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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

#91

Post by MattGaiser »

nonfamous wrote: post #80
MattGaiser wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But is that a case of them dictating pay or just changing the formula for how they pay delivery companies?

If I tell IBM that I am not paying $100 an hour for their crappy consultants and will only pay $20, I still don't employ their consultant.

> 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. This meant Amazon delivery companies were paying even more for drivers' wages.

To me, it just seems to be a reimbursement rate, not what the driver actually makes.

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

#93

Post by robalfonso »

yalogin wrote: post #38

How is it even physically possible to deliver 400 packages in 10 hours? That comes to 1.5 minutes per package. One cannot do it even if it’s in the same area and every house has a package. Amazon employees already pee in a bottle to save time now they need to learn magic too?

I think we are missing some information. I know my wife will order items on a separate account, this means some days I get 4/5 packages delivered at the same time. I think a packages/day and stops/day metric would be more helpful

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

#94

Post by thatsamonad »

axaxs wrote: post #56

I don't get Amazon's play here. Just charge me more money for items, and pay your people well. I'd rather have a happy safe driver than a miserable one at the end of his or her rope, all so I could save a dollar. Reminds me of Papa John complaining giving his employees healthcare would make prices go up 14 cents per pizza. Seriously? Who cares about 14 cents when ordering a pizza... Amazon's entire value to me is fas…

These statements seem contradictory to me:

> I'd rather have a happy safe driver than a miserable one at the end of his or her rope

> Amazon’s entire value to me is fast delivery

My understanding is that the pace/quantity of deliveries is what makes the drivers miserable so if you want the drivers to be happier and not stressed then relaxing the delivery standards would have the most impact.

Do we really need most of the stuff sold on Amazon delivered in 2 days or less (or even at all)?

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

#95

Post by tablespoon »

D13Fd wrote: 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…

> 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.

Not really. These companies are basically committing suicide, because Amazon is in such a dominant position. The way is should be is that they could have put pressure on Amazon much earlier, instead of being forced into such extreme action.

Nothing will change. Amazon will just shift to exploiting a different group of suckers through Amazon Flex, or go back to UPS for awhile until the lessons learned from this dissipate. It's not like there's a club of past & future delivery company operators that meets regularly, to keep the knowledge of how bad it is to work with Amazon alive. As the saying goes: "a sucker is born every minute."

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

#96

Post by IncRnd »

criddell wrote: post #12

> "We refused their demands and they followed through with their threat, terminating their contract with us, leaving their employees confused and looking for answers," she continued. "We’re doing everything we can to support the affected employees including connecting them with other Delivery Service Partners in the area who are hiring.” I'd love for that PR person to drive the route one day and see if they can meet…

Which words in that statement are contemptuous?

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

#97

Post by nrmitchi »

whatok wrote: post #35
nrmitchi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 should clarify that comment with if you made a naïve assumption of 3-4 packages per delivery then it's a similar workload. I don't doubt that Amazon workers are treated worse than UPS workers but comparing packages to deliveries without normalizing somehow is not productive. The 400 package number from the article is also specifically cited from this company and we have no idea whether that is a nationwide figure w…

> if you made a naïve assumption of 3-4 packages per delivery then it's a similar workload

But you're still just making an assumption with 0 evidence. I would love to see a distribution of how common multi-package deliveries are, but we don't have that information, and I highly suspect that it's overwhelmingly one package per delivery.

It seems like an exceptionally bad assumption that Amazon is regularly shipping 3-4 items individually rather than bundling them up. After all, they are basically a logistics company at this point.

If we're just making assumptions here, you may as well assume that most Amazon deliveries are to apartment buildings, where the driver just leaves everything at the front desk, there are 200 packagers per delivery, and the driver is only making 2 stops per day.

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

#98

Post by relax88 »

tablespoon wrote: post #95
D13Fd wrote: 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…

> 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. Not really. These companies are basically committing suicide, because Amazon is in such a dominant position. The way is should be is that they could have put pressure on Amazon much earlier, instead of being forced into such extreme action. Nothing will change. Amazon will just…

> It’s not like there’s a club of past & future delivery company operators that meets regularly

Why not?

“National Delivery Drivers Union” sounds pretty good to me for a name.

If you want to negotiate with leverage against Amazon, you need to actually have the leverage.

Why is collective bargaining so weak in this industry?

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

#99

Post by rossdavidh »

MattGaiser wrote: post #54
D13Fd wrote: 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.

Perhaps somewhat similar to Uber and Lyft, their business model may be relying on a continuous supply of innocents.

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

#100

Post by tablespoon »

specialp wrote: post #27
blakesterz wrote: post #2

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…

Yes and hence like warehouse workers not taking bathroom breaks for fear of being "off-task" Amazon drivers cut corners too. I have seen them blowing through stop signs, and one of them after blowing through a stop sign, ripped a three point turn and came within one foot of my car before my beeping stopped them. I called Amazon and they of course speak of them like they are some completely separate affiliate that has…

> 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 is despite the fact they say Amazon and deliver only Amazon packages.

That's entirely the point: create a policy to cover your ass, put some schmuck under so much pressure that he's forced to violate it, then blame the schmuck when there's pushback (and try to present yourself as the good guy in the process).

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