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

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121–130 of 398 posts

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

#121
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but that only makes sense if there's a reason to anticipate unusual problems.

Like, if Walmart was offering employees extra money to dispose of toxic waste or collect debts from delinquent customers or something, I'd see a huge potential for abuse and wouldn't consider it to be at all a good idea. Those things need special training and the potential for problems is high.

But this is package delivery. It's a relatively unskilled, low-end job. Its abuse potential seems to be to be on the same level as the abuse potential of, say, lifting boxes, or stocking shelves, or mopping floors. "Walmart pays people to stock shelves" wouldn't get anyone up in arms, so why would this?

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

#122
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't think you're jumping the gun here, maybe? Do you even know what the compensation will be? Walmart is known for high wages.

Are you already zorked this early on a Friday? Then why are so many of walmart's employees on social benefits? https://www.thenation.com/article/walmart-wages-are-the-main...

Sarcasm, I'm guessing.

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

#123
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.

Needing money is its own kind of coercion, especially when being a walmart employee doesnt pay much.

Doesn't this also apply to their normal duties? Are we also going to be upset about Walmart paying people to run the cash registers?

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has less than 3% profit margin. It'd go bankrupt if it paid its employees $15/hour.

If walmart can't support a decent wage - then they should go bankrupt and let middle class persons own and run small businesses: hardware stores, grocery stores, clothing stores, ice cream stores, etc. Owning a business near a walmart means competing with floods of cheap off loaded goods from china -- operated by persons using government subsidies.

It's more like the other way around. Small businesses are much more sensitive to increases in wages than big efficient companies like walmart. That's why Walmart has supported increases in the minimum wage in the past, because they know it hurts their competitors more than them. They just increase their prices and put the increased costs onto consumers and keep the same profit.

But even if it wasn't this way, so what? Walmart isn't making their employees worse off. They are giving them low skill jobs that the economy is desperately short on. Companies like Apple hire orders of magnitude less low skill employees relative to their profit than Walmart.

No one is protesting Apple over that. If we just taxed companies like that bit more, and distributed the money amongst the poor, it would be vastly more effective than making walmart pay a few percent more. In a few years Walmart will automate most of their jobs anyways. As many industries already have. Increasing the minimum wage doesn't solve that.

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

#125

Questions I haven't seen answered yet: * Employee gets a destination with no parking available, who gets dinged for non-delivery? * Employee gets a destination with no parking available, but is told to double-park by local manager. Gets ticketed. Who gets dinged? * Does this constitute a non-CDL delivery service, or courier service? Will Wal-Mart handle licensing and insurance coverage of personal employee vehicles?…

This is the comment I was hoping to see. Real scenarios and issues that the hand-wavy policy doesn't make clear, and that delivery operations deal with all the time.

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

#126
post #81
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think you're jumping the gun here, maybe? Do you even know what the compensation will be? >Instead of paying their employees a living wage, or offering benefits befitting a delivery driver, Obviously you can criticize Walmart's current practices. The issue is whether this policy is any worse than what they had before. >they can offset all of the risk, deprecation costs, etc associated with delivering a pack…

> You don't think you're jumping the gun here, maybe? Do you even know what the compensation will be? Walmart is known for high wages.

Before graduating college, the most money I made was working for Walmart at a distribution center. I made $19.20 an hour which was pretty good considering minimum wage was just over $5.

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

#127
post #9

> 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…

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.

Not so fast, what if Walmart lowers overall compensation in the future, what if Walmart's compensation is already overly low. Does that change your opinion on this extra incentive program?

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 penni…

>forcing the government to pay the rest of a living wage. What difference does it make where the money is coming from? If we force Walmart to pay more, low-income ppl who shop will have to pay higher prices as opposed to now where all the taxpayers are footing the bill.

For one thing, sometimes you can't get it when you need it. In our area, there's an 8 year waiting list on housing assistance.

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

#129

Questions I haven't seen answered yet: * Employee gets a destination with no parking available, who gets dinged for non-delivery? * Employee gets a destination with no parking available, but is told to double-park by local manager. Gets ticketed. Who gets dinged? * Does this constitute a non-CDL delivery service, or courier service? Will Wal-Mart handle licensing and insurance coverage of personal employee vehicles?…

> and an unforeseen traffic stoppage takes up employee's time, does employee have flexibility to bail on delivery and do some shopping while waiting for stoppage to clear?

I wish every employer had a "traffic is hard, let's go shopping!" policy.

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 penni…

>forcing the government to pay the rest of a living wage. What difference does it make where the money is coming from? If we force Walmart to pay more, low-income ppl who shop will have to pay higher prices as opposed to now where all the taxpayers are footing the bill.

utter nonsense. Walmart makes 131 BILLION dollars a year in pure profit [1]. Obviuosly, forcing walmart to pay their employees more could lead to them making less profit and the poor being better off.

EDIT: Basically there is no correlation between walmart's costs and how much the consumer pays.

[1] http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Wal-Mart_(WMT)/Data/Gross_Pro...

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