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Comment by einpoklum | Hacker News Reader

Don't worry, that number is a total misrepresentation.

Having said that - tech workers could achieve a whole lot through collective _struggle_ (of which bargaining is just a part):

* They could prevent mass government surveillance

* They could force companies to share their patents and other "intellectual property" with the rest of society, for the benefit of everyone.

* They could link up with other workers in areas such as the SF bay to force the government and tech companies to finance construction of public housing and limit rent.

* They could mobilize and lead struggles for getting corporate money out of politics (well, at least the direct kind of money in politics).

... and of course take care of their own interests in the form of participation in company decision-making, protection against arbitrary terminations, equitable pay scales, less excessive work hours etc.

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> Don't worry, that number is a total misrepresentation.

I was hoping for more details on the agreement, and it seems you have them. Could you please share the data that leads to this conclusion?

Thanks!

You don't really need them. An "average top rate of $49/hr" is like saying that the average top salary for a SWE is $500,000/yr. Great number; now, who is actually making it, and how many of them are there? Because this number is supposed to be, somehow, a representation of the gains of a typical worker who is subject to the deal. If it is not representative of such a worker, it's a misrepresentation.

I follow the argument, but one can't even make that statement with those numbers about most places SWEs work.

So if we take a company like Google where we could plausibly say "the average top salary for a SWE is $500,000/yr," already it is possibly more remunerative than most places an SWE would work. We could assume it was stated in extremely bad faith, that only 0.5% of the SWEs there make that and everyone else makes $75k. Or we could assume there is a ladder, a progression, and a path to get there. I don't believe the extremely bad faith representation would work here because of likely PR blowback. QED there is likely a path for a delivery driver to earn six figures at UPS.

> a representation of the gains of a typical worker who is subject to the deal

This is covered elsewhere in TFA, and is dependent on the kind of employee.

Accepting this logic: a top-end figure tells you nothing about the nature of the progression to get there. In particular, it doesn't say anything about the relative conditions on each step of the progression, nor (again) about how many make it up each step. The extreme version of this is, of course, how many food service and retail companies have billionaire owners while their lowest level employees qualify for Section 8 and food stamps. Clearly, there is a better way to represent conditions in such a company, beyond simply stating the CEO's take-home. (QED /s)

> now, who is actually making it, and how many of them are there?

Somewhere around 100-125K delivery drivers; any of them with 4 years full time seniority by the end of the contract, since the 5-year contract includes year-by-year general wage increases. The exceptions are employees in progression (less than 4 years full time under any classification), article 40 employees (air drivers, not many), and some seasonal work, most of which is defined under regional supplements.

Pay rate is determined by the contracts and years of seniority, nothing more.

UPS drivers never get an overtime rate?

Overtime past 40 hours (8 in a day or 6th punch) is the case across the US, I think, typically at 1.5x rate. Exact overtime rules vary considerably by supplement beyond that, particularly for part time employees.

My question was really whether “top rate” is “top regular hourly rate” or “top hourly rate overall”.

OK. Top rate means the base pay rate (non-overtime) after completing progression, it's not totally clear to me if the "average" is over time or by area.

What is the balance of driers with 4-years full time seniority vs employees in progression and part-timers/seasonal workers?

Essentially, you didn't answer the question.

See the analysis here:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/26/pers-j26.html

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