71–80 of 431 posts
What gives? Well, I guess world wide companies have a spectrum of quality and your mileage varies based on too many factors to generalize.
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These aren't contractors like Uber drivers. They are corporations that are contractors of Amazon, and the drivers are employees of those companies. How would this possibly be a legal issue?
The fact that the employees of the contractor companies ultimately work for only one company - Amazon - that means they should be treated like employees of Amazon. This is the same situation when independent contractors have only one client.
The lengths that American businesses go to avoid the cost of labor is beyond stupid. Henry Ford paid his employees well, bc he treated his employees as an investment, not as a line-item cost on an excel spreadsheet, and new that higher wages would mean a more prosperous middle class that would buy more model Ts. [1] The US economy has become extractive in nature - extracting as much value from the resources available…
Our economy (extraction) has been like this since day one lol.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. As a Canadian cousin over here, if you can't tell the difference between a smile/a polite "Hi, how can I…
That's literally his point, the whole friendly-service-with-a-smile thing is forced on them by their managers/corporate, it's not from a sincere desire to have an actual conversation with customers. And people will literally complain and get them in trouble if they don't do it.
Talk about irony, sitting here talking about a superiority complex while defending requiring that kind of stuff of "lowly" service industry workers.
In Germany Amazon uses subcontractors for deliveries. Those are only allowed to have a maximum of 25 (can't remember the exact number) of drivers. That's a strategy to prevent any one subcontractor to become too powerful or merge with others.
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…
It’s definitely a regional thing. You’re an asshole if you don’t engage with people in Seattle, for example.
Always weird to hear people calling it “fake” friendliness because nobody here feels that way.
The lengths that American businesses go to avoid the cost of labor is beyond stupid. Henry Ford paid his employees well, bc he treated his employees as an investment, not as a line-item cost on an excel spreadsheet, and new that higher wages would mean a more prosperous middle class that would buy more model Ts. [1] The US economy has become extractive in nature - extracting as much value from the resources available…
Henry Ford did not give a shit about his workers. That’s just the fairy tale. They absolutely were a line item on a spreadsheet. Once in a while business goals and societal/human/worker goals align - but that is just serendipity. Our economy (extraction) has been like this since day one lol.
It's all about enlightened self-interest. Henry Ford had some idea how that might work, and campaigned for it e.g. the 5-day work week.
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…
A few days ago in Seattle I was threatened by an Amazon driver - I was walking my small dog across a large two-lane street in my neighborhood and an Amazon driver (wearing the vest) driving a White Honda Fit floored-it, revved his engine at me, gave me the middle finger, and drove into the opposing lane of traffic.
Bizarre.
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Let's say I have $100 in assets and $10 in liabilities. The assets consist of Nike sneakers I'd like to sell; the liabilities consist of bags of trash that would cost me $30 to throw away at the dump. I'm lazy, so sell some shoes and I pay the trash man $35 to take the liabilities away. I have put all my liabilities in one company (the trash man) and left all my assets in my company. Now, I have a company with a few…
That's not what assets and liabilities are ... Your bag of trash would still be listed on the Assets side but expenses on trash removal would be on the liabilities side.
One bag of trash magically turns into a loan that I have taken from a bank. I am obligated to repay $35 at an adjustable interest rate. Because I don't like risk, I pay another bank $45 and they take over the loan. Now I have assets and the second bank has the liability (the first bank, of course, still lists the loan as an asset).
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> Nothing shows the power of capitalist monopolies more than the lengths unions go to fight them. Oh wait You say this as if it's some clever proof, but I'd say it's literally correct. It's why all sorts of people in all sorts of countries fight capitalist monopolies. And, I should add, for all sorts of reasons. I believe strongly in the power of markets. They're incredible optimization machines. Which is why I'm als…
Yeah I was saying that the original claim was self-contradictory since if you use "resistance exists" as a proof that something is good, then you've already admitted that anti-unionism is good too, since it's also strongly resisted.