Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
1–10 of 310 posts
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#2Wow, I guess I never really paid attention to the details behind all the Amazon headlines I see.
"In April, Amazon announced it would reduce the amount it paid for drivers from $17.25 to $16.00 an hour, according to the letter...Weeks later, Amazon announced a series of raises for its drivers around the country as part of a public relations push following a union drive at an Amazon warehouse"
"Currently, Amazon delivery drivers are expected to deliver upwards of 400 packages a day on 10-hour routes that often extend up to 12 hours."
400 seems crazy, I wondered about UPS. According to Google "At UPS, the average driver makes about 120 deliveries per day, says Jack Levis, the shipping giant's director of process management"
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#3> [contract delivery companies] have to adhere to a strict set of rules from Amazon around hiring, pay, delivery times and routes, and more.
The only one of these that Amazon has any right to dictate is delivery times (and what they will pay for that delivery). The fact that Amazon has direct control over the contractor’s worker’s pay, and even the ability to fire those workers, is very shocking to me.
Remember, this isn’t a situation like Uber: these are not contractors to Amazon, but employees of independent delivery companies.
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#4Wow, I guess I never really paid attention to the details behind all the Amazon headlines I see. "In April, Amazon announced it would reduce the amount it paid for drivers from $17.25 to $16.00 an hour, according to the letter...Weeks later, Amazon announced a series of raises for its drivers around the country as part of a public relations push following a union drive at an Amazon warehouse" "Currently, Amazon deliv…
That’s on the order of 50¢ in wages per delivery. Drones & autonomous/semi-autonomous robots can’t compete against super low wage labor. That’s crazy cheap for a delivery driver! (Low wages hold back innovation and improvements in productivity.)
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#5Wow, I guess I never really paid attention to the details behind all the Amazon headlines I see. "In April, Amazon announced it would reduce the amount it paid for drivers from $17.25 to $16.00 an hour, according to the letter...Weeks later, Amazon announced a series of raises for its drivers around the country as part of a public relations push following a union drive at an Amazon warehouse" "Currently, Amazon deliv…
> 400 packages a day on 10-hour routes
40 packages per hour or 90s per package. No wonder the drivers pee in bottles and work unpaid overtime to keep their jobs.
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#6I've started to shop directly with some retailers instead of buying through AMZN (ex: Thorne) and I've also noticed that AMZN has become increasingly expensive for many items, sometimes double the price than can be found locally (ex: Allouse). Being a Prime member doesn't really offer me anything that I can't live without. Sometimes I can get next day delivery but usually the item takes longer than 2 days. Recently I started some online shopping at Walmart and have been pleasantly surprised with the price and speed of service (sort of like AMZN use to be). I've decided to cancel my Prime Membership this Aug, mostly because AMZN just isn't competitive and offers less value these days.
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#7Wow, I guess I never really paid attention to the details behind all the Amazon headlines I see. "In April, Amazon announced it would reduce the amount it paid for drivers from $17.25 to $16.00 an hour, according to the letter...Weeks later, Amazon announced a series of raises for its drivers around the country as part of a public relations push following a union drive at an Amazon warehouse" "Currently, Amazon deliv…
A lot of corporate gains have been at a cost of squeezing on labor resources in some form or another, either time, lower comp, higher productivity, etc. or some combination of these elements. There has been some innovation in general technology making improvements for labor but a lot is really just doing more, for less, and someone else pocketing the gains. You need look no further than AWS treatment of SEs in their PIP culture to see this.
You can only squeeze people so far until they finally step away. The only reason it's being sustained is that people don't have alternative options in many cases and are esentially forced to do it. At some point people will find other options and leave you on your feet but as long as there's a steady stream of desperate people ready to be subjugated to ridiculous working conditions, this will continue.
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#8Vote with your dollars folks. I'm 5 years in to an Amazon boycott and hardly even notice really.
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#9> [contract delivery companies] have to adhere to a strict set of rules from Amazon around hiring, pay, delivery times and routes, and more. The only one of these that Amazon has any right to dictate is delivery times (and what they will pay for that delivery). The fact that Amazon has direct control over the contractor’s worker’s pay, and even the ability to fire those workers, is very shocking to me. Remember, this…
Are these the same drivers that wear Amazon vests, drive Amazon cars and can only deliver for Amazon? Seems like Amazon is doing some legal loophole with "3rd party" companies to get around actually employing these drivers and giving them the full time benefits they are entitled to by law
I'm so tired of this dumb gig economy that isn't long term sustainable.
Re: Two Portland delivery companies revolt against Amazon, shut down
#10HN really needs to look at these types of headlines -
They are written without qualification.
0.001 of Amazon delivery companies shut down
2 out if 2000 delivery companies shut down.
Are both probably more accurate.