Amazon, Instacart delivery workers strike for coronavirus protection and pay
npr.org
npr.org
- Safety precautions at no cost to workers — PPE (at minimum hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes/sprays and soap).
- Hazard pay — an extra $5 per order and defaulting the in-app tip amount to at least 10% of the order total.
- An extension and expansion of pay for workers impacted by COVID-19 — anyone who has a doctor’s note for either a preexisting condition that’s a known risk factor or requiring a self-quarantine.
- The deadline to qualify for these benefits must be extended beyond April 8th.
There was controversy in the past with DoorDash effectively pocketing the tips (https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/dc-attorney-gene...) which makes me wary about tipping in these apps -- are InstaCart and Amazon doing the same?
Something strange by the way, is that tipping is variable. Eg my ~$110 order yesterday automatically tacked on a $7 tip, my ~$50 order of three days had a $5 dollar tip automatically added. Anyone have an idea how they are calculating this?
If I remember correctly, the prior controversy was that DoorDash (or whomever) would give them the tip 100% but then take an equal or weighted portion from the company's contribution.
Company tells the worker a delivery pays $15, you tip $5, the company reduces their portion to $10, the worker gets $15 total. You tip $10? The company pays $5, worker still walks away with $15.
- We will pay you $X
- We will make sure you make at least $Y
If you make the wording changes
- $X == <wait staff minimum wage>
- $Y == <normal minimum wage>
Then it becomes clear that this is exactly how restaurants work; with the caveat that it's per delivery instead of per hour.
Which makes sense, as the quantity is what actually matters to the delivery person.
(1) Drivers are paid in 2 factors, a tip provided by the user, and a per delivery fee provided by doordash thats variable, and generally in the industry is between 10 and 20% of the basket cost
(2) doordash additionaly guaranteed a total "minimum compensation" per delivery up front that was like ~20% of the cost of the basket
(3) Doordash would use the tips users paid to offset the amount they would pay drivers in order to meet the "minimum comp guarantee", so if you ordered 100 dollars in food, and tip 20 dollars, and the minimum compensation on the order was 20 dollars,doordash would pay the driver nothing, and your whole tip would sub for driver pay. If instead you tipped 0 dollars on your 100 dollar basket, doordash would pay the driver 20 dollars out of its own funds to meet the minimum comp. Likewise if you tipped 10 dollars, doordash woud pay 10 dollars.
In other words, you don't know. I agree with you that they shouldn't be scummy about this but I don't think it's fair to make up that they are.
Amazon I believe tends to do everything through third party companies and there really isn't tipping with Amazon as far as I know, but that might have changed since I haven't ordered an Amazon Fresh order in ages. From other comments here, it sounds like they now having tipping.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/9ji1af/p...
"Amazon will never disclose any information about specific deliveries beyond what you see in the app before and after the delivery. They will not tell you who tipped or how much. The only ways to tell if a customer tipped are cash tips and blocks with only one order completed, including instant offers, for which the earnings exceed the initial offer."
"If an offer shows a pay range, the base rate is never more than the low end of that range. For example, if you accept an offer for a 2 hour block with pay of $36-50, anything you earn for that block beyond $36 is from tips."
"Amazon does not technically steal tips, but the end result is the same as if they did. They call it variable base pay. They state in the contract that 100% of tips are passed on to the driver. This is true. However, they often lower the base rate enough so the net earnings is the minimum stated in the block offer. Think of it like a piece of string. The entire length of the string is your earnings. The right side of the string is tips and the left side is base pay. They promise never to cut the right side of the string. They cut the left side instead. It still results in a shorter piece of string."
"If the base pay plus tips ends up being more than the offered pay for the block, you will get paid the full amount. So if you accept a 2 hour block for $36-50 and get $55 in tips, you will be paid at least $55. They don't lower the base rate on every block and they don't always lower it the same amount. They say it's based on demand. For a 2 hour block, after tips, you might be paid $36 or you might be paid $80. It just depends."
"I'm not sure how Amazon determines the suggested tip for orders that include tips. I just played around in the Prime Now app and it seems like the suggested tip is a percentage of the total item cost, before shipping and tax, but is a minimum of $5. Customers can, of course, change it to whatever they want."
If Amazon is promising to pay you at least $36, then the "base pay" must be $36 - that's what you'd be getting if there was $0 tips - and either you're getting all the tips (i.e. if there's any tips, you're paid more than $36), or Amazon is lying and stealing tips (i.e. if there's $2 in tips, they reduce ("steal") your base pay to $34 so you're still paid just $36).
