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SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

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Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#151

Post by bee_rider »

gruez wrote: post #133
joshstrange wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like hell. Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. IF I had that information/ability I’d concede to part of your point but I don’t and even if I did I hate that idea with a fiery passion. If that’s t…

>Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. Why do you expect that the app won't have such information displayed? The UX isn't hard. It seems pretty trivial to show a bid/ask chart of delivery prices, along with st…

It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation.

As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#152

Post by thaumasiotes »

gnicholas wrote: post #149
thaumasiotes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. On the other hand, I was recently doing searches for "food near me" and the UberEats / DoorDash delivery fees were under $1. I'm not really pleased that useful search results…

Where are you based? Here in SV I've never seen delivery fees like that. They always tack on at least $5 in mandatory fees, to say nothing of their inflated pricing (versus ordering direct from the restaurant).

This would have happened somewhere between Vacaville and Davis, inclusive.

I'm reporting the itemized delivery fee advertised by the services. I did no investigation at all, because I wasn't looking for delivery.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#153

Post by lotsofpulp »

stemlord wrote: post #127
lotsofpulp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if my law firm sent an invoice that had a tip line on it, that would indicate the lawyers are underpaid? I am going to need a better definition of overpaid and underpaid, and the Reservoir Dogs quip about women only being able to be economically independent due to tips is also going to need a source.

>lawyers >civil engineers How do you find it a reasonable argument to compare upper-end office workers to service industry employees? Are you saying lawyers and engineers are paying their mortgages with tips?

No, I was responding to the logic (which I think is erroneous) of:

> If a business is pushing for tips (those dumbass Toast POS consoles that now often start tipping at 20%), the workers are underpaid.

If the argument is “if workers are paying for their mortgage with tips, then they are underpaid”, then I would respond that analyzing each individual’s cost structure to determine how much you should pay them is, at the least, very inefficient.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#154

Post by baron816 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23
rqtwteye wrote: post #13

It’s the same with the tipping that seems almost everywhere these days. Instead of the workers being paid properly by the company the customer gets guilt tripped to tip and when you don’t tip the worker is angry at the customer, not the company.

As a customer, I support workers unionizing to improve their wage bargaining power. Besides tipping, I can’t do much to help them do that. They’ve gotta organize to do it, and call on the NLRB when there’s (always inevitably) Corporate Fuckery [1]. Luckily, the NLRB received a $25M funding bump in the latest Omnibus spending bill signed into law. [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/decisions/administrativ...

I think a problem you get with tipping is that you have no idea what the worker is getting paid, and you have no idea what they deserve. You go up to the counter and you assume that's the case, and I'm sure much more often than not, they're not raking it in, but it's it a demeaning thing to look at someone and say "hey you look poor, here's some extra money that wasn't part of the bill"?

Unionized may end up deciding that tips work in their favor, so that's not necessarily a solution. What we really need is for the government to ban soliciting of tips or to ensure prices are fully transparent prior to sale. That's a more realistic solution anyway, and one with fewer potential societal costs to it.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#155

Post by gearsandbeers »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #120
gearsandbeers wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did tipping 20% become standard in the US? I was talking to a colleague about this recently and they mentioned it but I could’ve sworn it used to be 15%

It actually used to be 10%. It’s crept upwards for years

I do wonder why it’s creeping upward though given it’s proportional and would increase as prices increase - perhaps it’s a symptom of employers paying even less after controlling for inflation etc. when comparing then vs now

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#156

Post by gruez »

bee_rider wrote: post #151
gruez wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. Why do you expect that the app won't have such information displayed? The UX isn't hard. It seems pretty trivial to show a bid/ask chart of delivery prices, along with st…

It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation. As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing.

> It isn’t obvious that you were making a proposal, it looked more like you were describing the current situation.

I realized that after reading some of the replies. I made various edits accordingly.

>As an idea… it might be neat to try at least. But I think you’d have to build the whole service around delivery bidding, there must be abuses in this sort of market, right? As a customer, make 10 accounts and “take” every bid higher than yours, that sort of thing.

This is probably a non-issue. My impression is that it takes a non-trivial amount of work to get a driver account on such platforms. At the very least you need to give some sort of driver license scan and/or background/SSN check. That alone makes it fairly hard to set up fake accounts to take out competing bids, just so you can save $5 or whatever on your delivery.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#157

Post by WalterBright »

The article complains about automation replacing workers. This complaint goes back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but automation has enabled us to sit in warm houses and watch Netflix all day rather than spending every day picking bugs off of our crops.

The other thing it complains about is cutting costs. Well, Southwest has the cheapest air fares. You don't get top flight customer service when you buy the cheap seats. Customers have shown that they prefer lower prices to better service. They voted with their dollars.

McDonald's has replaced their cashiers with a kiosk. There's still a cashier there, but most of the customers (including me) prefer the kiosk because (at least in my case) it's faster.

The other day I went to a full service restaurant with a friend. Two burgers and a couple drinks went for $130. The restaurant was mostly empty, with more staff than customers. I don't think they're going to last.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#158

Post by Invictus0 »

1) What good would it do to subject the execs and shareholders to vitriol?

2) Is this even a new thing? Did John D. Rockefeller ever have to endure an angry tirade from someone pissed about the gas prices?

3) Have you seen Southwest's stock price? The workers are getting their pay no matter what. The shareholders have just lost $3 billion in value.

4) Are we just going to pretend that the airlines didn't nearly just collapse 2 years ago? SouthWest took on a peak of $11 billion in debt as of 2021 Q3, now down to $8 billion. Do you blame them for cutting customer support staff?

5) Southwest does have a variety of consumer friendly policies: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/reasons-southwest-...

I could go on

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#159

Post by dboreham »

phpisthebest wrote: post #49
rqtwteye wrote: post #13

It’s the same with the tipping that seems almost everywhere these days. Instead of the workers being paid properly by the company the customer gets guilt tripped to tip and when you don’t tip the worker is angry at the customer, not the company.

The problem here is that workers now want to be "paid properly" (what ever that means) and still get tips. There have been restaurants have tried non-tipping models, consumers and staff both hate it. First the highly productive staff often make less under that model (where poor performers make more), consumers hate it because the menu prices increase, and you end up with McD's level customer service where drinks are…

There are whole countries that don't have tipping yet somehow seem to manage to serve food.

Re: SouthwestAirlines' Meltdown Shows How Corporations Pit Consumers Against Workers

#160

Post by gruez »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #136
gruez wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Honestly this is great, for two reasons: 1. You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment, which reduces deadweight loss. For i…

I want food. I don’t want to find the intercept between curves. I don’t want to see how busy or not your workers are. I just want my food. If I don’t get my food, I’m blaming you. I stopped using Seamless and, after GrubHub bought them, Caviar, because of this B.S.

You realize that absent this, you still have the issue of not getting your food? If there are more people wanting deliveries than there are drivers, you'll still be left waiting. This merely gives you more options (eg. "delivery within 10 minutes for $15, delivery within 60 minutes for $5), compared to the alternative of the platform trying to make a one-size-fits-all price for everyone (eg. some sort of surge pricing system).
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