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Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

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Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#261

Post by reader_mode »

imtringued wrote: post #202
reader_mode wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm neither qualified to judge my server's performance, and I've got very limited and potentially misleading information about what a reasonable expectation is. I've got no idea what small crises my server had to deal with, or how other customers are treating him. That's ridiculous. If you're not qualified to judge the value of service to yourself then your probably not qualified for a lot of spending decisions in y…

>That's ridiculous. If you're not qualified to judge the value of service to yourself then your probably not qualified for a lot of spending decisions in your life. I can trivially judge the necessity of service but unless I am an expert in the domain I cannot judge the quality of service and very often the entire point of the service is to outsource expertise. I sent my car in for an oil change. They didn't replace…

>I can trivially judge the necessity of service but unless I am an expert in the domain I cannot judge the quality of service and very often the entire point of the service is to outsource expertise.

The entire point of this service is to improve your subjective experience - if you can't evaluate that then you probably need a legal guardian.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#262

Post by dagw »

emptysongglass wrote: post #209
ben509 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can we talk about why service is astronomically better in the US than countries with very high worker protections and base wages like Denmark? I'm genuinely curious what you think the factors are in their difference because when I live in Denmark (as I do now) it feels like the waiter could give less of a s** whether the service is good or not whereas when I live in LA or NYC I feel like I am the golden child of thei…

Can we talk about why service is astronomically better in the US

I've been reflecting on my restaurant experiences in the US and Europe and I'm not sure, is it really "astronomically better"? On balance I've probably had people screw up my order and tab at least as often in the US as in Europe. Waitstaff in the US don't seem more knowledgeable about the menu or the wine list, in fact on the whole they tend to be less knowledgeable (probably due to high turnover and restaurants not investing as much in staff). Kitchen 'failures' and food not arriving on time isn't less common in the US and so on.

Sure US waitstaff will be a lot chattier, smile a lot more, ask me more about my day and my meal many more times and say "I am SO sorry" a lot more when things go wrong. But on the whole they don't seem to handle the mechanics of making sure I have a smooth and stress free dining experience any better.

One 'plus' I will give to the US which might account for some of it is that due to wait staff being basically free there are a lot more of them pr. customer which sometimes speeds up service.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#263

Post by madeofpalk »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #229
ARandomerDude wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The tipping culture in Spain seems to account for this acceptably well. 1-2€ left on the table for a staff member who poured you a couple of drinks seems to be generally well received. Of course, they know a table of American tourists is likely to be a gold mine so far as tips are concerned. In the UK tipping is very hit or miss. Especially now that cash payments are becoming rare. I've noticed that food delivery dri…

> In the UK tipping is very hit or miss.

Often there's an 'optional' service charge on bills now (well, before) which we'll always begrudgingly pay. Only once have we asked them to remove it.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#264

Post by cccc4all »

Amazon is getting too big as a business. It needs to be broken up by anti-trust rules. It's not afraid to break common good business practices, because it's too big to fail and punish with normal business backlash. The politician are mainly bought off by Amazon and company.

Pulling these kind of shenanigans is simply cost of doing business. When they get caught, they just shrug and pull some other shenanigans.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#265

Post by madeofpalk »

emptysongglass wrote: post #209
ben509 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can we talk about why service is astronomically better in the US than countries with very high worker protections and base wages like Denmark? I'm genuinely curious what you think the factors are in their difference because when I live in Denmark (as I do now) it feels like the waiter could give less of a s** whether the service is good or not whereas when I live in LA or NYC I feel like I am the golden child of thei…

Having lived in Australia and the UK, and travelled around Europe quite a bit, and to the US a few times, I could not say that service is astronomically better in the US. I've found it particularly fake and insincere.

When I go to a restaurant, I want good food. I don't particuarly care about the service. That's not to say I want the wait staff to spit on me when I eat my delicious meal, but I'm not really looking for people to constantly suck up to me throughout the meal so they can afford rent.

Mainly I think it is cultral differences in perception of quality. The very American "The Customer Is Always Right" attitude of service staff being there to serve the customer's every whim doesnt really translate as much overseas.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#266

Post by mschuster91 »

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.

