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

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

#161

Post by dominotw »

timthelion wrote: post #130
dominotw wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

>forcing walmart to pay their employees more could lead to them making less profit and the poor being better off.

What's stopping them from passing on costs to consumers, given they have eliminated all competition in large parts of the country.

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

#162

Post by Chaebixi »

dominotw wrote: post #110
penpapersw wrote: post #68

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.

>> ...Walmart uses their resources to take advantage of current (broken) laws to...pay...pennies...and forc[e]...the government to pay the rest of a living wage.

> What difference does it make where the money is coming from?

Because taxpayers are subsidizing Walmart's business, for one. That's unacceptable, especially if the subsidy is the result of conscious policy on Walmart's part.

> 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.

They will also get paid more to pay those prices, and the taxpayers will not longer be subsidizing Walmart's profits (if the grandparent is correct).

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

#163

Post by ythn »

justforFranz wrote: post #44
leggomylibro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It blows my mind how libertarian/naive techy types are. But I also suspect there's some right-wing nutjob organization spamming hacker news comments with pro-business community idiocy.

Or maybe people have more nuanced views? People on HN generally support "liberal" things like caring for the environment and net neutrality, but a lot of people on HN are also small business owners and entrepreneurs and so also like the "business-friendly" economic policies of the right.

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

#164

Post by dragonwriter »

voidlogic wrote: post #119
leggomylibro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Instead of paying their employees a living wage Are you operating on old assumptions? The average hourly wage is $13.38 for full-time workers and $10.58 per hour for part-timers [1]. While that might not get you far in the bay area (which doesn't have many Walmarts FWIW), its a pretty good wage for unskilled labor in much of the interior country (which is prime Walmart territory)... 1: http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/2…

> While that might not get you far in the bay area (which doesn't have Walmarts FWIW)

The Bay Area has, from a quick Google search and review of the list of locations, something like 25 Wal-Marts, which is substantially more than zero.

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

#165

Post by [deleted] »

rbanffy wrote: post #139
choward wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can anyone actually live on $40 a day?

[deleted]

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

#166

Post by ythn »

vkou wrote: post #111
yourapostasy wrote: post #78

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?…

Now, if only there was some sort of way to force Wal-mart to answer these kinds of questions. Maybe... A union of employees, who want to understand their relationship with their employer better, and to push back on unfair parts of said relationship.

If you don't understand why businesses don't like unions, you've never owned a business. Also, historically, unions in the USA for whatever reason a lot of times end up becoming mafioso (not sure if it's the same in other countries).

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

#167

Post by dragonwriter »

ythn wrote: post #163
justforFranz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind how libertarian/naive techy types are. But I also suspect there's some right-wing nutjob organization spamming hacker news comments with pro-business community idiocy.

Or maybe people have more nuanced views? People on HN generally support "liberal" things like caring for the environment and net neutrality, but a lot of people on HN are also small business owners and entrepreneurs and so also like the "business-friendly" economic policies of the right.

The "business-friendly" policies of the right are often not particularly friendly to small businesses, though such businesses are typically used as rhetorical devices in selling them.

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

#168

Post by smileysteve »

rbanffy wrote: post #139
choward wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can anyone actually live on $40 a day?

The poster's point is that $19.20 is significantly above the federal minimum wage and what Walmart is legally required to pay.

I want to emphasize in this context (gig delivery) that the recent UberEats Stockholm posting indicated even less than $5/hr.

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

#169

Post by Zarath »

williamle8300 wrote: post #137
leggomylibro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It says they can "opt in"... why are you criticizing this? And yes, they can also "opt in" whether to find a new job, and quit Walmart.

True, but I'd bet those that choose to opt in are more likely to get raises/promotions and create a vicious cycle where it's still opt in but everyone basically needs it to stay competitive (smartphone, car, etc.)

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

#170

Post by HarryHirsch »

Does anyone remember Parcelnet from Britain 15 years ago? It was mums and retired people delivering packages for several retailers, and it was a complete disaster. Your orders just wouldn't show up. That's on top of the sharing economy exploitation.
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