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Comment by isykt | Hacker News Reader

I will pay more for items to be shipped to me and wait longer for them to arrive if it means the UPS drivers are treated fairly.

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That's great but why are you forcing others to subsidize these jobs too, especially the poor?

It's not subsidizing, it's paying.

I don't subsidize a roofer when I hire them, I pay them.

So your question is "why should poor people have to pay UPS drivers a decent wage?" Which I predict you would argue that you think this is too much money/healthcare/retirement for a delivery driver.

The market determines the "fair" wage of a delivery driver and it is not $175,000.

The fun thing about markets is that there's one for labor too, and apparently the labor market has decided otherwise.

It's the result of decades of union busting and pro-capital class propaganda. Everyone forgot labor is sold, and its price has only ever increased outside rare boom times by collective bargaining.

Why do you say it is not 175K? How much should it be? Is it because you don’t want to pay that much?

It looks like ups have decided that they want to pay their drivers something in the region of $175,000 in order to do their business though.

If they didn’t want to pay that then they could pay less but then those drivers might not think that’s fair and then go work for someone else, it might not be for $175k but it’s their choice at that point.

It's worth noting the parent to this comment rarely if ever provides an original comment (always replying with a short quip) and doesn't seem to engage in debate.

That's what people who have underpayed workers normally say.

A pay upgrade for employees firsts lowers the income of the company and that's bad for owners and investitors, not the users.

Users get higher prices way later in that game.

UPS will have to increase shipping costs which directly hurts the poor with their Amazon purchases.

Counter argument: Which is good for local stores as they can compete more which will increase their profit so they can hire more people etc. It will also take a while to filter down like mentioned elsewhere.

I'm not saying these things are the case but due to the oversimplification you get these kind of responses.

Local stores also use UPS for their shipping. This hurts them too.

Your understanding of poor is really different from mine. Here (Europe) poor people don't buy online, they go to the store for food, it's cheaper. Amazon is a luxury, not an essential provider.

This depends on the country. In Poland most people buy online these days, but we all use postage boxes(company called InPost). They have 'boxes' everywhere, in every city, even small villages at this point have at least one, big cities have them everywhere within walking distance. They batch deliver packages to those boxes which is also more efficient and environment friendly, you get a code and can pick it up within 48hrs. They revolutionized online deliveries in Poland, noone wants to use a regular courier or postal services anymore. Having to sit at home, often not knowing when the courier will really come is tiresome. People just pick the package up along the way to/from work, groceries etc.

We have different definitions of poor. I’ve been what I’d call poor, and when I was in that state there wasn’t any room in my budget for things purchased on Amazon. Wal*Mart with a ride from a friend was all I had.

Hogwash, most poor people stay the hell away from UPS. 99.99% of the time the USPS is a better deal when hurting for cash.

UPS could also just lower their profits a little, but somehow that’s blasphemy but laborers asking for more money is not? That’s an incredibly lopsided take.

The BBC article mentions this. UPS reported they'd post lower profits.

Would that people like you think as much about the poor when it comes time for the government to make its budget. We’d be a better country if it this happened.

nobody's forcing anyone to do anything. It's just the free market, right?

There's nothing free about this.

What does that mean? Employers are raising wages in the free market. Unionized or not, the market is free - nobody is forcing companies to not unionize, and if that means more employee retention then the others better follow suit if they are keen enough. There’s no monopoly on who can have a union.

why would you be willing to when companies can easily allocate the record profits they have to wages?

Three reasons.

(1) I can afford it.

(2) The increase in price and latency will probably result in my ordering less stuff.

(3) I doubt that any company is going to allocate a substantial portion of their profits without raising prices. If it’s between raising prices, which I can afford, and people who do difficult jobs I depend on not having an easier, fairer life, then I’ll choose the raised prices.

> The increase in price and latency will probably result in my ordering less stuff.

No, you just stated your generous intent. You have to order the same amount in order to properly support the UPS driver. Ordering less stuff will reduce the demand for UPS drivers, causing some to be fired. You have now harmed UPS drivers, treating them unfairly.

I’m not so self centered as to think my personal consumption has any particular impact on the demand for UPS drivers.

UPS has a lot of fixed costs and doing less business could hurt them more than making less profits. They have to start paying higher wages now because of the deal they made. Their customers likely can't absorb higher prices as quickly and like you point out will cause a decrease in business as people ship less. It's a balance for UPS and it very likely isn't "just raise prices to match".

I suspect that UPS has a large contingency of MBAs who are better qualified at striking that balance than I am, which partially explains why I don't work there and why they haven't asked my advice on the matter.

I can only control the part of the transaction that originates from me. My commitment is to seek out the solution that seems, to my level of understanding and investigation, to result in the fairest treatment of workers given my lack of price sensitivity.

To do anything less is to give in to capitalist nihilism. It's tempting, but I'm not there yet, personally.

Wow, that's incredibly generous of you. If I start listing out thousands of other professions that are not well paid, do you promise to loudly state your intention of generosity on an internet comment? It's the least you could do, after all.

Not OP, but yeah most definitely. And I have also started actively seeking out providers who pay a fair wage - for example I only get groceries at farmers markets. I sincerely wish they would do the same for clothing but that’s harder to find. It’s not my fault that capitalism makes it incredibly hard for me to do this by restricting the number of businesses that pay a fair wage, but I genuinely do my part. I don’t buy from Amazon anymore unless I have no choice. I’ve paid double the price at times just to avoid Amazon.

I wish I had the option to! Everybody keeps shipping things with Ontrac

I won't.

I will. Two to one. So ha! :)

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