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Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

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Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#191

Post by tech_ken »

epivosism wrote: post #173
tech_ken wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the problem is that the labor "market" has many weird inefficiencies not found in the usual "buyer X selling widget Y" model of the free market. For example, the poorer you are the less elasticity you have in your labor "product"; by the mere necessity of paying rent and buying food you have to accept virtually any offer that comes your way. On the other hand, employers often negotiate from a position of substant…

I agree that this is a theoretical weakness. In the US currently, though, it seems that this rarely ever comes into play. i.e. in SF the city gives anyone money to survive for food/etc. w/out working. I think truly not having options is very rare in the 1st world in general. If you think this is an active issue here, I'm open to looking further into it. So I agree that while exploitation by monopolies is possible (in…

I'm not sure where things stand now, but just prior to the pandemic I remember reading that the labor market was historically inelastic for workers of all stripes. Between non-computes, implicit collusion, and the emergence of gig work people who sold their labor for wages were the least able to change jobs or negotiate for better wages since like the 70s.

Your characterization of SF's social safety net seems (charitably) hyperbolic, I think you need to diversify your news diet.

> I think we have mostly taken care of it via social support mechanisms

As with labor elasticity, these are again at historical lows. Basically since Reagan we have gutted our social safety net and replaced it with tax cuts for the employers who then take their extra capital overseas.

> Drivers like it and the company likes it, so what's the problem?

I don't know who you're talking to, but drivers definitely don't "like it". They need it, yes, but the ones I've spoken to seem to have major problems with Uber who has stonewalled them for years.

Overall it sounds like we are starting from very different assumptions about the state of play in the labor market right now, not sure if we're going to bridge this in a comment thread debate. Have a good one!

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#192

Post by dang »

jtreminio wrote: post #28
bluedino wrote: post #12

I'm always amazed at the stark differences between UPS drivers, and Amazon drivers. UPS trucks are always clean. They follow the rules of the road. The drivers wear neat uniforms, they walk on the sidewalks, they're polite, they're just professionals held to a higher standard. Then there are Amazon drivers. They park blocking half the road, music blasting, the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a mont…

> music blasting Far be it from me to say a driver can't listen to music while they are at work. > the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a month Good. Washing work vehicles so that they are always sparkling seems like a waste of resources. > Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile This is such a weird American fixation. Here, tak…

Please keep nationalistic flamebait off this site. It leads to nationalistic flamewar, which we neither need nor want here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#193

Post by nitwit005 »

tiahura wrote: post #8
bfeynman wrote: post #2

This behavior of legal loopholes to discount workers should be made illegal. The definition of sub-contractor has got to change and/or have laws/policies in place that actually make sense in a sub contractor relationship. These are shell companies that spin up and exclusively deliver for amazon, they aren't gig workers delivering when they want, they have strict quotas.

"Shell company" isn't a legal term and has varying definitions, but generally is a company that only exists on paper and doesn't do anything. These companies deliver products for Amazon. Make sense to whom? People that have no experience with running a business and hiring subcontractors?

> These companies deliver products for Amazon.

Amazon is essentially claiming this is not the case. These are independent companies that delivery for anyone.

If Amazon were to directly run the firms, then they would be Amazon employees, which is what they're attempting to avoid.

Of course, you may notice these companies only ever deliver for Amazon, use Amazon software, etc. There is a lot of pretend going on.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#194

Post by max51 »

Draiken wrote: post #178
legitster wrote: post #101

I'm always confused by the framing of these articles. Are companies supposed to help unions form against them? If they supported unionization efforts, why not just save everyone the time and money and listen to employee demands without one? It's like, you can love your wife as much as anyone, but you are not expected to help her get her own divorce attorney. Yeah, companies are going to be against unionizing. That's…

That's such a bad analogy. Unions are only really brought up when people are being mistreated, underpaid, overworked, etc. People don't unionize when their needs are met (even if they should). Your analogy doesn't work even if you also include the fact that the husband has been abusing his wife as much as possible without getting caught. What they are doing is making an active effort to make sure the wife can't get t…

I think you are the one not understanding the situation. As you point out, amazon is a "profit-seeking machine". It makes perfect sense that they would not want unions. The wife-beating husband also is not going to want his wife to meet with a divorce attorneys and is certainly not going to take the initiative of hiring one for her.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#195

Post by appletrotter »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #131
appletrotter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a counter anecdote. > Another issue was the smiling. Walmart requires its checkout people to flash smiles at customers after bagging their purchases. Plastic bags, plastic junk, plastic smiles. But because the German people don’t usually smile at total strangers, the spectacle of Walmart employees grinning like jackasses not only didn’t impress consumers, it unnerved them. https://medium.com/the-global-millenn…

Yes, because this is about relative cultural norms . At what point did I claim otherwise? Unlike everyone disagreeing with me, I'm not the one claiming my values and expectations are in some way universal or superior (though I can see how I might be read that way giving I'm defending our shared culture in this area, which can appear that I'm in some way advocating for its superiority, something I assure you I'm not i…

I think pointing to an opposite case here was meant to highlight the arbitrary nature of the norm.

