Delivery worker minimum wage is bringing order to a wild industry
nyc.streetsblog.org
nyc.streetsblog.org
With that in mind,
> An Uber spokesperson, for example, said the report proves that the law was a "job killer" because there are now 12,000 fewer delivery workers.
My guess is that 10k out of 12k would have quit anyway within a few minths in the old model, and the total amount of orders delivered isn't reduced by that much. I don't view this as a negative.
No every job and not every company should exist. If your job can't provide minimum wage then either your business in not productive enough to deserve place in the market or you are exploiting your employees.
And it's not black or white. There are lots of people who can contribute a little, but cannot contribute their full share. But we've set up the rules in a way that makes it very difficult for them to work and contribute. If you have income, your welfare often gets cut off completely. That's counter-productive. There are lots of people who should be able to get some of their income from work and some from welfare, and that's the way things should be, a gradual change from "all from welfare" to "all from work".
That's a direct subsidy to people assuming that too little subsidy is supplemented with welfare or food stamps. It may also be an indirect second-order subsidy to a company, but it is first and foremost a subsidy to people.
You can "fix" that problem by eliminating welfare, or by ensuring companies pay enough. Since most of us don't want people to starve, either we're stuck with the problem, where we're distorting the market in a way that incentivizes behavior that harms society, or we level the playing field by ensuring companies pay enough.
The problem is adverse incentives that make it more profitable to do things that harm society.
How is low wages worse than no wages? I don't get it.
If an employee at the end of the month ends up having some kind of disposable income, that's a great result. If an employee at the end of the month ends up not having some kind of disposable income, but still have their needs met, that's an okay result.
But if they put in as many hours as everyone else and their income dips below some logistical threshold their work becomes unsustainable. Either someone else has to pay for their continued living or they sink. Now since companies figured out that government will help people on the verge of sinking, they would gradually lower pay below the threshold, while government makes up the difference from everyone else's pocket. They would do that, they /are/ doing that, so to combat this government imposes a minimum wage.
Not to say, that there aren't jobs that make sense to be below minimum wage, but the big bad actors force government's hand, just like one liar destroys everyone's trust in everyone else.
If system can not reach this level there is lot to do to fix the system. Setting up minimum wages to level where this happens is one of them.
The other guy gets his apartment paid for by the state, he asks for $10/hr
I need to pay for my apartment so I need $20.
The other guy gets the job and the apartment.
Have this play out a million times across the entire economy.
There are employees who can provide enough value to be worth hiring at a cost below minimum wage but not above it. A minimum wage is effectively a statement that they don't deserve a place in the market. The notion that everyone is worth at least minimum wage to whoever is paying them comes from ability privilege. Such people are real.
I hired one last weekend to help paint my house. Perfectly lovely guy but slow of thought and slower of motion. There is no little damage in dignity done by choosing to subsidize such people rather than allowing them to exchange their real work for real value.
Are you saying some people don't deserve respect just because they can't support themselves? I think they should be able to work and contribute as well, saying we don't need them just because they can't provide for themselves isn't respectful.
But the damage is being done to society at large. By subsidizing that worker, taxpayer dollars are being used to prop up a business that should not exist instead of being spent on productive things like healthcare, education and infrastructure.
Imagine if I wanted to buy a Porsche, but decided it wasn’t worth the asking price, so I just pay less and make the government pay the rest like I have some right to have one just because. That is exactly what businesses are doing when they pay employees so little they require government assistance to live.
Here on HN it gets downvoted, because I assume the average user is the business owner (or very much aspires to be) who is doing the exploiting.
Many are attacked by dogs while delivering, by customers of their employer. That is a text book examples of job related injury! Also interfering with a post delivery is a federal crime, and violent assault!
But right now workers are gas lighted "you provoked the dog", or it "was your fault". Instead of compensation and paid sick leave, they have to pay hospital bill themselfs and are forced to take unpaid leave for recovery!
Some are even bullied not to report their attacker!
There is also social justice and racial argument! Most delivery workers are low income, while attackers who order deliveries are higher income!
I’m consistently amazed at how many things our progenitors of society nailed - that we threw away trying to make profit, only to realise that serving everyone means that some elements of service will not turn profit.
Dog owners must be forced to take responsibility. They should not be allowed to push cost of dog attack onto other people!
Attacking postal worker for whatever reason should be a crime, punishable by prison!
I agree the post is a foundational infrastructure, that both the service itself and postal workers should be protected by law, and that we dog owners should control our dogs as well as being responsible for the cost of any dog attacks. (I’m originally from NYC but currently living in Berlin, Germany, where dog liability insurance is legally mandatory for the owners of any dogs living here. Good public policy! Yes I do have the required insurance.)
