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Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

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Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#151

Post by Fogest »

dealforager wrote: post #71
lettergram wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you’ve worked a job where you got tipped, have you? It’s actually one of the few ways people can make a lot of money for doing a good job. What you describe punishes hard work, the people getting tips would hate it.

Most of the information I've read about this says that tips do not correlate with job performance. Instead, things like race, sex, attractiveness, and other things have a bigger impact. I've even caught myself doing this, where I'll realize after the fact that the only reason I tipped extra was because I noticed the worker was either a very attractive woman/man. It's not even sexual attraction since I'm not attracted…

It's likely similar to that bias where attractive people also progress faster in jobs. Even if you're not personally attracted to them, you still have that bias.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#152

Post by 0goel0 »

ryanwhitney wrote: post #8

Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26003836 I appreciated samizdis’ comment, which I’ll just copy in full: FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra has also put out a statement [1], titled Regarding the Deception of Delivery Drivers by Amazon.com Commission File No. 1923123 Some extracts: > In total, Amazon stole nearly one-third of drivers’ tips to pad its own bottom line. ... > ... Amazon executives chose not to a…

I am truly amazed that the world's (top, second?) richest man runs a company that cleared $7.2 billion during a global pandemic year, but had to steal $62m to make its books look clean.

Whoever participated this should lose their jobs, and be prosecuted. Really scummy move!

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#153

Post by ARandomerDude »

ben509 wrote: post #112
imgabe wrote: post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

Tips are fundamentally broken. If you didn't know about tips, and someone offered you a job and said, "I'll pay you crap wages, but you can ask the customers for more money. Don't worry, they'll pay or their friends won't like them," you'd think it was a scam because it's such an obviously terrible deal. Tips are an awful way to incentivize good service. I'm neither qualified to judge my server's performance, and I'v…

You're absolutely right, given the premise that we tip to incentivize good service. In reality, we tip so businesses can advertise an $18 meal for $14.99.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#154

Post by halfnormalform »

BeetleB wrote: post #131
Noos wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally you have little to no service interaction in these stores. The people in them are order takers, not sellers; whenever they are pushed to sell, the customer finds it intrusive since normally its value-less or negative products (cough, extended warranties). There also never is enough staff. The staff doesn't have time to provide customer service in meaningful ways; they more or less clean, stock, cashier, and…

> Generally you have little to no service interaction in these stores. Actually, in stores like Nordstrom, you get a lot more service (if you want it) than at a restaurant - even when you don't want it. I avoided them for years for this reason. They have a fair number of people who spend much much more time providing these services than doing the other stuff you mentioned.

That's mostly due to the tip's cousin, the sales commission.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#155

Post by Aunche »

refurb wrote: post #26
imgabe wrote: post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

I have a few friends in the service industry who prefer the tips model since the tips are often 200-300% of their base pay. If it switched to fixed hourly pay, they'd be taking a pay cut since there is no way their hourly pay would be $30/hr.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, but this is absolutely true. Nobody likes tipping culture more than career waiters and bartenders. People are more inclined to part with their money when they can see the face who receiving it. This may not apply for online deliveries though.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#156

Post by helmholtz »

baby wrote: post #125
neilv wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a reasonable comment, and seems a fairly popular idea. But is this the most important comment thread, to be voted to the top, on this particular post? The topic of the post is alleged blatant theft of tips. The question of whether there should be tips in the first place could be a diversion from the more immediate topic.

No tips = no theft and people actually get paid a wage that allows them to live well.

But what about the people who have actively just been shortchanged out of 61.7M USD in tips? Surely that' the topic here?

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#157

Post by 0goel0 »

I don't think gig economy is working for the hard-working workers. We were doing Instacart delivery of groceries until we found out that they punished workers for demanding -- get this -- a livable wage and common decency [0][1]. Doordash has been caught stealing tips too [2]. All of them (Uber, Lyft etc) spent $200m to ensure that their workers would not get a living wage and health benefits [3].

With every passing month, I'm realizing that the gig economy works only when the worker class is exploited, and the exploitation is opaque from the customer.

[0] Instacart can go f*ck itself - we'll go pick up our own groceries.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/instacart-is-eliminating-t...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/nyregion/doordash-tip-pol...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#158

Post by hntrader »

imgabe wrote: post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

What I dislike about a culture of tipping is that in effect it's a transfer of wealth from the generous+agreeable customer to the greedy+disagreeable+shameless customer.

I still advocate tipping since it's a nice thing to do and probably improves your happiness, but I think it's healthier in the context of a no-tipping culture where wages are sufficient and baked into the price of the service.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#159

Post by kitsune_ »

baby wrote: post #125
neilv wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a reasonable comment, and seems a fairly popular idea. But is this the most important comment thread, to be voted to the top, on this particular post? The topic of the post is alleged blatant theft of tips. The question of whether there should be tips in the first place could be a diversion from the more immediate topic.

No tips = no theft and people actually get paid a wage that allows them to live well.

Why not both? Many people would still want to be able to tip for good service even if the employees are paid adequately by their employer, and most of those customers expect the employer to not touch that money at all.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#160

Post by katbyte »

helmholtz wrote: post #156
baby wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No tips = no theft and people actually get paid a wage that allows them to live well.

But what about the people who have actively just been shortchanged out of 61.7M USD in tips? Surely that' the topic here?

Well as a Canadian I’m going who the hell tips the Amazon delivery person
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