Here's a question for people who were so upset by this. Let's say you have a bunch of tipped employees that you directly pay $10/hour and with tips they average $20/hour. You have two problems though, (1) your employees complain that during some shifts they are making barely over their base pay and (2) potential new hires are worried that they won't make as much in tips as you say current employees make. The question is: would it be taking advantage of those employees to change the employment to include a guaranteed $15/hour minimum, for any shift where they make less than that you'd pay them extra to hit the minimum?
The comparison to DoorDash isn't table service in a restaurant, it's ordering food for delivery to your house and then giving cash to the driver. Where does that cash go? The driver's pocket. That process & the cultural understanding of it has literally been around as long as the concept of tipping.
Here's the real question that answers why people are "upset". If you did a poll of 100 people ordering on DoorDash, and asked them "when you tip on your order, where does the money go", what do you think people would say? 99/100 of them would ABSOLUTELY say "to the driver" and that is everything that is wrong with what DoorDash did. I struggle to engage sincerely in argument with anyone claiming otherwise.
How is that different from servers in a restaurant? If you asked that question of people who give a tip to their servers at a restaurant they would also say that that money goes to their server, despite the fact that the federally mandated earnings guarantee (assuming the restaurant doesn't have its own higher one) means that that money, effectively, might just be going to the restaurant.
> it's ordering food for delivery to your house and then giving cash to the driver
And would you be upset if Domino's gave an earnings guarantee to their drivers?
I fail to see how that is relevant. I think the closest comparison to DoorDash is ordering delivery from an Italian restaurant – not driving to the restaurant, sitting down at a table and getting table service. And yes, I think many people are aware that it is common for kitchen staff to pool tips at a restaurant, in the same way that they know the same process doesn't exist for delivery drivers.
>would you be upset if Domino's gave an earnings guarantee to their drivers?
I would have no problem with that, but if they have a button on their app that says "tip your driver" it had better all go to the driver.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that that is what I was talking about?
Do you not understand what an earnings guarantee means in the context of a tipped job? It means that you have a base pay + tips. If those tips end up not meeting the earnings guarantee, the company will pay you extra to hit that guarantee. That effectively means that the first $x of your tips are going to the company to cover the earnings guarantee. That's what doordash (and most restaurants) are doing.
The US federal minimum wage laws require a minimum wage of $7.25/hour. Tipped employees only require a base rate of $2.13/hour but the employer must guarantee that they earn $7.25/hour w/ tips, if they make less, the employer must pay them the difference. Effectively, the first ~$5/hour of tips goes to the employer.
How many industries offer a hazard pay? I know the military does for conflict zones, what amount do they offer?
https://civileats.com/2020/03/20/breaking-grocery-store-work...
May also be coming to doctors, nurses (if it isn't there already):
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-administration-looki...
Customs workers, corrections officers, and a ton of other jobs also negotiating it. In Philly, among them are police, firefighters, sanitation workers, health care workers.
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/philadelphia-to-r...
As for "who typically offers this" I would argue that this isn't quite like a "normal" time. Many people are putting their health on the line to come to work which is not something that is normally part of the decisionmaking process for their regular wage. As a result of that increased risk and because of the huge demand for their labor a large increase in pay makes a lot of sense (even if we take the "combat pay" stuff out of the equation. Demand-alone would increase their wages)
i can't understand what might prevent amazon and instacart from assenting to these demands as soon as they have the logistical ability to provide the necessary items to their staff.
the national situation isn't permissive of corporations dragging their feet when essential services are down at the moment.
on the other hand, workers treated to a hopefully quick victory will not forget this when the pandemic ends. if we're lucky, the balance of power will shift to their favor.
"Shhh... don't let the Plebes know they're still getting robbed. We're going to fight this, negotiate something a little lower and still come out way ahead." -Our Corporate Lords and Vassels
In all seriousness, it goes to show you how little people have come to expect. Some of these strikes historically have had unrealistic expectations in requests from what I recall. Labor rights have declined so far in this country that demands from strikes are now almost fully reasonable, leaving little room to negotiate back from.
Hazard pay is moot for workers who have already caught COVID-19 too, which I would guess is a reasonably chunk of delivery workers by now.
I apologize for the wall of text below, feel free to minimize this comment ([-] sign next to delete above), but it is crucial to demonstrate how broad this support is to the working class.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-stimulus-package... (F.A.Q. on Stimulus Checks, Unemployment and the Coronavirus Plan)
> Benefits will be expanded in an attempt to replace the average worker’s paycheck, explained Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a public policy research group. The average worker earns about $1,000 a week, and unemployment benefits often replace roughly 40 to 45 percent of that. The expansion will pay an extra amount to fill the gap. Under the plan, eligible workers will get an extra $600 per week on top of their state benefit. But some states are more generous than others. According to the Century Foundation, the maximum weekly benefit in Alabama is $275, but it’s $450 in California and $713 in New Jersey.
