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Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

bloomberg.com

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Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#21

Post by leggomylibro »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #5

> Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven, more money for people who want it). I wouldn't mind dropping a few things off on my way h…

Ugh. I think that this sort of attitude (which was my initial reaction too) is a big part of what's wrong with our current economy.

If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company.

But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead of paying their employees a living wage, or offering benefits befitting a delivery driver, they can offset all of the risk, deprecation costs, etc associated with delivering a package all for the low cost of what amounts to a tiny raise in their existing payroll.

Walmart chooses what they pay their associates, and what hours they get. So it's not really appropriate for them to start becoming arbiters of opportunities to make extra money "outside of work." This is shady as all hell.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#22

Post by mikeash »

pyre wrote: post #14
mikeash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, huge difference between "deliver this on your way home or your fired" and "if you want some extra money, deliver this on your way home." Not much difference between this and, say, LaserShip, aside from it being a small part of the overall job.

Well, where the rubber meets the road here is in whether or not there is an unspoken expectation that you need to do this, compensation or not. "Official" policy doesn't always reflect what gets implemented, and is sometimes just used as a way to legally CYA so that you can have your cake and eat it too.

That's true for literally every aspect of every job, though, so it seems like a pointless thing to say unless there's some indication they're actually abusing this.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#24

Post by santoshalper »

The discomfort I have with this is that Wal-Mart has a long history of sensible corporate policies (seriously, Wal-Mart at the corporate level has been surprisingly progressive on a lot of issues) that turn into draconian mandates by regional or store managers who are under intense pressure to maximize profit-per-employee. This just sounds like another good idea by corporate that will inevitably be crammed down workers throats.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#27

Post by [deleted] »

basseq wrote: post #19
sabujp wrote: post #4

I can easily see how walmart managers would blackmail^Wencourage employees into doing this.

There's a pretty well-defined precedent in law to counter this. If an "optional" task is used in performance reviews or to define base pay, it then becomes non-optional and the company is very likely in breach of employment law. Hopefully Wal-Mart tells their managers to tread very carefully.

[deleted]

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#29

Post by wyc »

leggomylibro wrote: post #21
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #5

> Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven, more money for people who want it). I wouldn't mind dropping a few things off on my way h…

Ugh. I think that this sort of attitude (which was my initial reaction too) is a big part of what's wrong with our current economy. If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company. But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead…

Wouldn't this result in increased risk of delivery failure, package damage, or even non-professional delivery-driver injury? If anything, this is low-end, but yes, it sounds cheap.

I think it'd be a good practice to examine competitive offerings for delivery per area, e.g., offerings such as Postmates and similar. If there's someone willing to pay them more, then I feel that the employee may have enough options for fair treatment. However, if Walmart is the only game in town, then I agree with a lot of your apprehensions.

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