The people doing the deliveries for e.g. Wolt earn at minimum of 120 DKK an hour (~18,5 USD) on a scheduled shift and can often earn more, depending on how much they are willing to work. The last average I read is around 150DKK an hour (~23,30 USD) for delivery personel in that company.
The main issue with unionizing in Denmark is that it would require the companies to sign the delivery people to fixed-hour contracts (think nine-to-five), which doesn't work with the business model and isn't what most of the delivery people have expressed their wants about. Most of them enjoy the freedom and many in creative industries (e.g. musicians) use it as a way to supplement their income.
I think it is important to recognize what unionization actually means and whether or not that solves the problem, and before that; figure out what the actual problem really is.
That seems like a conflation of two entirely different things. Plenty of unions represent people who work intermittently or weird hours, like basically every union related to film production.
I agree that this is not necessarily what "unionization" means specificly, but this is the concrete case here, and thus my caveat as to the importance of the exact definition.
(Also, I am thankful that you are descripting the SU correctly; one gets paid to be enrolled at a qualifying educational institution - paid to study, not paid to get an education, even though this is luckily what happens most of the time.)
You don't pay per hour to get things delivered? Sure, if delivery workers unionized end customer costs would likely be a bit higher, but is that such a bad thing if it means the people working are not worked to the bone anymore?
These problems will go away in the same way similar problems have gone away in the past: with technology advancing to a point where no humans are required to be in the loop any longer.
Hint: they didn't treat their workers much better than plantation owners treated slaves.
The point here isn't who is good and who is evil, I'm purposefully avoiding that. The point is that it's not possible to both have $1,000 laptops and decent wages for workers.
I find it very reasonable that one would say that no, it's not acceptable to treat workers like that, and if that means we can't have laptops, we'll do without.
I don't find it reasonable to claim you can have both.
Devil's advocate: What's bad about that? Guess we would appreciate the value of the device way more if it would be that expensive. Also, by reducing the margin available to the company, it certainly wouldn't land at 15k. And yes, that would also mean that "shareholders" won't be able to make millions.
Taking the other side of the compromise is of course also reasonable, but pretending it's somehow a free lunch is not realistic.
It’s a large scale trend. As an economy gets more productive, a would-be servant’s alternatives get better, and we wind up doing more of our own chores. Generally a healthy sign.
Regulation of Uber class services means we will be stuck with Uber forever. Whether this is good or bad thing is left to the reader to decide.
Their two-seconds pitch could be "we'll do the driving for you".
Makes the store a more pleasant experience.
I don't see it as "stealing jobs" (what does that even mean, anyway?) anymore than pumping my own gas is.
We're currently using Kroger delivery. There are no Kroger stores here, and they deliver the day after you order, but drivers are employees, and they're paid by the hour ($12-$20, average of $17 according to glassdoor). I'd like them to make more, but I'd also like the employees at Publix to make more, so getting Kroger delivery doesn't seem worse for labor than going to the store. Possible I'm missing something, of course. The service has been exactly what we'd hoped. The produce is good quality, and they have most everything that Publix does. If Kroger delivery is more expensive, the difference isn't noticeable.
Conversely, before Kroger, there were times when we'd use gig-based delivery apps to get our groceries from Publix, and that was an all-around poor experience. I felt bad for the drivers; the drivers didn't do a good job of picking produce and substitute items; and, it was a LOT more expensive.
Just want you to know that these kind of working conditions are illegal in parts of the worls. Do not accept this as normal.
I actually picked the job because of work/life balance, and it's been really good the last few months. But, you're absolutely right, and I appreciate the concern :^)
For a funnier version of what I am feeling, see Ronny Chieng's take on Amazon Prime: https://youtu.be/BGEAiUeiaKs
What are people doing with the time that they would have spent traveling to procure the item that is being delivered?
If anything, more convenient procurement services that require people to spend less time procuring their goods should result in more time to “get outside and mingle”.
I do not think services that reduce time required for people to procure things are to blame for not getting outside and mingling. It is probably more to do with broader cultural changes that lead people to prefer staying inside, possibly consuming more entertainment on their own or with existing peer groups. Maybe people are not able to spend the amount of money they want to spend on getting outside and mingling.
Scrolling Instagram and watching Netflix.
C'mon, delivering groceries across town in a first-world country is "extremely dangerous"? I wonder how would he qualify the jobs that actually ARE extremely dangerous, such as soldiers deployed to a combat zone, underwater welders etc. I wonder if this was merely a hyperbole, or if the author is genuinely out of touch with reality.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/11/26/ubereats...
https://fbiradio.com/the-delivery-riders-dying-to-work/
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/24/food-...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-09/exclusive-uber-eats-d...
Hopefully these bring you closer to my reality :)
Just as the the top two causes of US police deaths are COVID and cars: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavirus/data-shows-covid-19-... (the third is the one you'd naievely expect, gunfire)
They usually also have other options for income if they wanted, and walked eyes wide open into their role knowing the risks involved. Most of that doesn’t apply to minimum wage couriers.
All that said, the hours might work out to be less than minimum wage, but it might be difficult to figure out that number when you add in cost for housing, medical, and all the little details (like bonuses for being deployed or on presently on a submarine).
https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...
I think all of those jobs are relatively safe - a job with an accident rate of 0.027% per year is actually very safe - it's just less safe than say office jobs, which I would qualify as "extremely safe". For an actual extremely dangerous job, try working in Carnegie's steel mills around 1900, when hot metal or gravel would sometimes spill on happless workers, people would often get crushed or maimed etc.
The point being made is that the number of deaths attributable to grocery shopping (!) will rise sharply due to these ventures. Would you support a policy that every employer over 10000 employees has to sacrificially murder an employee annually (0.01% fatality rate per year), because "it's not as dangerous as being a policeman so it's fine"?
Basically, yes. Words have meaning, and misusing is bad writing, or worse (i.e. conscious manipulation).