Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by angry_octet » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 3:42 AM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #335

gozur88 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

Ask yourself if you think you're stupid, then read the entirety of the agreement for your car insurance (or any insurance, for that matter), and then ask yourself if you think you're stupid.

And even if you read it, you're not actually qualified to understand it unless you're a lawyer. Even if you think you understand it, you don't.

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

#362

Post by mythrwy » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:18 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #354

mythrwy wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get seriously sick 3X (5 time even) that amount won't save you. But as things stand now you'd have free(ish) healthcare anyway. Car? What car? You are walking, biking, riding the bus. It's doable, barely, just barely and there will be troubles if anything comes up.

Would that qualify as life or merely survival? Can a person under these conditions become a parent? Can someone in this situation raise a healthy kid? I doubt it.

No, you can't have a kid on this money. Nor is it a very good life in terms of material possessions. You probably can't afford a horse either.

But none of those things were specified in OP's post.

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

#363

Post by cat199 » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:36 AM UTC

megablast wrote: post #356

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.

True. Hey, you haven't been doing any home deliveries lately, is everything ok? Oh, well we have to reduce your shifts next week.

Sorry, cars broke. Can I get a paycheck advance to get the repairs done?

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

#364

Post by cat199 » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:39 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #286

xienze wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tough titty for the employees who do rely on transit. No extra $ for them.

Does the extra $$ exceed the cost of owning a car in the 1st place? This might not be as true as you think..

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

#365

Post by cat199 » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:40 AM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #64

justforFranz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's walmart,

So obviously it is a totally different universe than the bourgeois internet tech startup reality I inhabit and therefore is scary and uncivilized and prone to a different set of rules.. the laws of the jungle.

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

#366

Post by cat199 » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 4:43 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #145

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…

As long as Walmart doesn't indirectly force people to participate, I don't see a problem. 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…

Nah, walmart finance inc will sell you a nice auto loan no probs.. you'll get a real good deal.. I'll make you an offer you can't refuse

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

#367

Post by angry_octet » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:13 AM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #265

rectang wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the TechCrunch article, workers need to submit proof-of-insurance to participate. The wear-and-tear is going on employee vehicles rather than company vehicles, the additional distance they travel will increase their personal insurance rates, and as with rideshare they will need to pay additional riders on their policies. (If they don't have the riders their policies will be canceled as soon as they make a claim!)…

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

No, it isn't patronizing, it is the reality of 'negotiations' between mega corps and a disunited workers.

In fact, I find it pathetic that you call concern for the bargaining strength of low paid workers patronizing. That is a standard right-wing play, an every man for himself narritive, where rich coastal liberals look down on hard working Americans.

If Wal-Mart was being fair, or employees had a better negotiation strategy, or there were fair labour laws, there would be no question as to whether Wal-Mart would be the insurer, and employees would know exactly how many dollars they would earn, without having to gamble with life-altering risks.

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

#368

Post by prostoalex » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:37 AM UTC

GCA10 wrote: post #276

gozur88 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

Reinforcement from an unlikely quarter! The Big Ugly for anyone working in retail the past 20 years is that stores have done almost nothing to improve workers' productivity. Price scanners were a 1990s innovation and there hasn't been much to follow. So it's very hard for workers to make an economic case that they should be getting paid more. (There's a human-decency case, but that doesn't always prevail.) In fact, a…

> stores have done almost nothing to improve workers' productivity

They also got their lesson with Amazon and other online retailers taking productivity to the max by streamlining warehouse operations and removing physical retail with its inefficiencies and expensive leases out of equation.

Currently US retail market can be broken down into three large groups - already bankrupt (Circuit City, Good Guys, Borders, Forever 21, Payless Shoe Stores), close to bankruptcy (JC Penney, Sears), or scaling down in order to avoid bankruptcy (Target, Macy's, Fresh and Easy).

Improving worker productivity at this point is as useful as optimizing horse-feeding stations a year after Henry Ford has unveiled Model T - you're likely to achieve a local maxima and claim a success, but the global maxima meanwhile changed significantly.

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

#369

Post by prostoalex » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:45 AM UTC

angry_octet wrote: post #367

gozur88 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

No, it isn't patronizing, it is the reality of 'negotiations' between mega corps and a disunited workers. In fact, I find it pathetic that you call concern for the bargaining strength of low paid workers patronizing. That is a standard right-wing play, an every man for himself narritive, where rich coastal liberals look down on hard working Americans. If Wal-Mart was being fair, or employees had a better negotiation…

It seems that lately chains large and small (Whole Foods, Stater Bros) are going the Instacart route, with both of these retailers advertising their Instacart URL at the store entrances.

I think even if the workers had a stronger negotiating position, it might not yield much, as anything they'd offer collectively would have to be a better deal for WMT than Instacart.

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

#370

Post by qmarchi » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 5:46 AM UTC

pfarnsworth wrote: post #349

baby_wipe wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Walmart really is taking advantage of its workers, then why doesn't another company come in and offer better terms? Are you claiming Walmart has monopsony power over low-wage workers?

They have. The reason why Walmart had to raise wages is directly because of this. Walmart was looked upon as the employer of last resort and it was showing in the cleanliness of the stores. The stores were a mess and turnover was huge. Eventually the paymasters had to relent and open the purse strings.

Not entirely true. The wage raising is because of where the market is moving.

However, turnover is actually not as large of a problem as most would like to believe. Cashiers are the positions with the highest turnover rate, many other departments have employees that have been in the same store for many years.