After a deadline passed with no action from Instacart, workers for the San Francisco based shopping and delivery company have gone on a nationwide strike for better protections against the coronavirus, or COVID-19, and better compensation.

In a blog post published on Medium Instacart workers, acting through the Gig Workers Collective, a nascent labor organization for gig workers, announced their intention to strike on Monday unless their demands were met. The four demands listed on the blog post were PPE for all workers at no cost, hazard pay, an extension and expansion to the benefits available to workers affected by the disease, and an extension to the deadline for said benefits.

Instacart attempted to hand concessions to the collective to negate the walkout, offering a change to the default tip amount for workers and offering company-sourced hand sanitizer free of cost. The Collective's response on Medium to Instacart's offering was frank. Particularly frank was the response to the company's offering of hand sanitizer, with the Collective stating "We had been asking for hand sanitizer for many, many weeks. But apparently the company is capable of sourcing some with 2 days of work? Where was this before? Where were these efforts back when Shoppers first began asking for it?" The response ended with a confirmation that the strike was still on, and a message for the strikers to stay safe amid the outbreak.

The strike comes amid a massive spike in traffic to Instacart, a result of the social distancing and shelter-in-place mandates being enacted by many state governments and the federal government. The surge in orders for Instacart has resulted in a mass-hiring by the company, with Instacart stating it intends to hire 300,000 more workers over the next few months. The surge in demand for Instacart has likewise resulted in a spike in work volume and hours for workers.

The chief complaint of Instacart workers is that despite the spike in demand and increased profits for the company, there has been no action taken to protect workers despite the inherent risk they face at work due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus. Workers began to feel as if they were being exploited and were putting themselves at an unnecessary level of risk. While many of the stores Instacart offers its services in have taken actions to protect their employees, Instacart has yet to institute any measures aside from its offering of hand sanitizer in response to the strike.