I would even say It seems absurd when you realize it’s not universal.

Just because it is, doesn’t mean it should be.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#196

Post by datavirtue »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #25
bluedino wrote: post #12

I'm always amazed at the stark differences between UPS drivers, and Amazon drivers. UPS trucks are always clean. They follow the rules of the road. The drivers wear neat uniforms, they walk on the sidewalks, they're polite, they're just professionals held to a higher standard. Then there are Amazon drivers. They park blocking half the road, music blasting, the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a mont…

Fair enough, but I wonder how much areas and personal experiences matter. My experience with UPS over last 2 decades, as a receiving individual , has been dismal (condos in Toronto and now house in satellite residential community). I understand they optimize toward businesses, and I'm sure as a business their procedures are streamlined and efficient, but as a resident receiving package, it's awful. Majority of packag…

Dude, they all suck. I wish they would stop shipping or accepting shipments that are in retail boxes or obviously improperly packed.

I get heavy packages that are blown open and missing half the contents constantly. They throw it on the porch and run.

Amazon has caused the market to shift this way with their cheap ass practics and skewed incentives and garbage customer service.

Oh..AC unit was shipped in a retail box meant for the shelf in a big box store? AC unit is dented on all four corners? Better break out your hammer because the process to send it back and get a new damaged one is gonna cost you. The sellers game the system and so does Amazon.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#197

Post by alvarezbjm-hn »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #149
alvarezbjm-hn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Courtesy with customers is forced on them? My god!" I worked in a call center for two years, for three different companies. Yes, (fake) courtesy is forced . The customers of one site were so difficult that courtesy was scripted (there were scripted interactions for frustrated and for rude customers)

Well you have clearly missed the point of my comment. Yes, it's "forced" on them, in the same way that many many other behavioural expectations are "forced" on a worker. They're "forced" not to abuse their co-workers. They're "forced" to treat their workplace with respect. They're "forced" to dress in a certain way. That's called "having a job", and it's all stuff I've had to do, too, in every job I've ever had.

No, no. It seems I was not clear enough.

By forced courtesy I mean there was a metric for that. Those with the worst metrics were let go and we were reminded of that weekly.

On the other hand, I suppose people except sociopaths treat others well, anywhere, most of the time, not out of an obligation.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#198

Post by Analemma_ »

notyourwork wrote: post #71

What I’ve gathered from reading this thread is experience varies widely. One thread, Amazon sucks. Another, UPS is horrible. Another justifies it based on unionization and someone counters with highlighting FedEx’s lack of Union. What gives? Well, I guess world wide companies have a spectrum of quality and your mileage varies based on too many factors to generalize.

It's the same thing with cloud providers: don't bother using HN comments trying to figure out which one to use. "AWS is terrible, use Azure", "No, Azure is terrible, use GCP", "No, GCP is terrible, use AWS". Zero useful information. This is why you don't use anecdotes as data, which is a lesson people remember until they don't.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#199

Post by jenkstom »

epivosism wrote: post #35
oldjim69 wrote: post #11

Nothing shows the power of unions more than the lengths companies go to fight them. In a Union there is Strength.

This sounds like just the opposite of a capitalist monopoly from the other side. Why would I want any party to control the way a market works? You'll get stagnation both ways. see many historical examples where both monopolies and unions refused change and were overturned, leading to failures. i.e. Detroit I want a functioning competitive market where workers and firms compete and have to adjust and innovate to fit w…

Unions are just another corporation. They balance the corporation that owns the assets. Nobody is locking anything down, they're just signing contracts. This is healthy for competition, not stifling.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#200

Post by themagician »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #6
bfeynman wrote: post #2

This behavior of legal loopholes to discount workers should be made illegal. The definition of sub-contractor has got to change and/or have laws/policies in place that actually make sense in a sub contractor relationship. These are shell companies that spin up and exclusively deliver for amazon, they aren't gig workers delivering when they want, they have strict quotas.

The solution is to enforce the laws we have, not feign powerlessness every time some crackerjack claims to have identified a profitable loophole.

Often what happens is delay, delay, delay, appeal, delay… and then you are “too big to fail” and everyone has to “think of all the jobs that will be lost”.
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