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I spent two weeks delivering for Uber Eats and made $4.40 per hour
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- arekkas 10y agoTime and time again, Uber has shown that undercutting their competitors in pricing is not done through smart technology or better business models, but by avoiding regulations and getting away with inhumane wages.
- sundvor 10y agoYep, my impression was that Foodora was vastly more respectful of their riders, even though they certainly did push them physically (which is only fair enough I guess). Uber deserves the bad rep they are getting. Great write up by the journalist; I'm jealous of all the riding KMs. :)
- Roritharr 10y agoI order rather regularly from Foodora in Frankfurt/Germany. Their riders mostly do their best to look happy, but I can't help feeling guilty when I order when it rains/snows or there is even harsher weather (there was a particular nasty thunderstorm that made me crave Burritos...). I always give them an additional tip in these cases. There's been bad experiences/odd situations though. Once a rider spilled half of my chili con carne on the stairs up to my apartment, without telling me so and bolted after he gave me the soggy paperbag with the rest of my food. I got a 10€ Discount Code out of that, but that hardly covered the cleaning of the walls. Then now two times it has happened that Foodora called me roughly an hour after ordering if the Food had arrived yet, because they've "lost" their rider/couldn't contact them anymore. I really hope they just stole the food and didn't have an accident in traffic, but I'll never find out.
- tenzo 10y agoThis made me think about the time I saw a deliveroo rider being carried away in a stretcher after an accident. It upset me to think that I'm pretty sure theres a customer waiting for their food and most likely cursing the rider/ sending angry emails
- obstinate 10y agoI wonder. Would the delivery guy be happier to have no deliveries during a snowstorm (and thus no tips, or possibly no hours)? Maybe if their needs are well backstopped by the government. But otherwise perhaps not.
- TillE 10y agoWhat I've read in the German newspapers suggests they're not really any better than Deliveroo. I still use them sometimes, but tip generously.
- patrickaljord 10y agoThe alternative for many unskilled people would be to be unemployed and having even less income, would that be more or less inhumane?
- willvarfar 10y agoThe people working for Foodora have the same qualifications. That's what the article is all about.
- jerguismi 10y agoNot everyone can get a job at foodora. They clearly invest to those employees that they choose.
- manmal 10y agoNot sure about that - might be that Foodora would not hire people who cannot speak Swedish well enough. Also, Uber had no cardio/speed test. It seems that everybody with a clean criminal record can apply at Uber, but Foodora is more restrictive. Maybe like Play Store vs App Store.
- bnegreve 10y agoThat would not be sustainable and would probably lead to some kind of uprising.
- argonaut 10y agoThis is essentially an argument against having a minimum wage in general (and more broadly, certain labor regulations). It's a complex issue that we could argue about for pages and pages of comments, but suffice to say the vast majority of the population in the US, let alone Sweden, disagree with you. Which is that in some cases it is better to have some unemployed people and some (ideally a lot more) people earning a good wage, versus both groups earning a crappy wage. Combined with a welfare system.
- kalleboo 10y ago
- jerguismi 10y agoHowever has to be said that uber eats is not their core business. I've heard about it before but never used it. They should probably leave that business to others.
- guilamu 10y agoThis doesn't change a thing to the point which is that they are basically doing human slavery at 4 bucks an hour.
- RobertoG 10y agoIs Uber the real problem? I mean, how is it that, in one of the richest countries in the world(1), in the more abundant period of human history, there are people that have to accept those conditions? (1) and, supposedly, one of the more socialist also!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kpil 10y agoIt could be anything from 10.000 to 500.000 unregistered illegal immigrants in Sweden right now. Possibly even more. The government reports 20.000 people are 'missing' but that does not include those that never registered. The legal status of the terrorist that was caught highlighted the fact that there is next to no control, but nothing seems to be done. All those people need to work in some way or another.
- stapled_socks 10y agoIronically, parts of the employee protection in Sweden is based on semi voluntary deals between unions and employers. There is no law for minimum wage, for example.
- driverdan 10y agoStop the hyperbole. Your statement is insulting to all the victims of slavery and human trafficking.
