Grocery delivery company Instacart has settled with the Seattle Office of Labor Standards for alleged violations of the city’s Gig Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance.
- Instacart will pay $730,041.15 to 5,567 affected workers to remedy the company’s alleged failure to comply with the ordinance between July 13, 2020, and March 6, 2024. The company will also pay $18,685.50 in fines to the City of Seattle.
- Protections for gig workers of food delivery and transportation network companies first went into effect during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2023, the Seattle City Council made the rules permanent, making Seattle the first U.S. city to require companies to provide paid sick leave for food-delivery and other on-demand, app-based gig economy workers.
- “Regardless of work environment, all workers, including gig and app-based workers, many of whom are immigrants and people of color, deserve protections against subminimum pay and access to PSST,” said Steven Marchese, director of the Office of Labor Standards, in a news release Tuesday.
