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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

#251

Post by rectang »

pembrook wrote: post #146
rectang wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This hits it right on the head. Wal-mart has all the data and resources to analyze it for efficiency opportunities. Not only that, they also have have the marketing muscle to "brand" this program internally and make it seem appealing to their lowest wage workers. 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 ti…

Something I really hope to understand better is what opportunities we have to improve the efficiency of the labor economy, so that labor resources are allocated according to better information. This would drive down the margins of exploitative companies, while improving the efficiency of the economy as a whole.

I'd like to think that such an approach is compatible with a "left-libertarian" marketplace-friendly outlook.

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

#252

Post by Consultant32452 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #243
Consultant32452 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can imagine a world in which food assistance programs suddenly came to an end, would Wal-Mart raise its wages? Perhaps the workers would demand more. Either way, in the long run it's not possible for any employer to pay wages below the basic survival rate.

> Either way, in the long run it's not possible for any employer to pay wages below the basic survival rate. Sure it is, if they are willing to accept more rapid turnover and the workers they are competing for have no better offers.

How long do you honestly believe an employer can sustain a business providing wages insufficient to purchase food to provide the calories necessary to complete the work?

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

#253

Post by refurb »

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…

What? This is completely voluntary. If an employee looks at the extra pay and says "no thanks". Nothing happens.

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

#254

Post by bluGill »

knightofmars wrote: post #228
phamilton wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly in a place like Boise, ID. That's $800/month, $704 after tax. Rent with roommates will run around $300/month. Food is $150/month ($5/day). That leaves $250/month for misc expenditures. It would absolutely be tight, but people can and do live on that much.

What if you have a family?

Food goes up a little bit, and your room is more crowded. Everything else is the same.

Go look at the size of a log cabin, they were about the size of a single bedroom today and large families lived in them.

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

#255

Post by enraged_camel »

ythn wrote: post #166
vkou wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Meh. We have unions to thank for the vast majority of workplace protections as well as things like the five-day workweek. In light of this, I'm okay with unions not being perfect.

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

#256

Post by oxide »

sangnoir wrote: post #225
aaron-lebo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose? I'm against exploitation of workers, too, but at the end of the day there is only so much you can do with jobs that require relatively unskilled labor. If a 15 year old can do your job as well as you can after a few months of training, it's not a safe job that you can expect anything out of. It's gonna get automated away anyway. But here Walmart (whatever their other faults), offers a way for wor…

> If a 15 year old can do your job as well as you can after a few months of training, it's not a safe job that you can expect anything out of Yet there is a world of a difference between Walmart jobs and Costco jobs. Unemployment in the US is lower than some countries with better worker's rights. > If people's regular jobs paid a "living wage", people wouldn't have to Uber, but it's how the world works No, not the wo…

If you work at Walmart, you've got fuck all to show for it.

Working at Costco sounds like a dream in direct comparison. Benefits, decent pay, etc. Hell, they have an entire wall dedicated to employees of the month that go way back. It's funny how a little goodwill towards your workers seems to have a ripple effect, making shopping at Costco a lot less stressful since the workers are relaxed and happy, willing to small talk while they ring ya up, the managment is roaming around managing, etc.

Being treated like a suspect for visiting the pharmacy without a membership card is my big gripe with Costco. However we just transferred my grandparents stuff to a better, more competent pharmacy. Now I have no gripes.

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

#257

Post by cortesoft »

imatworkyo wrote: post #127
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.

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?

In most places, they literally can't offer lower compensation without breaking minimum wage laws.

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

#258

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #252
dragonwriter wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either way, in the long run it's not possible for any employer to pay wages below the basic survival rate. Sure it is, if they are willing to accept more rapid turnover and the workers they are competing for have no better offers.

How long do you honestly believe an employer can sustain a business providing wages insufficient to purchase food to provide the calories necessary to complete the work?

Is walmart not proof that the answer to your question is quite a long time?

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

#259

Post by dragonwriter »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #252
dragonwriter wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either way, in the long run it's not possible for any employer to pay wages below the basic survival rate. Sure it is, if they are willing to accept more rapid turnover and the workers they are competing for have no better offers.

How long do you honestly believe an employer can sustain a business providing wages insufficient to purchase food to provide the calories necessary to complete the work?

That depends on how big the available labor force with no better offers is, and what the rate is at which people from outside that group move into it; potentially indefinitely, under the right (or very wrong, depending on your perspective) conditions.

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

#260

Post by adventured »

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…

If you want Walmart to pay a "living wage" for the bottom 50% of their employees - then you're asking Walmart to fire a million people in the next decade.

Walmart's net income has been declining for years. Their sales have topped out. Their margins are razor thin. Amazon is beginning to cut deeply into their business. Some non-trivial percentage of Amazon's growth over the next ten years must come directly from Walmart.

Walmart is in trouble, Sears style circa 1990. And you want them to raise wages significantly when they already can't afford the employee base they have. Good luck.

How does this sound instead? Fire a million workers, try to get the sales to employee ratio closer to Costco by automating anything and everything they can. Then raise the salaries modestly of the remaining million employees that are higher value labor. Then the fired million people become 100% subsidized by tax payers because there are no jobs for them and are not going to be. Nothing can stop some variation of that scenario from happening, the only thing slowing it down is the low cost of the labor in question. Raise that cost, Walmart will be forced to accelerate the employee reduction as their net income continues to contract.

Your sole choice re Walmart & a living wage, is full government subsidization of the low skill employees, or partial. Besides, Canada, Australia and every European welfare state uses a public subsidization system for low value labor: the top 50% pay for the welfare (healthcare et al) for the bottom 50% that do not earn much (who do you think is paying for the welfare costs of France's perpetually high unemployment rate?). If you take a job in the UK making minimum wage, you are not covering the cost of all of your benefits such as healthcare, and the UK has a relatively low corporate income tax rate, who do you think is subsidizing that low pay rate on the labor? This is common all over the developed world.

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