> If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

This would be the case in a normal free market, but unfortunately the labor market is not a free market as people don't have the choice to work or not to work - they need to work to survive.

As long as millions of people are out of a job, there will be millions desperate to work even for under minimum wage, ready to replace anyone who quits.

This is why there are two things needed - first, a minimum wage not defined in dollars (to account for rent and other CoL differences) but in "is enough to rent a decent home in the area and live without a second (or worse, third) job or government assistance programs", and second, a universal basic income that fulfills the same requirement. Only then, when people have the freedom of choice between working or not, will labor prices reflect the true value of the labor.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#267

Post by __s »

gambiting wrote: post #245
eigenvector wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that of all developed countries, tipping is most prevalent in the USA, but as a fellow Canadian I wouldn't assume our Amazon delivery people are being paid anymore. They are independent contractors and not subject to minimum wage laws. If anything, their effective wage might be lower because vehicle operating expenses are higher in Canada.

I understand that part, I don't understand the part where people find it acceptable to tip the delivery person. It's just not ok, unless they brought your fridge up the stairs or something then sure, I'll slip in a little something for the effort. But an amazon delivery driver? Where they drop the parcel at my door, ring the doorbell and leave? Why would I ever tip them? The same with food delivery drivers - I open t…

Also a Canadian, Ontario. I didn't think to tip delivery, but my girlfriend at the time would include a tip when putting cash on the table for when it arrived. My mother's friend tips at Tim Horton's drive thru. So it likely varies a lot between various demographics

The hassle is that even if a place charges more for food, you don't know if they pay their service better. So if you're going to support the "no tips" agenda you'll have to put in the additional effort of looking up wages to decide Starbucks is better than Tim Horton's

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#268

Post by sitkack »

maxerickson wrote: post #67
MattGaiser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they were receiving all their tips. They were not receiving the same pay as before. I suspect they played with words to make people think one thing instead of another.

The FTC uses flimsy words like "did not disclose": In late 2016, the FTC alleges, Amazon shifted from paying drivers the promised rate of $18–25 per hour plus the full amount of customer tips to paying drivers a lower hourly rate, a shift that it did not disclose to drivers. Amazon used the customer tips to make up the difference between the new lower hourly rate and the promised rate. This resulted in drivers’ being…

Sounds like Amazon actually stole both wages and tips, then used one to pay for the other.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#269

Post by sitkack »

billynomates111 wrote: post #249
neilv wrote: post #79

One of the few things in 2020 that I felt good about was being able to tip the Amazon Fresh delivery drivers. Now I hear that those essential workers, who helped save me and my neighbors from Covid, were getting cheated out of tips, intentionally , by higher-ups at Amazon. And I'm guessing the money meant a lot more to someone who's delivering groceries in a pandemic, than it does to a trillion-dollar corporation. An…

The solution is to stop using Amazon products. The company is hugely exploitative in many ways - we should stop being surprised and just spend our money elsewhere.

Crimes need to be handled by the justice system.

That is part of the a-solution for people that use Amazon and want to feel better about themselves.

But when corporations commit crimes, the people inside responsible need to face justice, not just making whole the harm they have done.

These are real crimes and need to be punished. A few people voting with their dollars does nothing.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#270

Post by VBprogrammer »

madeofpalk wrote: post #263
VBprogrammer wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tipping culture in Spain seems to account for this acceptably well. 1-2€ left on the table for a staff member who poured you a couple of drinks seems to be generally well received. Of course, they know a table of American tourists is likely to be a gold mine so far as tips are concerned. In the UK tipping is very hit or miss. Especially now that cash payments are becoming rare. I've noticed that food delivery dri…

> In the UK tipping is very hit or miss. Often there's an 'optional' service charge on bills now (well, before) which we'll always begrudgingly pay. Only once have we asked them to remove it.

Same. One time we were out at a restaurant and having all had full meals a couple of us were getting some extras like milkshakes when the Waitress came over to tell us in no uncertain terms that she needed the table back.
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