131–140 of 159 posts
Everlane workers tried to form a union and they were all fired https://twitter.com/EverlaneU/status/1243615472307695618 When there are a ton of people looking for work it is not really a good time to be striking
Strike is a worker's right
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank god I don't live in a society where people get fired for unionising. I don't understand how such a thing happens in any democratic society. Do workers really not like the idea of collective bargaining, or are there more business owners than workers in your state/country?
Because we see incompetent employees constantly protected by unions and unions themselves become corrupt money making operations that become a business into themselves with a focus on self service and self preservation over that of their members long term interests. Very similar to politicians.
Why don't you abolish them?
Unfortunately for these workers, with the unprecedented spike in unemployment [1] I suspect Instacart will be able to find a lot of desperate people willing to cross the picket line. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA
No requirement to look for work for the unemployed, that's been waived, at least in my state.
Everlane workers tried to form a union and they were all fired https://twitter.com/EverlaneU/status/1243615472307695618 When there are a ton of people looking for work it is not really a good time to be striking
Striking is not just cause for firing employees in every developed country, except US Strike is a worker's right
Everlane workers tried to form a union and they were all fired https://twitter.com/EverlaneU/status/1243615472307695618 When there are a ton of people looking for work it is not really a good time to be striking
Speaking as a former employee with many friends on the front lines of this event, the lay-offs have very little to do with the team that (previously) wanted to unionize, and much more to do with COVID financial impact and the retail team, of which many many more are now out of a job (vs the team where some percentage of the members previously wanted to unionize). Whoever the person running that account is, they are n…
I would rather pay a higher delivery fee and (1) have enough workers to deliver my goods (2) Have them (and me) protected adequately. The whole way delivery works is broken right now.
> I would rather pay a higher delivery fee In New York, we have Caviar [1][2], a mid-tier to premium food-delivery company. They differentiated based on premium food. I haven't heard any complaints from their delivery staff, though this may be on account of their size. Is there a premium player in the grocery delivery business? Something like FreshDirect, but with better service? [1] https://www.trycaviar.com [2] htt…
That's interesting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At 2-3% the profits on that bill drop down to nowhere near enough to cover gas, mileage, health insurance, unemployment tax, and everything else tacked on for the true cost of delivery. I don't understand how most of those things are "true costs" at all. This type of work is ideal for college students, who are typically still on their parents health insurance, or as supplementary work for someone who already has a…
Well yeah, you can make the numbers square up if you ignore/offload a bunch of costs, but not everyone who is delivering for one of these companies is a student or has another income stream, and wear-and-tear on a vehicle will manifest as a mechanical fault one day. This argument sounds like a lot like the argument against raising minimum wage ("it's not meant to be enough to survive on"), however the reality is that…
Given that it's sustainable if they do, what's wrong with letting those people be the ones who do it? Why is anybody who needs a long-term full-time job required to do this instead of working at Walmart or going to college or learning a trade? Why should we even want to encourage that? It's low-paying work open to anyone who needs immediate income with flexible hours. Let it be what it is.
> and wear-and-tear on a vehicle will manifest as a mechanical fault one day.
Which, for a modern reliable vehicle, you amortize over many thousands of miles. If you're doing this in a 1980s Land Rover, you're doing it wrong.
> This argument sounds like a lot like the argument against raising minimum wage ("it's not meant to be enough to survive on"), however the reality is that large numbers of these gigs/jobs are worked by adults who depend on it as a primary source of income, and in the face of the massive and sudden job losses we're seeing, it's quite callous to say they should "just choose different jobs".
How is it any less callous than saying that most of them should lose their jobs and the rest of them should lose their flexibility? That's what happens if you start requiring a bunch of recurring insurance costs, which increases hiring costs and reduces demand for workers (which lowers overall wages across the economy), and induces the company to schedule the remaining workers during the hours that maximize returns to cover the higher costs instead of letting them work when and how long they actually want to.
I mean, suppose you have millions of college students who need some income. For example, Bob has class from 9AM to 10:30AM, drives for five hours, then has another class at 3:30PM. He drives 30 hours a week like this. You force insurance on him and that job becomes 40 hours scheduled at the company's convenience, which doesn't fit his class schedule, so he needs a different job. The different job is working a contiguous 8 hour shift in an office from 6PM to 2AM -- which fits into his schedule, and actually pays better than driving did, but he preferred driving even with lower pay because the hours for the better-paying job stink. He doesn't get home until 2:30AM and has class at 9AM, and it's 40 hours instead of 30 when he had been using the other 10 hours to study. The people using the better paying job as an actual job also prefer that a million Bobs not need it, because Bob will work for $15/hour when that job used to pay $20/hour, so now half of them lose their jobs to Bobs and the other half get paid less.
Constraining choices pretty much always makes workers worse off. It's worse for everybody. The choices they're forced into in the alternative already exist and they're not choosing them to begin with because the alternatives are not actually better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm all for providing health care (not insurance) via taxes. I think the burden of (mandatory) sick time should fall on the company, because otherwise you create an enormous parallel bureaucracy and require a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem that requires a lot more nuance. As to other benefits, it depends, but a lot of those are probably best left in the hands of the company in that they're another form of co…
As far as I understand, in other countries that provide, say mandatory maternity/paternity leave, there is a benefit provided by the government that covers at least part of that (not sure about sick leave). Otherwise you kill small businesses. Google can easily afford to cover someone's pay if they are out sick or on parental leave or whatever. A five person shop might not be able to afford to continue paying 20% of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as a former employee with many friends on the front lines of this event, the lay-offs have very little to do with the team that (previously) wanted to unionize, and much more to do with COVID financial impact and the retail team, of which many many more are now out of a job (vs the team where some percentage of the members previously wanted to unionize). Whoever the person running that account is, they are n…
Interesting, did not know that. There is a reddit thread in malefashionadvice you may want to comment on as well as there is no contradicting perspective there.
There never was a union. Some people on the team wanted to form one, but most did not. It caused huge cultural issues and tension across the team, and the pro-union employees were very loud and went to VICE pretty much any time they had any minor complaint about the company (which VICE would of course eat right up).
Now Everlane is being framed as union-busting... when it was their own employees that couldn’t form or didn’t want a union. Everlane has always been fine with it, if that’s what the team wanted.