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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

#201

Post by nitwit005 »

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 real fix is to stop tying various benefits to employment, so there'd be no need to worry about who is full time or part time, or who they work for.

Unfortunately, changing most of those programs is political suicide, particularly anything health care related.

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

#202

Post by jenkstom »

max51 wrote: post #194
Draiken wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Both of these statements have a significant number of cases where they are not true.

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

#203

Post by barbariangrunge »

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…

The main way people compete, outside of vampire-FAANG, is by a willingness to work for lower wages

There's a massive power imbalance, a lack of alternative employers, but employers all have a huge number of potential employees, so we end up with zero real wage growth in the last 50 years or more while profitability is soaring

And if you don't like unions, I hope you're looking forward to the age discrimination in your future as you, instead of gainins security as you age, lose all your job prospets in tech

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

#204

Post by esalman »

nitwit005 wrote: post #201
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 real fix is to stop tying various benefits to employment, so there'd be no need to worry about who is full time or part time, or who they work for. Unfortunately, changing most of those programs is political suicide, particularly anything health care related.

It's political suicide for Republicans. Left leaning Democrats like Bernie are all for it.

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

#205

Post by KronisLV »

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…

> This is such a weird American fixation. Here, take my money and hand me my burger and receipt, there's no need for a conversation or a fake smile. You don't care how my day is going, I don't really care about yours. Let's keep this transaction professional and solely focused on this exchange of money for burger.

Here's something anecdotal: as someone from Eastern Europe, I was looking at reviews on Google for a few local dental clinics, to better decide where to sign up for my vaguely-twice-a-year dental hygiene appointment. What I noticed was that most of the places across the board in the center of the capital had around 3 star ratings. I looked into it and while there were generally good reviews of the service quality, almost all of the negative feedback had to deal with the attitude of the reception staff.

People complained about the receptionists not being too interested in small talk, just telling them where to go, urging them to move on, or being terse and presumably uncaring in their responses. Same for cloak room staff. Now there were also complaints which could impact the service itself (professionals not wanting to walk the client through the steps needed for a checkup or whatever, for other procedures), but in general I got the vibe that people expected to be pampered/encouraged more.

And then I noticed that a sizeable amount of the negative feedback came from foreign folks, who might not necessarily be used to some of the cultural and "to the point" interactions that you sometimes get over here. I found that interesting, though it's not like the people here are not nice at all, it's just that you might not always be that way to complete strangers and just be reasonably polite instead. Or maybe most of the staff just didn't care, I can't read minds of course.

So yeah, cultures differ, sometimes quite a bit! I remember going on vacation to a country with a higher population density and getting used to people standing in what I'd assume is my "personal space" without batting an eye took some getting used to, hah.

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

#206

Post by CobrastanJorji »

barbazoo wrote: post #171

> Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer > Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ pers…

Right, but see, that leadership principle is only relevant to employees, and the leaders decided that these people are not employees.

What's that thing where you come up with a metric to measure success but then people over-optimize on the metric itself rather than actual success?

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

#207

Post by taude »

esalman wrote: post #204
nitwit005 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix is to stop tying various benefits to employment, so there'd be no need to worry about who is full time or part time, or who they work for. Unfortunately, changing most of those programs is political suicide, particularly anything health care related.

It's political suicide for Republicans. Left leaning Democrats like Bernie are all for it.

Not enough far left leaning Dems to make Bernie a reality.

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

#209

Post by taeric »

yojo wrote: post #184
snoman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the bills proposing tax increases also contain where the tax money is going to be allocated, I'd be all for it. America's track record for directing tax money towards the public good, is poor.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I disagree with the idea that everything be pre-allocated, but you make the point in a civil way. Earmarking everything is almost impossible to do right. Tax revenue streams go up or down from forces outside the legislature’s control. If there’s a bumper crop of corporate receipts, the right move might be to save them in a rainy day general fund for disasters, or when times are…

I can't see that it is getting downvoted. Agreed that they were civil, so apologies if my response sounded uncivil. I legitimately think it is a trap of a framing. While also hating the idea of wasting money. :D

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

#210

Post by briandear »

tekla wrote: post #41
jxf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get what you pay for. UPS drivers are unionized, and Amazon's aren't.

Wait, UPS fucking sucks though. Amazon drivers make a attempt to hide packages, UPS tosses it 10 feet over the gate and mark it delivered in person.

UPS has, for me, been the most consistently atrocious.

One anecdote:

During the later part of the Covid hysteria, I had a large check arriving overnight. It was in the truck of a driver who supposedly got exposed to Covid. They left the truck parked in the lot, filled with packages. I went to the distribution center counter. The envelope I needed was literally 100m away in a truck I could see behind the fence in the parking lot, according to their internal tracking system.

Rather than simply going outside to get the envelope (that contained a huge check from cashing out a 401k to buy a house,) instead they said that there wasn't anything they could do until that driver returned from a two-week quarantine.

And to top it off, I didn't get a refund for the "overnight" shipping costs.

So if that's "union," then I want no part of it. I have had minor issues with all shipping companies, but compared to UPS, they've been minor. DHL, FedEx, and Amazon -- they consistently perform much better in my experience. Amazon drivers are a bit punk-rock in that they aren't so polished and can be "sloppy" -- but my stuff always arrives on time and I've never had a damaged package. FedEx is quietly consistent for the most part.

This idea that "unions make it better" is just false.

It's also interesting that UPS wanted to force FedEx to be reclassified under the NLRA in order to harm FedEx. FedEx was formed in 1971 and since their original focus was air freight, they were under the Railways Act, while UPS was formed over 100 years ago as a trucking company, thus putting them under the NLRA. UPS doesn't like that because since the Teamsters run the show over there, FedEx had an advantage due to lower costs.

The Teamsters union has annual revenues of almost $200 million and have over $300 million in assets. How does an organization that simply negotiates labor contracts accumulate that many assets? That $300 million isn't pension fund money. That isn't money going to the workers, that's money going to the union. That's money that customers are paying, employees aren't getting, but the union is getting. It's essentially a private tax that benefits the few at the expense of the many. That the Teamsters has a long history of corruption and organized crime involvement is no secret. Why would anyone support such a corrupt organization?

FedEx driver salaries in Texas are $34k-52k, while UPS drivers make $30k-43k. Additionally, the UPS driver salaries also have deductions for union dues. So how exactly is a union benefitting UPS in Texas? Competition for drivers is extremely fierce, especially in long-haul trucking.

Here are some thoughts on unions from readers of the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/unneces...

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