> Are gig workers, freelancers and independent contractors covered? Yes, self-employed people are newly eligible for unemployment benefits. Self-employed workers will also be eligible for the additional $600 weekly benefit provided by the federal government.
> If you’ve received a diagnosis, are experiencing symptoms or are seeking a diagnosis — and you’re unemployed, partly unemployed or cannot work as a result — you will be covered. The same goes if you must care for a member of your family or household who has received a diagnosis.
> What if my child’s school or day care shut down? If you rely on a school, a day care or another facility to care for a child, elderly parent or another household member so that you can work — and that facility has been shut down because of coronavirus — you are eligible.
> What if I’ve been advised by a health care provider to quarantine myself because of exposure to coronavirus? And what about broader orders to stay home? People who must self-quarantine are covered. The legislation also says that individuals who are unable to get to work because of a quarantine imposed as a result of the outbreak are eligible.
I will admit I'm enjoying the schadenfreude of workers finally having some power due to a Congressional response to a pandemic, much to the chagrin of "but that's how the free market works" apologists.
That'll sell well in an election year with states and the federal government overextending themselves already due to a woefully inadequate initial response. We can't even get masks and ventilators manufactured at the necessary rate, and we're going to send force to assist Amazon Fulfillment? We're not even sending in force to assist first responders and medical practitioners.
Amazon workers have options during this, including just going home. That's Amazon's problem, not the country's. No one is entitled to cheap delivered ecommerce services. If Amazon can't make the economics work without coerced labor, good riddance.
We're only a few weeks in, and we've already drastically expanded benefits to those in need (the stimulus bill I mentioned upthread) much more than we would've under normal circumstances. Quite a bit of change can occur in a year, no?
The Fed is predicting 47 million unemployed [1], at a 32% unemployment rate. That's a lot of folks without health insurance. 68k people in the US die every year because of lack of access to healthcare, and 50% of bankruptcies are due to medical debt, under "normal" circumstances. That is a "failure of capitalism" not replicated in other developed countries.
Sometimes, to fix a system, you must break it. This is the "break it" part. [2]
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-job-losses-could...
[2] https://reason.com/2020/03/27/pandemic-related-unemployment-...
Serious question, not being combative with you.
Doesn't Amazon have a very real hazard here which could result in burdensome regulation and or customer defection?
I appreciate that you either can't see that or don't buy it so I end my participation here having tried to make the point as clear as I could. That is not a sly way of saying "I'm right, you're wrong" by the way. I am just out of words and ideas and time to re-express the relationship again.
Very best to you.
Additionally, we, as a society, should value minimizing the number of people working in these roles and their interactions to ensure they remain healthy and don't become transmission vectors.
But Instacart is just grocery shopping. At a certain price point, people will go into stores themselves, or self organize to do bulk purchases for a small group. Right now in NYC, some people have started a charity to deliver goods to older residents in apartments for free. Instacart can’t compete with that.
Have empathy both ways.
If their job is so important that you can't make do without it, pay them more, or consider doing it yourself for less.
Just generally too: if Amazon announced they were hiking prices 50% overnight, how would you react? This move is pretty scummy.
default to 10% instead of 5%; it's a UX nudge. The user can always change it.
For the record, I'd be perfectly happy with the price of these delivery services increasing by $5 if it went to the gig worker fulfilling it. That's already a lot less than I tip food delivery drivers.
Again, how would you feel about Amazon hiking the price of hand sanitizer 50%?
It will be great to see this play out though. I live somewhere (unf) that had unions running govt for a period of decades. The US never really had this so is under the illusion that this kind of thing achieves it aims. It doesn't. What happens is most of these people don't have jobs anymore, you have to hike interest rates so most people lose their homes (and bye bye, VC funding...that will just stop overnight...I would guess the majority of the people on here will lose their jobs, and modify their opinions too late), and the price of food starts increasing daily.
And btw, this should be obvious but apparently isn't, this is going to go on for at least a year. At some point, people are going to have to learn how to go about their daily life without infecting other people. The alternative is: most of these jobs stop existing, and the economy shrinks significantly (10%+). Lockdown and people deciding they need "hazard pay" to do their normal job isn't a permanent solution (central banks will be watching this closely and will be ready to hike rates as soon as it starts).
As I specifically mentioned: this is going to last for a year (probably more). Everyone is going to have to learn how to continue doing their job with that.
There is no other option: the govt doesn't have enough money, business doesn't have enough money, consumers don't have enough money...everyone is going to have to do their job with this happening.
Not equally. You can't possibly be saying that someone who is able to completely self-isolate by working at home is in the same position as the person who is out grabbing groceries?
