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Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

dailymail.co.uk

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Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#31

Post by acomjean »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #20
anonathon0000 wrote: post #18

I'm a supervisor at UPS, so maybe I can offer an opinion (this is a throwaway account). I'm not sure if there is anything analogous to the US Department Of Transportation in England, but we have to abide by pretty strict rules here in the USA regarding driving hours. A UPS driver cannot work over 14 hours on a shift, must have 10 hours between shifts, and cannot exceed 60 hours in a week without (IIRC) 38 consecutive…

Thank you for your candid response. Would you be able to answer how many packages the average driver delivers on a route and what happens if a package is stolen i.e who is liable? Curious to see how often package theft occurs. Thanks again!

UPS I believe is self-insured (this if from many years ago a friend tried to get me to be a "seasonal helper" and I went to the orientation.) Meaning it comes out of the companies profits.

Basically UPS hires a lot of extra people to ride along with the drivers and deliver pacakges during the holiday season. The pay was decent for the work.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#32

Post by tomcam »

nocoder wrote: post #27

In India, this gets worse. Lot of delivery guys use 2 wheelers and can often been seen carrying a huge bag full of packages on their bikes. Moreover many buildings don't have lifts so they end up carrying this load up 2 or 3 storeys. This is extremely back breaking work and add to that the pressure to deliver packages on time and navigating crazy Indian traffic on two wheelers with such heavy loads. On the other hand…

Sobering, and almost physically painful to read. Probably the only realistic solution is the booming economy in India. Eventually, one hopes, there will be better accommodations for everyone, and the drivers will benefit along with everyone else. I assume unionization would not work due to the huge supply of alternate employees?

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#33

Post by gumby »

quantumofmalice wrote: post #26
agrajag wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really prefer that people be paid an adequate wage where I don't feel like I have to tip. And why is Sunday delivery worse than Sunday work in a myriad of other industries, like retail or restaurants?

I'm not big on Sunday retail either. I prefer the older tradition where most stores were closed on Sunday so people could be with their families.

For an alternative perspective: Sunday shopping is a boon to people who work or have other conflicts the rest of the time (e.g. work M-F, kids' games on Saturday).

Also for holidays: my mother really appreciated being able to work Thanksgiving, Xmas, July 4th etc because others really wanted that time to be with their families‡ -- those holidays meant nothing to us (immigrants) but meant that when she wanted someone to cover for her for some other day everybody owed her a favor (plus as a bonus people generally try not to go to the hospital those days -- she was an M.D.).

‡ (or perhaps it's simply that I was such a horrible kid that she was happy to be out of the house).

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#34

Post by gumby »

mabbo wrote: post #7

It's such a complex situation. Amazon has contracts with small companies who provide trucks and humans. Amazon provides the work, the groups of packages, the routes, the app the drivers need to use to deliver. The companies compete with each other for more 'routes' each day. They offer to take on more work, to do more. And then they hire anyone they can to fulfill those routes. The drivers themselves are on contracts…

> Who is to blame? Amazon? The companies? The drivers? Capitalism gone mad? Take your pick.

And a fashion against labor laws. One of the great things about labor, safety etc laws is that they apply to everyone. Company X may not want to implement safety rule X because it will increase costs and make the competition cheaper. Perhaps all the companies X, Y, and Z want to do it but all are afraid. If the law mandates it none are disadvantaged relative to their competition.

This is an important kind of externality, really no different from the paint factory dumping effluvia into the river, but less frequently discussed.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#35

Post by QAPereo »

naner wrote: post #24
deanCommie wrote: post #14

On reddit, "spagheddie" wrote: I was once a FedEx delivery driver, so I don't know how it is for Amazon, but I would imagine it's similar? At FedEx we got paid per package delivered, which means the faster you deliver your packages, the more you are technically getting paid per hour. In addition to this, you'd get a daily bonus for delivering the packages fast. We could take our lunches whenever, nobody cared as long…

I've noticed this sort of thing a lot in the job market: performance or pay are directly tied to metrics resulting in employees being incentivized into odd behaviors (breaking the law, sabotaging coworkers, skipping breaks/lunch, stagtegically cancelling or avoiding work, etc). This type of management through metrics goes hand in hand with the gig economy and also temp agency/contract work.

Not to mention Wells Fargo...

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#36

Post by op00to »

tyingq wrote: post #2

"skip lunch and urinate in plastic bottles, and some return to homes after their 9pm deadline" "the allocation and number of stops, and the volume to be distributed for any given day, lies entirely with Amazon." Argh. If true, hopefully someone can verify the claims and raise some visibility.

I rarely get my amazon same day deliveries before 9pm. This is great, because I either get free delivery and free extension of amazon prime.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#37

Post by nocoder »

tomcam wrote: post #32
nocoder wrote: post #27

In India, this gets worse. Lot of delivery guys use 2 wheelers and can often been seen carrying a huge bag full of packages on their bikes. Moreover many buildings don't have lifts so they end up carrying this load up 2 or 3 storeys. This is extremely back breaking work and add to that the pressure to deliver packages on time and navigating crazy Indian traffic on two wheelers with such heavy loads. On the other hand…

Sobering, and almost physically painful to read. Probably the only realistic solution is the booming economy in India. Eventually, one hopes, there will be better accommodations for everyone, and the drivers will benefit along with everyone else. I assume unionization would not work due to the huge supply of alternate employees?

Yeah... There are too many desperate and unemployed people for unionization to make an impact. You can just get rid of the union employees. Given the poor educational investments lot of people are simply not equipped to exploit the opportunities in booming economy. This basically results in larger inequality since for high paying jobs there is lot of competition due to talent crunch driving wages up. At the same time for menial jobs there is too much labor leading to downward pressure on wages. Combine the two and you have ballooning inequality. My fear is that India might end up there.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#38

Post by lucaspiller »

anonathon0000 wrote: post #18

I'm a supervisor at UPS, so maybe I can offer an opinion (this is a throwaway account). I'm not sure if there is anything analogous to the US Department Of Transportation in England, but we have to abide by pretty strict rules here in the USA regarding driving hours. A UPS driver cannot work over 14 hours on a shift, must have 10 hours between shifts, and cannot exceed 60 hours in a week without (IIRC) 38 consecutive…

In the UK these type of delivery drivers will be driving vans weighing under 3.5t. The restrictions on driving times only apply to vehicles above this weight.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#39

Post by Theodores »

wnevets wrote: post #21

dailymail.co.uk really shouldn't be on the front page of hn, its a tabloid.

Stop Funding Hate is a pressure group outing major brands and getting the to apologise for advertising in the Daily Mail, e.g. 'Paperchase', last week or so:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42058103

So this is a valid point, HN needs to find better sources that the Daily Mail. In light of this, here you go:

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Amazon-Flex-Reviews-E132...

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#40

Post by techsupporter »

quantumofmalice wrote: post #26
agrajag wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really prefer that people be paid an adequate wage where I don't feel like I have to tip. And why is Sunday delivery worse than Sunday work in a myriad of other industries, like retail or restaurants?

I'm not big on Sunday retail either. I prefer the older tradition where most stores were closed on Sunday so people could be with their families.

I’m thrilled that there are several places open on Sunday because I work a non-typical shift while keeping this whole Cloud Economy working. The standard 9-5, Monday-Friday work hours aren’t so “standard” in my corner of our industry.
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