141–150 of 398 posts
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It's sad reading people cheering their own exploitation. But I'd expect nothing less from HN.
You think the average HN employee works shifts at Wal-mart? No, it's people here cheering other's exploitation (in the name of the mythical "freedom").
> 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…
My main worry is the safety. Who is controlling how many hours are worked? This may not seem safety related at first, but many state DOT's might have a problem with 8 hour shift employees then going and working 5+ more hours on the road. What is the safety oversight? For UPS, Fedex, etc, there are state guidelines about how many hours they can drive consecutively in a day, in a week, so on and so forth. Are these employees going to have to get a DOT health certification (checking vision and such)?
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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
I see you don't work at Walmart. People there have more burning matters, like how to put food on the table. And you can block location requests(and the like) for the app, after work, Either with Android 6-7 or Lineage's privacy guard.
> 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…
By indirectly force, I mean, "you will effectively get fired for some BS reason like poor performance if you don't do some deliveries and take the meager compensation" type stuff.
I for one rarely go directly home after work. I have other things I like to do in the evenings before going home. I don't want work telling me I need to do otherwise.
It emphatically needs to be voluntary.
What are the liability concerns for this? If they get in a car crash on their way home, does Wal-Mart pay? And if not, why not? To me, personally, this smacks of late-stage capitalism. How long until "voluntary and paid" becomes "coerced and paid little"?
It's all about corporate entities with massive analysis resources using information asymmetry to offload risk onto individuals who are not in a position to understand what they are agreeing to. ETA: Yep, insurance costs are on the workers. From https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi... : Workers also have to submit to additional background checks, motor vehicle record inspections and provide pro…
Meanwhile, the average Wal-mart worker (many of whom are actually on food stamps and struggling to get by) has none of the resources or education or even time to properly evaluate this deal. No single mother with a high-school level education holding down 2 jobs to feed her family is going to have the time to properly discount the statistical increases to risk of injury; vehicular accidents and the subsequent insurance premium increases; the myriad of vehicle-related depreciation costs; the fuel consumption implications; the increased risk of encountering crime; etc.
Ultimately, the power and incentive structures at play here are inevitably going to lean toward exploitation in the absence of protections being built in to the program.
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> Doctors can choose to moonlight and get paid extra, and I don't think anyone is complaining about that. Doctors have that choice, and yet they don't do that. I wonder why?
>In Medical Economics’ 2013 annual survey, 36% of family medicine/general practitioners and 35% of internists reported earning income from sources other than their primary practice/employer in 2012. That number was about the same for cardiologists (38%), but was higher for hospitalists (40%). Pediatricians and gastroenterologists were lower, at 25% and 27%, respectively. http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/med…
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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.
The opt-in nature of this from existing employees is what makes this suspect. The question is will Walmart use their current employment relationship with these people to try and coerce them into opting in. Hiring outside help from people that Walmart has no previous relationship with doesn't raise such questions.
Walmart also doesn't have a great public image, so people are more likely to go over their actions with a fine-toothed comb.
> 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, exactly. I could imagine an after-shift delivery taking up to an hour to complete. (I'm factoring-in "find the place" time and retracing their steps after delivery) They will probably only be paid a per Diem for the delivery - and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. It's a nice thought on the outside...but ultimately, deliveries are best done by actually specialized outfits. I can also…
> and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. Well then, I suppose the people involved will just have to do the math and see if it makes sense to them. The horror.
Labor unions, when they work, are a beautiful thing.