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Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

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Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#91

Post by onion2k »

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.

it's in the company's best interest to have people do as much as possible for as little as possible money.

If you're in an industry where hiring costs are high (eg software) then it's often cheaper to keep staff happy than to recruit new ones. 'as little as possible money' is sometimes spending more now in order to save a larger sum of money you'd have to pay out on recruitment if someone left.

That said, I strongly suspect this is not the case for delivery drivers.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#93

Post by walshemj »

59nadir wrote: post #60
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

Maybe that's because the Swedish unions did not historically unionize as much in the M&P area.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#94

Post by notatoad »

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?

yes, of course. you're responsible on a smaller scale than amazon is, but ultimately you are responsible for the behaviour of the companies you patronize. and the behaviour of their contractors.

and that's not limited to whether you know about their poor behaviour or not. If you see something that's too good to be true, like "free same-day delivery", it's up to you to question whether that's really something you want to support.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#95

Post by zxd1098 »

59nadir wrote: post #60
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

Are you actually advocating for socialism on a site centered around VC-funded tech companies that absolutely couldn’t exist in a socialist country? Awesome.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#96

Post by TheCoelacanth »

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?

The cutoff in my opinion is that if you know or reasonably should know about the behavior of the contractor then you are responsible. If Amazon is not aware of this behavior, then it is clearly willful ignorance.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#97

Post by zxd1098 »

Kadin wrote: post #11
snarf21 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, this is part of the "gig" economy gone bad. I think the solution is quite simple though. All contracts must also include a minimum wage (not saying this is the US minimum wage currently) per hour. This sets a floor and forces more of the cost back up the chain. It fixes the problem of someone forcing minimally bid contracts to people who are desperate for any kind of work. We have great algorithms and the co…

Minimum wage laws are already supposed to work like that. The problem is that companies, Amazon and their contractors in particular, have been able to mischaracterize employees as "contractors" in order to get around minimum wage laws. It's the lax enforcement of 1099 mischaracterization that has allowed the "gig economy" shit-sandwich jobs to proliferate. A deliver driver who has to maintain a delivery schedule or m…

Incorrect, they are not given a route by Amazon. I have had friends doing this through On-Trac, and they were either calculating routes themselves (as a driver) or via a system at the On-Trac center.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#98

Post by zxd1098 »

damal wrote: post #16
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…

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.

These carriers were too slow and didn’t operate on weekends. I blame the legacy carriers. A company like UPS or FedEx should be able to deliver around the clock while still treating its employees fairly. But they have not kept up.

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#99

Post by taohansen »

zxd1098 wrote: post #95
59nadir wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

Are you actually advocating for socialism on a site centered around VC-funded tech companies that absolutely couldn’t exist in a socialist country? Awesome.

VC-backed companies do exist in socialist countries (i’m from Denmark). maybe it’s all time Hacker News readers did start arguing for socialism: self-obsession exists now in more abundance than ever and capitalism is doing everything it can to broaden the cloak of its dreadful shadow

Re: Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions

#100

Post by bob_theslob646 »

Declanomous wrote: post #85
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I'm not op, but I'm a seasonal driver, and I've delivered about 200-250 packages a day on a suburban route so far. My understanding is that the number of stops you have is directly related to the density of your route. So routes with stops that are closer together have a lot more packages. On my first day a package was stolen, and I got a stapled packet with all of the information that UPS knew about the package (whe…

Interesting. Thank you for your reply. Have you heard of Amazon Key( electronic lock so that owner's door can be opened for delivery driver. [https://www.amazon.com/b?&node=17285120011])

Do you have any thoughts on that such as why Amazon would do that and if UPS would do something similar?

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