Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 119 posts

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#91

Post by animal_spirits »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #38
stackskipton wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The act basically makes Amazon responsible for these subcontractors. BTW, they are not only ones who do this, UPS and Fedex have similar setups. The problem here is Amazon farms out delivery to these companies, set impossible delivery standards that require these subcontractor employees to do things that break the law OR cause damage to their health. However, since Amazon is technically not employing them, they have…

isn't this the fault of the subcontractor for agreeing to the impossible?

That's what i'm confused about, no one is holding a gun to the subcontractor's heads forcing them to do the impossible

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#92

Post by ncallaway »

dartharva wrote: post #75
ncallaway wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has already consolidated that power. They’ve just done it in a way where they are able to shirk some liability and maintenance costs onto their employees. They’ve problem is that most of these are not really small businesses, in the same way that most Uber drivers aren’t really a small business. They don’t drive a generic truck, they drive an Amazon branded truck, often an Amazon financed truck, often a vehicl…

> Can they use the Amazon-truck they financed from Amazon for non-Amazon deliveries? I don't know, can they not? If that is the case then it's definitely problematic.

My understanding (based on my memory of a leaked DSP contract that I’m having trouble finding again) is that if you’re a branded DSP, then you must lease the vehicle from Amazon, and you may not use the Amazon vehicle for any purposes other than Amazon deliveries.

My memory is the DSP itself is not required to be exclusive to Amazon, but an Amazon branded vehicle can’t be used for purposes other than Amazon deliveries.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#93

Post by summermusic »

StilesCrisis wrote: post #60

Man, Amazon is astroturfing the hell out of the comments here. They're scared of this one.

This video was extremely clear on what the problem is, but the number of comments here like "what is actually the problem?" is crazy.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#94

Post by dylan604 »

bena wrote: post #80
dylan604 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone from another state, it's amusing how the mayor of a city has more clout than governor of the state.

New York City has a greater population than 38 states. Why should the governor of South Dakota (pop 935,094) have more clout than the mayor of New York City (pop 8,804,190)?

I said the governor of the state, not a state. Why you jumped to some inane example that has nothing to do with the conversation is beyond me.

By definition, the governor of NY is responsible for more people than the mayor of NYC, yet more people are familiar with the mayor and might not even be able to name the governor.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#95

Post by gruez »

malfist wrote: post #82
gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progressives love to point out how popular their candidates are but fail to realize they're in a filter bubble that doesn't reflect the wider electorate. They were jubilant when al-Sayed won, but betting market odds for democrats winning dropped as a result.

And we all know that gamblers and betting odds always are correct.

They might not be prefect but they have a better track record than social media commentators. If you were going by the sentiment on HN or reddit, you'd thought Kamala would have won by a landslide.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#96

Post by StilesCrisis »

EugeneG wrote: post #79
StilesCrisis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a different level of discourse--whataboutism and deflection--that tells the tale. Your comment too: it's glib and dismissive, refusing to engage seriously.

I wrote like 10 comments that engaged seriously in this discussion... and haven't really gotten much back except comments that allude to conspiracy. There are people who start with "of course Amazon is evil and they just want to do evil things" and work backwards from there... I tend to start from a different direction of "I get packages quickly, and it's huge value add to my life; lots of people have good paying job…

If there is no real-life harm, then it should be net-neutral to roll these trucks back under the Amazon corporation directly, and no reason to push back on it.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#97

Post by em-bee »

EugeneG wrote: post #74
podgietaru wrote: post #55

I'm surprised to see so much of the rhetoric here being about what the concrete difference is... It is relatively easy to look that up, no? As far as I can see from a literal 5 second google search: - Liability for Injury at work is no longer on Amazon - Liability for injuries caused by Amazon workers get shifted to the Worker, rather than Amazon (despite the fact that some of the conditions leading to that may come…

Don't we already have workers comp insurance laws? Other forms of liability insurance? Doesn't Amazon carry the same insurance if it's the one doing the delivery directly? Do we think levels of this insurance is insufficient in general and should be higher? Bottom line - just because Amazon doesn't directly have this liability - it doesn't mean nobody has this liability - the sub contractors do. And if they do, they…

the video is all about the subcontractors, so i guess they are the ones being hurt.

i suspect the problems are:

subcontractors are small businesses that don't have the resources to cover those liabilities or fight lawsuits from customers, nor do they have the resources to fight amazon to make it pay their share.

maybe getting insurance is not enforced, so those who don't pay for insurance are cheaper.

amazon uses their negotiation power to demand favorable conditions for themselves from subcontractors.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#98

Post by gruez »

bena wrote: post #76
gruez wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Companies should be on the hook if that's the law says they're on the hook, not because some politician put out a youtube video. This is rule of law 101. As for changing the law so they're on the hook, I'm against this specific proposal for the reasons outlined in my previous comment.

So if an Amazon delivery driver driving an Amazon delivery truck delivering Amazon packages causes an accident with millions of dollars of damages, Amazon should not be responsible? Also, I'm not talking about what the law says, I'm asking if it's ethical. Because we should construct our laws to favor ethical outcomes. I mean, what if the law said that no matter what, I dunno, Target was responsible for all damages i…

>So if an Amazon delivery driver driving an Amazon delivery truck delivering Amazon packages causes an accident with millions of dollars of damages, Amazon should not be responsible?

If you paid someone to drive you to the airport, and the guy runs over a kid, should you be responsible? For the purposes of this argument, let's ignore the role of ride hailing platforms. After all, if it weren't for them you could have conceivably arranged it over craigslist or whatever.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#99

Post by EugeneG »

StilesCrisis wrote: post #96
EugeneG wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote like 10 comments that engaged seriously in this discussion... and haven't really gotten much back except comments that allude to conspiracy. There are people who start with "of course Amazon is evil and they just want to do evil things" and work backwards from there... I tend to start from a different direction of "I get packages quickly, and it's huge value add to my life; lots of people have good paying job…

If there is no real-life harm, then it should be net-neutral to roll these trucks back under the Amazon corporation directly, and no reason to push back on it.

If there’s no real life harm, and Amazon chose to organize their business in this way, it means they think it’s a cheaper/better/more efficient way of doing it. So we shouldn’t make laws preventing it or undoing it unless we have a good reason.

Burden of proof is on those who want to make new rules that compel others.

Re: It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

#100

Post by EugeneG »

em-bee wrote: post #97
EugeneG wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we already have workers comp insurance laws? Other forms of liability insurance? Doesn't Amazon carry the same insurance if it's the one doing the delivery directly? Do we think levels of this insurance is insufficient in general and should be higher? Bottom line - just because Amazon doesn't directly have this liability - it doesn't mean nobody has this liability - the sub contractors do. And if they do, they…

the video is all about the subcontractors, so i guess they are the ones being hurt. i suspect the problems are: subcontractors are small businesses that don't have the resources to cover those liabilities or fight lawsuits from customers, nor do they have the resources to fight amazon to make it pay their share. maybe getting insurance is not enforced, so those who don't pay for insurance are cheaper. amazon uses the…

The way this stuff works is Amazon requires them they need to get X amount of liability insurance to even be a subcontractor. Amazon requires proof.

The government has its own laws on things like minimum workers compensation insurance.

So the subcontractors are insured.

Post reply on HN