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Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

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Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#71
post #15

Vote with your dollars folks. I'm 5 years in to an Amazon boycott and hardly even notice really.

What are you using that is even close to the same, offers a similar return guarantees and contactless due to covid?

At what point did they say they were using or needed a similar product?

Anecdotally, the store experience here from Walmart, Target and Best Buy have provided contactless parking lot delivery via app throughout much of the pandemic.

Can't speak for Walmart but Best Buy has a price matching policy and the typical corporate return policy which works fine for me but I'm sure has been annoying for many, just like all corporate policies.

It's so strange to me how defensive people can be over corporations when people are told about the option of boycotting. Just...keep shopping there? It's fine. You don't have to boycott and a mob isn't going to judge you if you don't.

That doesn't mean you have to pretend it's because it's this like inherently impossible thing. It's a capitalist economy and Amazon has won you over. You feel they provide the best options and there aren't any viable alternatives.

In my area there are...but it's just Best Buy and WalMart. "Oh boy, really fighting the power by switching from Amazon to Walmart /s"

I go to Best Buy. Never been crazy about that either but I still don't know at what point we all decided waiting two days was somehow preferable to driving for 10-15 minutes to grab a new PS4 controller or whatever.

Suggesting that it isn't a noble effort to boycott a clearly unethical corporation though just because you don't want to do it honestly just stinks of insecurity over the fact that you buy things from a company that isn't exactly turning out to be ethical.

The situation is far more complicated than that and ultimately each of us get to pick our battles day in and day out. You don't have to pick this one - that's fine.

You also don't need to defend a massive corporation on the basis of their competitive advantage in order to make yourself feel better about not boycotting. Sometimes the point of boycotting is that the competitive advantage has come at some other cost to society which is deemed to be too severe. Do you not agree that Amazon has crossed some ethical lines lately? Because _that_ is the discussion we should be having.

Amazon can, will and certainly already has been known to defend themselves using their vast fortune. Please stop helping them or if you're going to at least go fill out a job application and get paid to do so.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#72
post #41

This is more or less how it should be. If Amazon isn't going to offer a good enough deal, then companies shouldn't move packages for them. As more and more people figure it out, other delivery companies will stop working with Amazon as well, although it may be that the deals work out better in places with lower cost-of-living, easier delivery routes (due to climate, geography, etc.), or other advantages. If some othe…

I suspect Amazon delivery will turn into Tyson and its chicken growers. Just keep selling the business to a new group of people who cannot leave because of their substantial investment in equipment.

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Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#73

Wow, I guess I never really paid attention to the details behind all the Amazon headlines I see. "In April, Amazon announced it would reduce the amount it paid for drivers from $17.25 to $16.00 an hour, according to the letter...Weeks later, Amazon announced a series of raises for its drivers around the country as part of a public relations push following a union drive at an Amazon warehouse" "Currently, Amazon deliv…

> 400 seems crazy, I wondered about UPS. In cities, an Amazon delivery driver might be delivering 5, 10, or 20 packages to the same building. And in those areas where Amazon is using its own delivery network, UPS packages (non-Amazon) will be far fewer -- often just 1 or a couple or none per day. So it's not crazy. The Amazon driver might be elivering far more packages but making fewer stops. Also, a lot of those pac…

Found the Amazon astroturfer. Good try though! Cheers!

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#74
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of corporate gains have been at a cost of squeezing on labor resources in some form or another, either time, lower comp, higher productivity, etc. or some combination of these elements. There has been some innovation in general technology making improvements for labor but a lot is really just doing more, for less, and someone else pocketing the gains. You need look no further than AWS treatment of SEs in their…

> You need look no further than AWS treatment of SEs in their PIP culture to see this. Curious if you or someone else can expound further on this?

I've never worked at Amazon, but I read that as Software Engineers are subjected to progress improvement plans as a way to legally threaten firings in order to make people work extensive hours.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#75
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing packages to deliveries is apples to oranges. I don't disagree that these jobs are rough but 120 deliveries with an average of 3-4 packages per delivery paints a similar picture.

> an average of 3-4 packages per delivery Do you have any source for this? It seems like a really weird assumption to make, especially given that Amazon will already bundle multiple orders into the same package.

I don’t order much from Amazon but frequently I get a book and a USB drive or something else and it’s shipped in two boxes despite my preference for bundling into as few parcels as possible likely because of multiple warehouses

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I called Amazon and they of course speak of them like they are some completely separate affiliate that has nothing to do with them. This by design: Amazon has repeatedly said in court that it is not responsible for the actions of its contractors, citing agreements that require them, as one puts it, to “defend, indemnify and hold harmless Amazon.” Just last week, an operations manager for Amazon testified in Chicag…

If you or I hire a company to ship a package, we are not generally responsible if the driver the shipper hires runs someone over. This same construct should apply at scale.

You're right in principle. This is definitely the case if I ask the company to deliver a package, for a price that they name (or negotiate), and I then hand over the package and money and let them do their thing.

The issue here is that Amazon is very strictly controlling the drivers, without (directly) employing them. By gig-economy voodoo they try to have it both ways.

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#78

HN really needs to look at these types of headlines - They are written without qualification. 0.001 of Amazon delivery companies shut down 2 out if 2000 delivery companies shut down. Are both probably more accurate.

Dude, get back to your Amazon job. This was a lazy astroturf

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#79
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. But, with Amazon taking the lion’s share of online sales, how much of delivery is left outside of Amazon? I am not advocating for Amazon, just wondering if this move is sustainable for the employees while Amazon gets (theoretically) strong armed.

If they "sell" 20,000 cheap knockoffs smartphones, but no one ships them, did they really sell them? Shipping is crucial to Amazon's business model. The last mile problem is the vulnerable jugular of the e-commerce industry

Do you have the money still?

Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down

#80

> [contract delivery companies] have to adhere to a strict set of rules from Amazon around hiring, pay, delivery times and routes, and more. The only one of these that Amazon has any right to dictate is delivery times (and what they will pay for that delivery). The fact that Amazon has direct control over the contractor’s worker’s pay, and even the ability to fire those workers, is very shocking to me. Remember, this…

Amazon probably does not dictate pay directly. They just put in the contract that all workers must make X and get health insurance.

Apparently they do, and it includes the power to lower pay:

> In April, Amazon announced it would reduce the amount it paid for drivers from $17.25 to $16.00 an hour, according to the letter.

When what Amazon pays doesn’t cover the statutory minimums, the contract delivery companies have to make up the difference.

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