But, as a tangent: no, the postal service is not protected by the constitution, only by statutory law. The Postal Clause of the constitution gives Congress the power to establish a postal service but not an obligation to do so, nor a requirement for any such congressionally established postal service to be a public entity. Congress could choose to abolish or privatize USPS more than it already has, and Republicans have often pushed in that direction.
That clause handles what local states must do, it is not about federal goverment!
That clause does indeed empower the federal government to statutorily legislate the types of protections you describe, but those protections do not directly spring from the text of the constitution without enabling federal statutory legislation - as do for example the restrictions on the states from the Bill of Rights as incorporated against the states by the 14th Amendment.
Post is specific to USPS (in the US).
With that said, Uber and GrubHub drivers should be regular employees with all those protections.
And USPS workers have the same problem!
I’m not sure how its different from allowing your dog to bite any other civil servant.
To be fair there is not much in the way of consequence for the dog owner here either.
Old people are favorite target for dogs (just after children).
Some streets are not even served by delivery services, due to frequent dog attacks. That affect elderly who rely on such services!
On the other hand, if they're in different parts of town? Can't carpool.
If they order 30 minutes apart? Unless your service is slow as hell, can't carpool.
If they order from different restaurants? One customer's food is going to be sitting around, maybe getting cold, while the driver stands around waiting to be served at the second restaurant. If that's not acceptable, can't carpool.
If the customer density is high enough these things work out OK - but a lot of these services operate in areas where the customer density doesn't look high enough.
News yesterday said food generally is up 20-25% since Covid, but maybe the reason that even this high number feels quite low for restaurants/delivery is that it really is creeping up on 33% or more after you account for shrinkflation as well as markup
Yet these apps charge something like $20-50 for delivery?
Dominoes has a small radius around it often enabling multiple drop offs before returning. Dominoes drivers always return to the restaurant after a delivery, and the restaurant is optimized for that handoff generally with a dedicated parking space etc.
Apps do longer deliveries from more restaurants who don’t prioritize their time etc. Apps also need to be inherently profitable thus some of the charge is paying for the app itself. Really Apps are like someone took an extremely efficient system and thought how can we make this worse in every possible way.
Wasn't there some guy who made a local version of some delivery service or something and was profitable on day one? I remember there was a hn link on it that came up a couple of times
Delivery apps are ultimately pyramid schemes that were initially funded by zero-interest investors who eventually cashed out to greater fools at a profit. Now that the investment funding has dried up, they need to get money from somewhere and that is by adding a ridiculous overhead
How come they get the big cut? While they have most scalable costs. Shouldn't they be there only taking tens of cents per order? Maybe they should outsource the work more to cheaper people.
The owner of the Domino’s Pizza wants to make a profit, so he pays his drivers to get the pizza there fast. One company.
When it comes to food delivered by an app, but the restaurant and the company providing the app both want to make a profit.
(Yes, the franchise fee paid Domino’s Corporate technically involves profit for another company but that ruins my argument so I’m conveniently leaving that out. But in all seriousness, there seems to be an economies of scale there that keeps the franchise fee low enough as to be a manageable cost.)
Doordash et al. normally have a driver picking up one order and delivering it. I've seen a driver picking up two orders; but, it's rare.
My local Pizza Hut has since outsourced their delivery to DoorDash. Now, even though I'm only two miles away from the store, it takes 30+ minutes for the DoorDash driver to bring my order once the store says its "out for delivery". I no longer order pizza delivery.
Noted. DoorDash (should we call them DoorStroll now?) should change the tipping feature to be set after the delivery. Or algorithmic determine what is relatively fast and slow delivery and adjust the tip based on the performance of the worker.
Now that their guaranteed income is higher, their variable should be performance based so the best dashers receive the highest total compensation.
Next time you use one of these apps, ask the driver/delivery what this trip is worth and how much tip they actually see. With Uber, I saw them taking as much as a 75% premium off the fare and near the full value of the tip. The ride was fine
I think "educated" is an interesting choice of word, there, given the rest of the article.
Some people think it only benefits the workers at the cost of everybody else. But it also benefits the market because the most inefficient companies that have business models so bad that they can't even provide minimum wage to their workers are weeded out. Also it benefits job market because workers that are not pushed to the wall financially have marginally higher chance to seek and find employment in a more efficient company than the one they are currently employed by.
This whole "gig economy" should be illegal. Having someone work full time for a company, but not being an employee of any company, seems like a pretty obvious circumvention of labor laws.
The solution should be to force food delivery companies to employ the people doing the deliveries. Of course that will significantly drive up prices, as cost for delivery makes up a substantial part of the total costs. But to be honest food delivery is not something which needs to be as large as it is.
there are now 12,000 fewer delivery workers.
Sounds like a win for some workers. I would like to know the new total of workers though, is 12K fewer a lot? Seems like a lot.
contrasted with "It's nice to have a wage so I don't have to rush. I'm paid for my time not for deliveries. It's not fair, they seem to be giving hours to people who are more productive though!"