As a bonus, we might just start addressing the extreme and ridiculous levels of wealth inequality we have in society today through that process.
Source: https://shoppers.instacart.com/
Haven't worked as an ISS, but I presume that they have no say in their orders as they aren't paid per order. I actually have no idea if they even get a portion of tips.
source: have run for Instacart before.
I also think instacart workers might be at higher risk of virus exposure because, as I understand it, they need to go into the store and pick out groceries - while food delivery workers only really interact with the food bag at the counter. I'm also not sure how often the different contactless delivery options are chosen, but instacart would include more exposure if you needed to hand every grocery bag to the customer compared to one or two food bags.
To save $5? Really?
Right now, I'd pay $25/order to actually get a delivery window.
It's tricky to discuss whether the price is worth the service. Because it depends on many factors (e.g. how much you make)
We'll just vote with our wallets.
Come on now.
Personally, I would be fine with paying $5 extra per order of groceries, but I'm not a user of services like this.
True "delivery fees" are only enacted for non-subscriber or small orders.
source: am infrequent Shipt/IC shopper
The biggest problem here is that this is one of the most "expendable" workforces we've ever seen–hiring cost is rock-bottom, training is done through an app (requiring no human interaction or pay), and shoppers are just sent a shirt and prepaid card (Shipt) or a lanyard and card (Instacart).
I feel like the organizers understand this and know that if the overlords decide they don't want to deal with the strike, their accounts can be deactivated with the click of a mouse, wasting less than $50 in resources (though usually less because of the ROI they've already exhibited). All the company has to do is ramp up advertising or add some new hire incentives.
Keeping the demands reasonable is how they're self-preserving. Anything too extreme, and they just get replaced with no change. It's a good _starting point_, but there definitely need to be more protections for our gig economy workers in the future.
This should be done by the government. It feels unfair to pass this on to consumers, but there should be some sort of "voluntary unemployment" for people with pre-existing conditions right now.
These workers were forced to work during quarantine because the government deemed Amazon an essential business. As a result, Amazon stock's price relative gain to the S&P 500 tumble during this crisis is ~80%, that's almost a doubling of the stock valuation due to the uninterrupted business that these delivery workers made possible.
I repeat: AWS basically doubled their relative stock valuation, withstood one of the biggest stock market tumbles in all history, because their lowest level employees went to work at a point when everybody else stayed at home safe.
If you think of a business as a machine, and the person who bought the machine as a stockholder, you would understand that a machine does not suddenly work harder because the person paid more for the machine.
The trouble here seems to be maintaining a consistent supply that is sustainable.
It just seems to be well outside the scope of things a business should be trying to solve and into the realm of what we have a government for.
That's the opposite of what you want here.
Where do you think the government gets its money?
We tip our delivery / pickup people 5 bucks for orders which are well south of $100. Masks and hand sanitizers and gloves are what they need to do their jobs. That and customers keeping away from them 6-10 feet. You can't let yourself just walk up close to someone you see working in a store to ask them a question, like you could in the beforetime.
The take away is this- truck drivers, stocking clerks, checkout people are essential to a functioning society. Hollywood stars, entertainers and media personalities are not.
I think our tipping culture is okay but I’d like us to move to calling them delivery fees so we can keep the idea of the tip as a pure bonus between me and those serving me.
I don’t like feeling like I am required to tip but I like tipping. Especially when not expected but socially accepted.
The commenter above incorrect about the taxing, but are correct that tipped workers don't have precisely the same wage laws. Tipped workers are allowed to be paid a lower minimum wage that varies by state. In NYC is is $10/hr as opposed to the standard 15/hr minimum. In Florida it is $5.54, while regular minimum wage is $8.56/hr.
Yes employees are supposed to be compensated in missing tip pay to reach the actual minimum-wage. But also yes, this is the fastest way to get yourself fired from a company. If you are the only employee asking for compensation due to low tips you're effectively admitting you do not offer customer service to the same tier as other tipped workers and should be fired.[0]
[0] I don't personally believe this. But every manager I've ever had while doing tipped work has believed this. And good luck getting a lawyer to fight for you when your salary was previously $5.54 / hour.
A 10% default tip in a situation like this doesn't feel bad to me as a consumer.
I see some people have different definitions than me but defining tips as discretionary and optional. Required costs are fees and should be called such. It’s pedantic nitpicking based on a goal of explicitly paying workers and not hiding it in mandatory tipping. I hope they get what they want.
The computer system notifies drivers when they are delivering a first-time order for a specific address or phone number. This is intended for security purposes (you are supposed to always call when outside for a new order to ensure it's not a robbery or scam). But for myself and other drivers, the main function of the "first time delivery" notification was to let us know this person would not be tipping. Anecdotal evidence purely, but first-timers would almost never tip, and then would always tip every time after. I imagine because they saw the notice on the box.
