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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, huge difference between "deliver this on your way home or your fired" and "if you want some extra money, deliver this on your way home."

Not much difference between this and, say, LaserShip, aside from it being a small part of the overall job.

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Well, where the rubber meets the road here is in whether or not there is an unspoken expectation that you need to do this, compensation or not. "Official" policy doesn't always reflect what gets implemented, and is sometimes just used as a way to legally CYA so that you can have your cake and eat it too.

That's true for literally every aspect of every job, though, so it seems like a pointless thing to say unless there's some indication they're actually abusing this.

Not sure if it's pointless to point this out. The mechanism is pretty obvious, so the right question is: what (if any) measures will WallMart undertake so that this doesn't happen?

We can create laws without an indication of previous abuse. We can regulate not just because we have indicators of abuse but because we can imagine potential abuse.

We don't give toddlers handguns because our pre-frontal cortex allows us the foresight to see that it's a bad idea -- we don't need to actually wait and see if one toddler shoots another.

Sure, but that only makes sense if there's a reason to anticipate unusual problems.

Like, if Walmart was offering employees extra money to dispose of toxic waste or collect debts from delinquent customers or something, I'd see a huge potential for abuse and wouldn't consider it to be at all a good idea. Those things need special training and the potential for problems is high.

But this is package delivery. It's a relatively unskilled, low-end job. Its abuse potential seems to be to be on the same level as the abuse potential of, say, lifting boxes, or stocking shelves, or mopping floors. "Walmart pays people to stock shelves" wouldn't get anyone up in arms, so why would this?

Because this is "off-the-clock, off-site" work. It has the potential to be extended in a way that it much harder to quantify and regulate. My, and many others', biggest concern is that the workers at Wall-Mart often need their job for subsistence; it's often not a job that they feel they can say "no" to. So if this gets extended from "Do this only if you want to make some side money," to "Doing this greatly influences if you get to keep your job," there is a problem because it's no longer within their normal hourly wage limits and it's no longer in a set physical space.

Do they want to go a different direction than than directly home -- say to go to their daughter's birthday party? Again, if it's elective, there's no problem but if it becomes coerced then Wall-Mart is directly exploiting that need to keep that job.

In fact, I don't see how this is much of a win for the workers. I only see how Wall-Mart is leveraging its indentured workforce, including passing the risk on to them, to expand its profit base. This is late-stage capitalism, pure and simple.

If the pay comes out to less than their normal wage plus costs incurred then I'll completely agree. I just don't see why we'd jump to that conclusion before the details are available. If the news was "Walmart hires 100 workers for new store" we'd assume they'd get paid enough to make it worth their while (although probably not a lot!).

> This is late stage capitalism, pure and simple.

What is late stage capitalism, and why is this representative of it?

The idea is that capitalism will lead, inexorably, to fewer big companies and fewer people who control those companies. Those fewer companies and people will have more and more power, the people at the other end of the spectrum (e.g. unskilled workers) will have less and less power, over time.

Wall-Mart has a lot of power; its workers almost none. In fact most of its workers are kept part-time so that they don't have benefits and more than half of the full-time hourly make less than $25,000/year[1]. Remember that almost 60% of Americans don't have $500 in savings. These people are often terrified of losing their job.

The notion of using workers to make deliveries is representative of late stage capitalism in that at first it sounds like Wall-Mart is letting its employees "hustle" for a bit more money, but instead it's really putting itself in the situation where it can leverage its employee's circumstances. Note that, even in this proof-of-concept stage, the risks and insurance costs are already passed to the workers[3].

Please note that I don't think Wall-Mart as a company is particularly evil or would ever try to not pay its workers for this service -- on the contrary, they will certainly, always compensate. My concern is that that compensation will not cover the costs when all variables are factored in and that while it might start as voluntary, if it's indeed profitable, that would start to be pushed toward a work culture pressure of, "Do you want to keep your job? Deliver this at a net loss to you."

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-23/more-than... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings [3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi...

"Note that, even in this proof-of-concept stage, the risks and insurance costs are already passed to the workers[3]."

Where is that stated in the article? I couldn't find it.

