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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

#61

Post by ianai »

petra wrote: post #17
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…

Incentive: their hourly wages. Routes are selected to minimize extra time on commute. Up to 10 packages per person. Will get a navigational app. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi...

So not only do I work for you, but you want me to install your custom app on my personal device, too? I can't imagine there are any privacy backdoors here at all. Definitely not when I'm required to give it location permissions for it to function. /s

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

#62

Post by xienze »

dragonwriter wrote: post #48
celticninja wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmentally friendly too as the journey is being made anyway.

> Environmentally friendly too as the journey is being made anyway. It's a financial incentive for employees not to use transit but instead personal autos to and from work in order to be available for such deliveries, so it's actually environmentally hostile.

Wal-Marts are typically in areas where public transit isn't appealing (or even exists in the first place) if you have the ability to drive a car.

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

#63

Post by v45h »

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…

Is it only shady because you believe Walmart employees are not paid enough as is?

Doctors can choose to moonlight and get paid extra, and I don't think anyone is complaining about that. And overtime is certainly a thing.

Coming from Walmart's perspective, I'm assuming it just seemed like a smart business decision rather than something maliciously intended. Like hey look, we can make our customers and employees happier in a profitable manner thereby keeping up with our competitor (Amazon).

If the employees have complaints about this then I guess perhaps it can be called into question. But at the end of the day won't most employees be happy about this?

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

#64

Post by Houshalter »

justforFranz wrote: post #32
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…

It's all fun & free-market capitalism until the employee gets into an accident and then who's liable, or if they go to some murderer/cannibal's house who was just ordering a late-night snack?

How is this different than any other delivery service in those aspects?

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

#65

Post by ancap »

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…

Wow, way to take something that would be a win-win for Walmart, its employees and consumers and turn it into some dark scheme.

>Instead of paying their employees a living wage

Walmart (and any other employer) doesn't arbitrarily pick wages. They pay the market rate which is no more than the employee's marginal productivity. This is why Walmart was offering entry level employees $17+/hour in North Dakota during the height of the fracking boom.

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

#66

Post by TACIXAT »

I think my biggest complaint is that someone making minimum wager or near minimum wage will value money above their time, so many will take this opportunity. Most will take up any reasonable opportunity to earn a few extra dollars. However, this takes away from time that could be spent with family or used to better their skills. The working poor are in a tough position and this program takes advantage of that.

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

#67

Post by sabujp »

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.

really? so if the # of (optional) interviews i conduct on behalf of the employer is a factor in performance reviews then the company is in breach of employment law?

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

#68

Post by penpapersw »

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…

Most of our local friends work at Walmart, because there's honestly not much other choice for them.

Our economy is so broken that the only people who win are people who know how to abuse the system, and who have designed the system to be easier to abuse and harder to survive by honest hard work.

I read once that Walmart uses their resources to take advantage of current (broken) laws to allow them to keep paying pennies for hard work, and forcing the government to pay the rest of a living wage. (Most of our friends are also receiving at least one or two forms of public aid.) I wouldn't be surprised if they also use their resources to "influence" laws to ensure that it stays this way.

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

#69

Post by Pxtl »

differentView wrote: post #42
pyre wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly! If part of middle management's evaluation is based on how many packages their underlings deliver, middle management will start hiring (or give more hours to) people they think are more likely to signup for this and cut (or reduce hours to) people that don't do this.

Particularly since I could imagine hiring staff based on their regular commutes. "Oh, you live in the Dundas neighborhood? We don't have any other employees from there".

... later ...

"Wait, you don't want to do an after work delivery again? Dude, this is why we hired you."

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

#70

Post by david927 »

mikeash wrote: post #22
pyre wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can create laws without an indication of previous abuse. We can regulate not just because we have indicators of abuse but because we can imagine potential abuse.

We don't give toddlers handguns because our pre-frontal cortex allows us the foresight to see that it's a bad idea -- we don't need to actually wait and see if one toddler shoots another.

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