I do wish it were as you described. Because of the wage laws in Florida when I was in college, a delivery at the edge of our radius that didn't tip basically cost me money. I was never compensated for gas or mileage, and tipped workers are allowed to be paid a separate minimum wage. If I remember correctly it was about $3/hour when I was working? I was lucky enough to deliver for a store that had coverage in a very rich neighborhood though and I'd say on average I made way above what the average pizza driver did. Jobs are weird.
Because there will be a certain group of people who shame others to tip.
They can purchase soap.
Amazon has the global logistical supply chain to make it happen. Bezos can send an email and have a grain-to-alcohol pipeline in the works by the end of the week.
I want the people delivering my food to be healthy, stable, and financially secure. Don't you?
Sure, but obviously we also want cheap stuff and free delivery. Particularly in cases of low income/layoffs, since everyone depends on grocery delivery right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages
Striking generally only works for skilled workers. Unskilled workers going on strike in the middle of some of the highest unemployment figures recently seen is not going to end well for those people. They'll simply be replaced by those who are more hungry.
This is not a problem with the workers, or with the employers, or with the current situation: it is a problem inherent to unskilled, undifferentiated labor.
There's lots of truly terrible things that could be allowed to happen "naturally" if we just let anyone work under any conditions for any wages. Then we're China or some really terrible place. But one of the main values of the West is exactly we're NOT China and we don't do ruthless things to people and we don't suffer those things to be done by others.
In the end, and make no mistake about it, that's the general neighborhood we're playing in for the moment, a civilization is more than the price of its aluminum or labor or even its stocks. Now is the time when we enact our deepest values.
It seems you may be advocating for government intervention to prevent these people from being fired and replaced during their strike. Is that what your comment means? Or do you simply expect the employers to meet their demands, and not replace them? I don't think that's very likely, considering the already extremely-high turnover in these unskilled, low-wage positions.
I don't expect the government to intervene because that's not their expertise.
In short I expect Bezeos to apply the same level of creativity and innovation to his employee's and fellow American's well-being and safety during this crisis as he's applied to the task of creating the greatest buyer/seller/supply chain marketplace the world has ever seen. I expect that and so does everyone else, even if not in those words.
Nothing could be clearer than there's a universal and urgent need to identify and then do the decent thing during this emergency.
What incentive do they have to meet these demands, versus just replacing the staff that doesn't like working under those conditions?
I don't think that replacing someone who is unhappy with their job with someone who is eager to have it is a lack of basic human goodwill, unless you are the only employer in the world, which Amazon is not.
A cynical person might even float the idea that Amazon WANTS that to happen so that there IS a regulatory burden because it can bear it and its would-be competitors / start-ups can't.
But that's too dark even for me... for now.
So back to original question- what about the risk of future, widespread #AmazonHate ?
1.) Everyone gets fever checked at the door starting shift. Fever people go home.
2.) Scheduling is devised to segregate employees into non-overlapping groups. We're a work family and we work together in some area. Whatever has to be done to the schedule or even the job details itself to effect this, as far as possible, is done. The goal is to make each family unit as small and physically localized as possible.
3.) Obviously, everyone gets a mask when they become available. If you happen to have access to a mask, then bring it and use it- you're protecting yourself and everyone else around you (from you). (Woodworkers, potters, construction and cement workers etc. normally had a ready supply of N95 and N100 masks on hand in the beforetime).
4.) Hourly hand washing-sanitizing or whatever your skin can bear.
5.) Social distancing rules apply to customers and employees both (thinking of grocery stores here) communicated through signage, flyers and serious verbal intervention if needed.
4.) Employees are authorized and ordered to do what they have to do to keep their personal distance from obtuse / heedless / intruding public without respecting usual rules of "courtesy" and without fear of management discipline. So also between employees.
5.) Delivery people live outside, w/ exception of bathroom breaks, which can also be taken at delivery people's residences, where practical.
6.) Deliveries are assembled and placed outside by inside people.
7.) Inside people do not get close to outside people.
8.) Outside people do not get close to customers, including inside customers homes, enclosed porches, etc.
Knowledgeable healthcare professionals please improve this.
There's a record number of unemployed people right now [1] and, if some workers strike, wouldn't it be easier for companies to just hire more people ?
[1]:https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-long-run-of-american-job-gr...
If you use these services you are impacted by the health and safety of the workers that make the services possible. You have a stake here. Call your people:
https://www.iup.edu/archives/coal/unions-and-mining/the-coal...
https://iup.edu/archives/coal/unions-and-mining/the-windber-...
