Grocery deliverers report delays getting protective equipment

Workers at two grocery delivery firms are reporting delays in getting personal protective equipment (PPE) from the companies, even as cities begin to require customers to wear masks to enter the stores.

A dozen shoppers at Shipt and Instacart recounted delays, unfilled commitments and challenges in getting masks, hand sanitizer and gloves in interviews Monday with The Hill.

“Instacart and Shipt [are] spending all of their time working on their PR, trying to sound good, but not actually doing anything that helps workers,” a spokesperson for the organizing group Gig Workers Collective told The Hill.

“They’re all saying ‘we’re doing this and that,’ but we still don’t have any PPE.”

Demand for the firms has exploded as states and cities recommend individuals stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Shipt’s commitments: Shipt sent an email, reviewed by The Hill, on April 5 to all of its shoppers saying that they could pick up a set of gloves and mask from any Target, which owns the grocery delivery company.

The email also recommended “using the CDC’s latest resource to make your own cloth face covering out of cloth or old t‑shirts,” if they needed a mask immediately.

Multiple workers said their local stores did not have equipment for them, and many locations seemed unaware that they were supposed to have the protective gear.

And Instacart’s: Instacart announced April 2, after a strike by its workers, that it would be providing each full-service shopper with a kit including a reusable face mask, hand sanitizer and a thermometer.

Shoppers can request kits on Instacart’s website. They can also request a single bottle of hand sanitizer.

Instacart shoppers who spoke to The Hill said the kits were labelled as either coming soon or unable to order until Sunday night, when they became available for pre-order. Sanitizer has continuously been sold out, according to the shoppers.