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Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#181

Post by WillPostForFood »

etchalon wrote: post #166
boulos wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, in California the tipped minimum wage is at least $13/hr state wide (and $14/hr for businesses with 25 employees or more). I believe in San Francisco, it’s also just strictly the same as minimum wage of $16.07/hr (and again for larger businesses, Healthy SF medical coverage is also mandatory [Edit: actually, providing coverage is, not Healthy SF, that’s just the cheapest coverage and so very common], and…

And … California still has restaurants? I'm told that's impossible. Raising the minimum wage will cause all businesses to close.

Only 50% of restaurant employees are out of work, not 100%.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#182

Post by bigmattystyles »

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…

It’s even worse, in most places, tips are pooled and split evenly from what’s left over after you as the waiter tip out the bussers, bartenders, etc.. It makes for awful office politics.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#183

Post by dannyw »

ilaksh wrote: post #40

If Bezos knew about this then he should be held responsible for theft on a massive scale. At some point, the legal system has to stop protecting worker exploitation. These types of things should be criminal matters.

The legal system is designed to protect the ruling class, with a thin veneer of justice.

The system is working as intended.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#184

Post by sampo »

0goel0 wrote: post #157

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…

> 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].

You have only established that American companies steal from their gig workers. But maybe a Chinese, European or Japanese company could make gig economy work more honestly?

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#185

Post by cush »

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…

Tell that to the career bartender taking home $70k in cash a year. It depends entirely on the business. Some are great for tips, and others suck.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#186

Post by ddingus »

yibg wrote: post #137
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 have become so detached from their original intention too. I've been to so many places (pre-covid) that asked for tips upfront during checkout before I've received any service. How would I know what the service would be like and therefore how much to tip? Might as well call it a surcharge and be done with it. I guess same thing now with food deliveries, but at least I can change the tips (I think?) afterwards if…

I recently visited a place where it was forced hard. If one did not know the POS device, it is baked in.

And, the cashier tells the customer to go ahead and pay, then walks away to fetch their order, leaving them no obvious option other than to select 10, 15 or 20 percent, or the awkward position of asking how to manage the tip.

I have not gone back. I tip, because of the system and the position the labor is in, but I do not appreciate the aggression. I do, however, understand why.

Would much rather see everyone paid well, move bad service to a social issue, and proceed from there.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#187

Post by Fogest »

maxerickson wrote: post #60
BeetleB wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not arguing one way or other, but for many, say, restaurant workers, this practice is the norm in states that allow it (I believe that would be most states). The amount the owner is required to pay a worker is pretty low, as long as they have enough tips to hit the standard minimum wage.

The FTC press release reads like they stated a wage+all the tips and then didn't disclose that they were getting a lower wage+all the tips. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/02/amazo... In a typical restaurant job, the stated wage is the legal minimum for a tipped role, and then (in theory anyway), the restaurant is required to ensure that the employee receives the normal minimum wage if they don't…

Didn't Instacart get in trouble for a similar thing? I believe they said drivers would get 100% of their tips which was technically "true", however they were using the tips as part of their minimum pay and if the tips weren't enough to hit that guaranteed rate they would top it up to that rate. It's overall a super sketchy practice. When someone sees an offer for "Work this block of time for 15/hr" they assume 15/hr + tips on top, not that they will pay you for an order + tips, and if that meets the $15 they give you nothing extra. It's a slimey practice and it looks like this is two big companies getting in trouble for it.

This gig work stuff really needs to be more regulated because clearly these big corporations treat their employees like slaves and exploit them and do not self regulate at all.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#188

Post by hntrader »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #178
hntrader wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. Prices for basic services are lower in tipping cultures, ceteris paribus, since staff wages are a component of price, and staff wages are lower in a tipping culture since they make part of their income from tipping. Hence, the cheap customer benefits to the maximum in a tipping culture since the prices they're paying are artificially lower as they've been subsidised by tippers. That's why it's a transfer of we…

When you s/cheap customer/poor customer/ the whole thing sounds slightly different.

This would make for a very interesting academic study, to figure out whether variation in tip size is driven more by personality dimensions (agreeability, generosity, etc) or by socioeconomic status.

Presumably it's a combination of both, where on a diverse platform like Uber it weighs more heavily towards socioeconomic drivers and in a more homogeneous environment like an expensive restaurant it comes down more to personality traits.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#190

Post by [deleted] »

Noos wrote: post #78
imgabe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also incentivize people by firing them when they don't do the job well, as every other industry does. Why are you even hiring people who aren't going to do the job well? What kind of crappy attitude is that? "I know you hired me and you're paying me and I'm here to do this job, but I'm going to do it really poorly unless you pay me extra"

the problem with retail specifically is that you are never paying enough to make that a credible threat. If anything, your staff might just turnover every two years naturally, especially if it's only a part time job. Most retail in an area either is lifer staff or constant churn; in a particularly bad job I had, we turned over entire staff almost in a year.

[deleted]
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