Well, we don't allow people to sell handguns to toddlers. A quick search will reveal that there are quite a few deaths every year due to people negligently allowing guns to fall into the hands of toddlers. Last time I checked there was an average of ~one fatality a week.

I'm just stating that the real question about how good this will be or not will be what happens in practice. If not enough employees are volunteering for this, then entire program could end in failure. Will there be pressure to make this work from upper management?

The opt-in nature of this from existing employees is what makes this suspect. The question is will Walmart use their current employment relationship with these people to try and coerce them into opting in. Hiring outside help from people that Walmart has no previous relationship with doesn't raise such questions.

Walmart also doesn't have a great public image, so people are more likely to go over their actions with a fine-toothed comb.

This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this?

Would you be happier if they just forced their employees to do it? Most job descriptions include a phrase like "and any other duties as required" and as long as they paid the employees and followed the relevant regulations it would be perfectly legal to do this.

> This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this?

Agreed.

At any job I've worked at, doing the bare minimum for awhile will probably get you fired; if you want to stand out or get a promotion, you're expected to do more than you're asked.

Well, you could always look at the actual history of Walmart's employee relations and pay policies and make a guess.

Exactly! If part of middle management's evaluation is based on how many packages their underlings deliver, middle management will start hiring (or give more hours to) people they think are more likely to signup for this and cut (or reduce hours to) people that don't do this.

Particularly since I could imagine hiring staff based on their regular commutes. "Oh, you live in the Dundas neighborhood? We don't have any other employees from there".

... later ...

"Wait, you don't want to do an after work delivery again? Dude, this is why we hired you."

When is that not true for any job ever? A lot of fear mongering before we even see how it works in practice.

"Not a team player"

There's also the middle ground, where folks who happen to deliver things on their way home get more shifts (because otherwise, there aren't enough people to make the needed deliveries). They might be shorter shifts or split shifts, and wind up being an increase in underpaid hours.

Needing money is its own kind of coercion, especially when being a walmart employee doesnt pay much.

Doesn't this also apply to their normal duties? Are we also going to be upset about Walmart paying people to run the cash registers?

Over the last few years Walmart has been stepping up their game when it comes to paying associates. The minimum wage for Walmart is currently 10.50 and rising through next year. In some markets they do pay more for cost of living and such.

Not so fast, what if Walmart lowers overall compensation in the future, what if Walmart's compensation is already overly low. Does that change your opinion on this extra incentive program?

What if they offered overtime to workers who wanted extra money, or offered promotions to people who work particularly hard? Would you have the same dim view of these as you do of this package delivery thing?

If they were able to cut wages in the future, surely they'd do it regardless.

Serious question: would you like a job at Walmart? Do you feel attracted to the idea of working there?

I could imagine working at Trader Joe's. Downside, running a supermarket is a very tedious and unrewarding job. Upside, you don't have to take your work home with you, I like their products and business model, and the firm treats its employees really well, in terms of both pay and conditions. People I've met socially who work there love their jobs, and it's a big reason I choose to shop there. On the other hand, I would have to be truly desperate to ever consider taking a job at Walmart.

So yeah, everything you say is true in theory, but would you honestly want to work for Walmart in practice?

Absolutely not. I refuse to even buy things there.

But I see no reason to single out this particular detail out of this gigantic evil company. Of all the things to hate about Walmart, paying their workers to deliver packages would be pretty close to the bottom.

A clarification may be required for your question and should read

> Would you honestly want to work for a Walmart Store in practice?

I state that because the corporate level options are extremely lucrative. Walmart Tech holds many events, seminars, and speakers for associates to attend during work hours. Although, there is the annoying Walmart Chant...

In most places, they literally can't offer lower compensation without breaking minimum wage laws.

True.

Hey, you haven't been doing any home deliveries lately, is everything ok? Oh, well we have to reduce your shifts next week.

Sorry, cars broke. Can I get a paycheck advance to get the repairs done?

Actually, this is a (sort of) thing called "Associate In Critical Need" where associates (employees, but lingo) can request extra $$$ from Walmart for critical issues.

Important Caveat though, you can only do it once in a lifetime.

Depends to what degree they're asking, or telling.

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