Even non-union protections directly by government like sick leave could be harder as businesses lobby that they can't afford to provide it at this time. (In my view, this pandemic shows we can't afford NOT to. But it's a debate to be had.)
I think people have a lot of control over how this goes, I'm not saying it's hopeless. Just saying that I don't think it's a naturally-occurring phenomenon. The Great Recession wasn't great for the labor movement.
If Amazon’s the only game in town and Amazon workers go on strike, you have problems that can’t be resolved by competitors rushing in to fill the gaps.
To your direct point, this is why you organize entire industries within a given geography for service work rather than employer by employer. (It's also why there's been a big push over the last year towards sectoral bargaining.)
I really truly hope all the light this pandemic sheds on huge systemic issues in this country are realized by the population at large and acted upon.
The sad state of healthcare in the US being the most obvious issues on the forefront, but also the decline of labor in general, rampant cronyism, and disgusting societal priorities/incentives favoring concentrated economic growth above all else. A vibrant economy is important but it's not the most important aspect of a society, not when it comes at a cost of physical/mental health and pitiful standards of living for massive portions of the population.
I can understand how those visions of the world felt fresh a few decades after the New Deal, Keynesian economics, etc. (especially due to big events like hyperinflation or the oil shock). These days though whenever I hear a neoliberal demagogue online saying that we need to press the gas pedal of the market to the floor and it feels so tone-deaf. I can't tell if it's my lack of experience or I'm looking at the progressive era and New Deal with rose-tinted glasses.
Let's get this straight, out of the possible jobs that exist that require no experience, no education, very little mental or physical risk or exhaustion, this one ranks probably near the very top.
There are very many jobs that have the same requirements that don't pay as well or are very demanding physically, mentally or both. Why are some of the other jobs that have to exist quickly forgotten? Is it because of the exposure to the healthy and wealthier techie crowd?
Also, I don't know if you've ever had a job that's underpaid where you work with the public, but it's incredibly exhausting and frustrating and nothing like my comparatively stress-free job where I get to sit at a computer all day. Now imagine doing that in this moment of crisis where you're doing deliveries so that others don't have to risk themselves!
To your specific question, obviously something about Instacart will get more play on a tech site than, say, sanitation workers. I don't think that's odd. But there's no reason to assume that one needs to come at the expense at another -- if you start a thread about sanitation workers, I'd be first to upvote it.
As far as tipping goes, nurses are not tipped for their work. Nor are doctors. Tipping should not be part of the equation as it puts too much variability in the pay for these people. They should be paid based on the risk and the need for their work, not based on the whims of some people.
The market isn't whatever corporations tell you that you're worth.
Nurses and Doctors make a lot of money and have better health protection. At least, they have full health insurance, compared to food delivery drivers. On top of that, medical professional are expected to be at risk.
If you are coughing and you expect someone to risk their lives, by catching whatever you have, while delivering your food, then, be prepared to shell additional for your delivery.
Ideally it should be across corporations. I know a ton of people who drive for both Uber and Lyft, depending on who pays better. Thats a critical element - there needs to be a market of companies for people to work for, but they still need solid benefits and protections.
Think of this as a next generation union type structure.
I don't know why this doesn't come up more. People get hung up on whether contractor or FTE fits gig workers better, without ever suggesting there's a categorization issue here that could best be solved with a new category.
Why do you believe no taxi drivers want to be employees? Why is it different from pizza deliverers or restaurant servers as regards wanting to be an independent contractor?
Could I please have some papers shedding more light on productivity, societal gains, monopolistic behaviour etc resulting from unionizing an industry?
Not just perceived benefit but what happens in practice.
Ignoring whether unions are good or not. I find it odd that people here want another level of management and bureaucracy in their work environment when simpler solution like universal income exists.
Universal income will allow low paid workers to stay at home while not worrying about grinding to put food at their plates. Allowing them more power individually to negotiate better terms with their employer rather than having to go through a middle management layer which may or may not be receptive to your request.
I have a dumb question, what happens when an industry is controlled by one segregated group by their sex, age, race or any differentiating factor that is permanent.
Would that not be a challenge with unions?
How do you enforce "diversity" in unions whatever that may be?
Would universal employee benefit from the government not encourage more growth as small businesses don't need to factor in a lot when hiring workers and will only need to pay simple tax to the government based on any factor ranging from employee count to revenue?
After all, these technology platforms are making supply and demand more transparent, and theoretically, market pay rate should adjust quickly to reflect those changes.
The concept of "the market" is so all encompassing as to be meaningless. It's just system justification at this point. We could just as easily call it economic duress. Very often people accept what they do because they lack the power to do otherwise.
