real person. Streetsblog reached out to Koskey for Padilla’s contact information, but she declined to provide it — then stopped responding to Streetsblog’s requests.
Streetsblog also reached out to the publisher of PoliticsNY to try to verify the author and got no response. Internet searches for Jean Marie Padilla were fruitless. If this person exists, he has a remarkably low profile for someone whose PoliticsNY bio describes him as "a Brooklyn-based food delivery worker and advocate." Such people typically are locatable on the internet, especially after placing an op-ed in a media outlet.
In the end, Nurse said a veto from the mayor would signal a rift between Hizzoner and one of his own agencies.
"It was [DCWP's] study that showed that grocery delivery workers were extremely at risk of being exploited by the apps and it is their recommendation that was provided in the hearings that let us all know this was the right move to make. So if the mayor chooses to veto this bill, he would be vetoing the work of his own administration, which would seem to indicate a level of discord within the administration," Nurse told Streetsblog.
City Hall Spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk told Streetsblog that the mayor is still reviewing the legislation. He has until mid-August to sign or discard it, setting up the possibility of a veto override by the Council.
