Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

dailymail.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 109 posts

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#51

Post by PeachPlum »

notatoad wrote: post #12
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? All of the above? But mostly Amazon. We need to stop letting companies get away with poor practices by blaming it on a contractor. Companies should be accountable for the behaviour of their contractors. If Amazon wants to structure their delivery business around contractors, they have a responsibility to require the contractors provide good wo…

While I have some sympathy for that position....

"Hello, can you have someone deliver this parcel for me. I'll pay you $5"

You're saying that if Amazon is asking that, they are responsible for the life of the person delivering it.

If I am asking Amazon that, therefore, does that make me responsible?

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#52

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #44
naner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And the people making those incentives know it! They can't always legally tell an employee to do bad/illegal things, but they sure know how to build a system where thats the only option.

Exactly, it's in the company's best interest to have people do as much as possible for as little as possible money. This is why we have worker rights, things like minimum wage and maximum working hours. As well as health coverage etc.

Or should anyway. But nope, money first, people second.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#53

Post by Southy »

dazc wrote: post #50
damal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon. They switched from using respectable national couriers that employ people full time in well paid jobs, to creating a platform that rewards bottom feeders. Adsense/Adwords did it with the ad industry. Uber did it with taxis etc. The constant march of technology for efficiency without considering the ethics.

'They switched from using respectable national couriers that employ people full time in well paid jobs, to creating a platform that rewards bottom feeders.' Speaking about the UK, so apologies if the situation was different elsewhere. But... From how I remember it, these 'respectable national couriers' were just not doing the job they were paid to do.

Agreed, people like DHL, FedEx and ParcelForce in the UK were not delivering packages when they said they would.

There was a 3 month phase when I didn't recieve a single next day delivery on the next day.

It is a very rare occurance now when I don't get an amazon package delivered on time through amazon logistics.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#54

Post by arthur_pryor »

PeachPlum wrote: post #51
notatoad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who is to blame? Amazon? The companies? The drivers? Capitalism gone mad? All of the above? But mostly Amazon. We need to stop letting companies get away with poor practices by blaming it on a contractor. Companies should be accountable for the behaviour of their contractors. If Amazon wants to structure their delivery business around contractors, they have a responsibility to require the contractors provide good wo…

While I have some sympathy for that position.... "Hello, can you have someone deliver this parcel for me. I'll pay you $5" You're saying that if Amazon is asking that, they are responsible for the life of the person delivering it. If I am asking Amazon that, therefore, does that make me responsible?

> You're saying that if Amazon is asking that, they are responsible for the life of the person delivering it.

> If I am asking Amazon that, therefore, does that make me responsible?

yes. definitely. not entirely, but for sure to some small degree.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#55

Post by PeachPlum »

dazc wrote: post #49
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.' You can add 'customers' to this list since this is where it all begins. It isn't so long ago that all people complained about was the time it took for stuff to be delivered and all those 'we called but there was no one in' cards. So capitalism responded and now folks have something else to complain about.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, this was perfectly acceptable:

"Please allow 28 days for delivery"

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#56

Post by robryan »

nocoder wrote: post #37
tomcam wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bad for employees but when I have been there in the past I was impressed with how quickly things would be delivered from Amazon in Mumbai.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#57

Post by DanBC »

lucaspiller wrote: post #38
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.

In the UK drivers of vehicals with a maximum weight over 3.5 tons will be covered by EU regulations.

Other drivers will be covered by the GB domestic regulations. There are maximum driving times listed in the domestic regulations.

The flowchart here tells us which rules apply:https://www.gov.uk/guidance/drivers-hours-goods-vehicles/int...

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/drivers-hours-goods-vehicles/2-g...

> In any working day the maximum amount of driving permitted is 10 hours. The daily driving limit applies to driving on and off the public road. Off-road driving for the purposes of agriculture, quarrying, forestry, building work or civil engineering counts as duty rather than driving time.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#58

Post by geezerjay »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #44
naner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And the people making those incentives know it! They can't always legally tell an employee to do bad/illegal things, but they sure know how to build a system where thats the only option.

> but they sure know how to build a system where thats the only option.

That's also how research/PhD programs work. Sure, you aren't forced to work like a slave and sure, you don't need to endure slave wages... But your supervisors and advisors tell you that's what it takes to get that competitive advantage in a very competitive field, and if you want to get ahead in life you need to have what it takes and be a team player...

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#59

Post by PeachPlum »

arthur_pryor wrote: post #54
PeachPlum wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have some sympathy for that position.... "Hello, can you have someone deliver this parcel for me. I'll pay you $5" You're saying that if Amazon is asking that, they are responsible for the life of the person delivering it. If I am asking Amazon that, therefore, does that make me responsible?

> You're saying that if Amazon is asking that, they are responsible for the life of the person delivering it. > If I am asking Amazon that, therefore, does that make me responsible? yes. definitely. not entirely, but for sure to some small degree.

One suggestion is to include the actual price of delivery instead of "free delivery" (or discounted) into the displayed price.

Swift delivery is changing our expectations. If I knew it would take a week to come I would plan ahead, instead I can buy on impulse. Of course the real costs are being externalised, on the poor drivers but also on congested roads and pollution.

One of the consequences: https://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/annualmaps.asp

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#60

Post by 59nadir »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #52
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the people making those incentives know it! They can't always legally tell an employee to do bad/illegal things, but they sure know how to build a system where thats the only option.

Exactly, it's in the company's best interest to have people do as much as possible for as little as possible money. This is why we have worker rights, things like minimum wage and maximum working hours. As well as health coverage etc. Or should anyway. But nope, money first, people second.

Thanks, Ctulhu, for looking out for the common man. :)

On-topic: Workers' rights have taken a backseat due to aggressive lobbying for several decades, not least in the US.

Even in countries with very strong socialist foundations unions are hollowed out to the point where entire fields like IT feel like they have no use for them. Sweden is a good example: IT professionals are sought after to the point where they currently (rightly) feel like they have no use for unions, but when they turn out to be the new factory workers they won't have an already established base to unionize on.

Maybe I'm silly to worry, but I feel like this is all a pretty big mistake.

Post reply on HN