What do you mean? I don’t see any transparency from these platforms on either end. Workers often don’t know how much the customer paid and the customer doesn’t know what the worker received (or even if their tip “made it” to the worker). These gig economy markets are entirely artificial and centrally planned by the corporation in charge.
Yes:
* During the strike, show solidarity by not crossing picket lines. Don't use the service, and don't patron the business for the duration of the strike. This is because during the strike, the workers that are filling in for the strikers are scabs and crossing the picket line.
* Spread the news, their demands, and encourage solidarity with these workers.
Strength is in numbers and solidarity. When that breaks down, the movement breaks down. It's why many States and companies do everything in their power to prevent the wage-earners from organizing effectively.
I think a more effective solution would be to keep buying like you normally do but if/when your service is worse due to being short staffed send a message to their support.
Whoever is fulfilling your order during the strike is a scab, and you're helping pay their wage. It is destructive to the strike.
It's about solidarity with the working people and helping with their demands.
The point is to not give money to businesses who workers are striking against.
> I think a more effective solution would be to keep buying like you normally do...
Doing this destroys the strike.
Wait, but I'm not supposed to actually get the order in this hypothetical. I place and order, the workers don't actually fill it, I complain and get my money back, cost Amazon money, and tell their customer service that I'm upset that the strike is inconveniencing me and they should treat their workers better.
The number of non-Amazon workers that are aware of this strike will never reach critical mass so if there's enough non-strikers to still do business as usual the strike is already over, right?
Yes. And the strikers don't need job security??
This is what it means to have solidarity with them. You don't sell them out.
Of course it's not easy.
Why should the strikers not show solidarity with the non-strikers by stopping the strike? Or show solidarity with the health care workers by enduring difficult times for the common good?
Why do strikes always seem to be surrounded by such emotional rhetoric? To me, that's a warning sign that there's no underlying logic.
This skips a step. Who gave the strikers the right to choose this for the entire workforce? If my coworker says "I strike" and I stay at my desk, does that make me a "scab"? The article gives no information about who the workers are, how many of their fellow workers they represent, how long they've been doing the job. I'm not sure what would qualify them to speak for everybody, but it's got to be more than giving a quote to NPR, and surely it depends how many of them there are, relative to their coworkers.
Yes. Call it scab, strikebreaker, whatever; you are undermining your coworkers' demands and weakening the strike. Of course it's not easy to strike, but it's necessary if you support their demands. You show solidarity and support by striking with your coworkers. It's most powerful when done as a whole block.
Then it's clear you don't support their demands. You're siding with management and not your fellow coworkers.
That's fine, just know that your choice doesn't fully support their demands and is hurting their movement.
You assume the striker always has the moral high ground, why?
That's a big assumption. I've lived this. When I worked in a union job, I was forced to hand over a part of my paycheck to my union who did absolutely nothing for me when management went hostile without cause. As far as I could tell, the union was a gigantic executive/manager pyramid which was supporting its lifestyle on our backs. No bathroom break, no breaks at all- literally law breaking- no protection from management abuse of any form.
This is the case in a lot of jobs. The facts on the ground as I lived them are- unions do nothing for workers. They run campaigns for Democrats. Democrats empower unions. The worker still gets screwed.
Give me a right to work state and enforcement against past jobs badmouthing former employees - which is something no one ever enforces or in any way patrols for employers doing and which is ruinous to working people's prospects- and I'll be fine.
What's the ultimate goal- to serve and support unions or make life better for the working person? Because they aren't the same thing.
The main benefits of a union tend to manifest in the collective set of workers actually being able to set up infrastructure for command, control, and communication. Things like retaining legal representation for members, emergency war chests, and collective bargaining.
>I was forced to hand over a part of my paycheck to my union who did absolutely nothing for me when management went hostile without cause.
How do you mean? Did they not get you representation? We're you not afforded any protection? Did your Union rep stone wall, or just figure you were a lost cause?
I'm genuinely curious. I've been trying to find examples of Union failure states to compare with the pre-Taft-Hartley era unions. The statistics are clear that Unions worked for the group's amongst which they gained traction. At least when the tables weren't so tilted that even an outright failure was better than not trying.
>The facts on the ground as I lived them are- unions do nothing for workers. They run campaigns for Democrats. Democrats empower unions. The worker still gets screwed.
How? Gory details please. I'm aware that there is generally some level of "the Union didn't do enough"; but again, without details it's hard to try to posit what one can do/not do in order to get the best out of a collective bargaing unit.
Also, as some historical evidence to prop up your case, back during WWII, I think it was the steelworker's union that ended up giving organized labor a black eye. I think what these folks are asking for is reasonable; and the expectation at large is going to be the firm's need to accomodate
Forced to hand over == I had no choice. Forced to.
Do nothing for me == I was "reassigned" after someone accused me, without anything even remotely resembling proof, of something people in my position were accused of every day in every workplace covered by this union. Enduring baseless accusations are a part of this job. That's why we have CCTV cameras.
This was not an unusual accusation. I was not fired; I was reassigned to a place the company keeps for the specific purpose of making people quit- it's physically unendurable by anyone, generated no revenue for the company and existed as I said to make people quit.
So the company had a reliable supply of pretenses from third parties they were free to ignore- or act on- and a location whose existence was malignantly designed to force people to quit.
Unions play this game with the employers. We will pretend we don't know what you're doing and represent to our members there's nothing we can do.
They could have, for instance brought to bear the fact that this reassignment place had zero value to the company and had never been manned, ever, and generated no -zero- revenue , but did have the redeeming quality of making anyone who was assigned there quit.
They could have referenced the fact that the company receives 100s of complaints per year all of which they dismiss for total lack of evidence and this was one exactly like those except for the fact that the CCTV evidence exactly contradicted the complainant's assertions. They could have said that.
But that would create an antagonistic relationship between them and their partner and to what ends? What good would it do them? Besides, there's more than one way to skin a cat, right?
In highly unionized workplaces, all that happens is the employer antagonizes and provokes the employee until they quit. That's clever, but sometimes it backfires if the employee digs in. Then we all read about it in the papers; we know this as "going postal".
That's right.. the postal office, that bastion of union strength has a managerial policy of continuing to turn up the heat on an otherwise un-fireable employee until they quit, which most do but now and then one of them "goes postal".
Just have decent working condition laws, a right to work, and vigorously enforce the laws against smearing past employees and you'll have a market where employees are truly free to leave and be hired elsewhere.
Since you're interested in management-labor relations you might also want to know I was working in Silicon Valley when the whole Apple-Google-HM-and-Every-Other-Company-Known-To-Man / Do-Not-Hire scandal went down. Actually, I could have become a claimant in that.
Here's the deal. Companies are going to do whatever they want. Getting caught and fined is cheaper than obeying the law and to the extent that isn't true, then we have a container ship worth of dirty tricks we're willing to play on our employees, just like they did me. They have "labor shortages" and "narratives about how Americans aren't interested in STEM and all the rest of this garbage... it never ends.
No cop of any form is going to stop them; policing them just gives false hope to employees, and creates a false trail for researchers to fumble over. Unions shops and Amazon, both, do whatever they want.
So let them- within clear safety strictures (but see Amazon's forklift scandal in Indiana a few months ago to see how THOSE laws all worked out). Then we all know what reality is and we can negotiate it. Just let employees move on unmolested- which is what the aforementioned Google et. al. scandal was trying to prevent- and the market will work.
That's good odds on average.
The question is, what are the actual norms that determine it, and are the current strikers meeting those norms, or have they simply gotten some media attention? By the way, I'm not saying their demands aren't reasonable.
Yes.
Then you have a strike.
If a few coworkers get together and declare a strike, you are not obligated to join them. Even if the majority get together, you are not obligated, because you had no say in the matter. That is the point of the union.
Are you part of a union, with the striking worker?
Yes: you are a scab
No: you are not a scab
the workers here are not unionized. it therefore isn't a strike. we can safely assume that not all workers are participating in the walkout, and those that don't presumably still want work (orders) to come in.
i understand your pro-labor position (i am also pro-labor), but because this isn't a union effort, ie voted on and carried out by a singular work force, there aren't scabs. there are those who agree and those who don't. applying a disparaging label to those who chose not to participate is promotion of a one-sided message; a political bias.
also, wrt the amazon part of this news, it's a single warehouse in NY, and given that it's now 3PM there, and there is no news story of an actual walkout, it's safe to say that the effort fizzled.
Maybe call Amazon support to tell them you support it, and try to get escalated as high as possible?
Also, at one time emails sent to jeff@amazon.com would occasionally be read by Jeff Bezos, but now I think they're only looked at by some high level support team.
Edit: also related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22727741
Given their warehouse is striking that's a BIG problem for Amazon (and instacart obviously too). Do they expect to have to shutdown deliveries to new york or stop instacart deliveries nationwide for this or future strikes?
Crazy to be seeing these Amazon workers go on strike headlines!
Mercury news article from 11:15am says:
"It’s not clear when the strike would start Monday or how many workers would participate."
For now and unfortunately for us it's best we prepare our own food. Wash hands, open food from grocer, wash hands again to cook it and maybe wash hands again before eating it
It might be extreme, but until we fully have a full grasp on COVID we believe this is the best way to keep it at bay for us.