- branchless 10y agoSo we need a minimum wage? Or "capitalism will self-regulate"? Isn't this just yet another example that our system is a total failure that requires constant tweaking / intervention? Imagine someone here writing a post about a program to perform a mathematical operation. It gives the wrong answer. It takes ages to run also. But if you attach gdb, set a breakpoint and increment the necessary variables you can get the right answer. They'd be laughed out of town.
- rzwitserloot 10y agoThis is sweden; a country with a fine social safety net and no significant unemployment issues. I have no idea if capitalism will self-regulate, but I'm not sure this is indicative either way. The problem here appears to be that Uber is just plain lying about how much you actually earn. As the article seems to indicate, this results in the delivery crew calling it quits after a month. I assume, if you had told uber eats 'employees' what's actually going to happen _before_ they go in for the interview, they wouldn't even go for it. Journalism like this will spread the word. More to the point, uber eats is one of the first such companies, so presumably people looking for a job in Sweden simply do not even consider they can be swindled out of a fair wage like this. A few more uber eats and presumably word gets out and people will go online and do a little bit of research prior to taking these jobs. Between the vast numbers who won't even go for the interview and the fact that the few that do tend to wash out after a month, uber eats will soon find themselves with no drivers at all. At which point they have to pack up shop and probably end the adventure in the red (it does cost money to set up, advertise, etc), or start marketing that they NOW _DO_ pay a nice wage. TL;DR: Uber is a shitty company that lies, but Swedes still need to learn they have to check what they're told for such freelance-based jobs, which is why they can currently get away with the scam.
- jacobr 10y ago> Between the vast numbers who won't even go for the interview and the fact that the few that do tend to wash out after a month, uber eats will soon find themselves with no drivers at all. A significant number of the drivers are recently arrived immigrants with little chance to get another job. They definitely don't read Breakit. They are not in a situation to pick-and-choose. They might get by on a small wage by working crazy hours and sharing a cheap apartment with dozens of others in the same situation.
- smcl 10y agoThe rates and stuff don't look like the main issue, the quote at the summary of his Uber section gives more insight - "The deliveries are too few". I dislike Uber as much as the next guy, but it sounds like they've either got too many couriers or not enough partner restaurants to make it worthwhile for the guys they have working or them.
- arekkas 10y agoUber not penetrating the market yet is not an excuse for their actions nor does it contradict the statement above.
- smcl 10y agoWe could be talking about lots of things when "their actions" - they're no stranger to controversy or being kinda shitty to their employees - so what specifically do you mean?
- g00gler 10y agoI really like the selection on Uber eats but the delivery fee is typically 2.5-5x higher than GrubHub, thusly I rarely use it. Might be a contributing factor.
- hopfog 10y agoYes, the rates are quite good if the system works as intended. From the article: > “Hello Erik! Today you are guaranteed 300 SEK per hour in “generated amount” when you deliver with Uber Eats during 11:00 am – 1:00 pm & 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm. Hope to see you online!”. The problem is that you need to accept 1 - 1.5 deliveries an hour to activate this, which wasn't possible for the journalist due to the reasons you're mentioning. Uber is now revising the incentives system: http://www.breakit.se/artikel/7575/efter-breakits-granskning-nu-utlovar-uber-eats-battre-jobbvillkor http://www.breakit.se/artikel/7575/efter-breakits-granskning... http://www.breakit.se/artikel/7608/efter-kritiken-sa-forandrar-uber-ersattningen-till-cykelbuden http://www.breakit.se/artikel/7608/efter-kritiken-sa-forandr... Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies handling the salary administration.
- 10y ago
- toss1 10y agoOr, more precisely, Uber is earning by systematically stealing the waiting time of their drivers (e.g., by misleading promotions getting everyone out to wait for orders). In contrast to Foodora, which pays for shift time plus delivery commission. Simply, Uber is based on shortchanging everyone but Uber itself and pocketing the difference. Unsustainable, and I always use alternatives.
- Scoundreller 10y agoPer the article, Foodora-Stockholm doesn't pay for shift time on weekends. But it sounds like Foodora has work around the clock, but UberEats does not. The question is: Why is Foodora dominating Uber Eats in Stockholm? Is Uber a late entrant? Shunned by restaurants? Shunned by consumers? Too expensive for restaurants or consumers?
- ripperdoc 10y agoUber Eats is less known in Stockholm and a later entrant.
- unityByFreedom 10y agoSounds like a raw deal for a bicycle, but, how about on a scooter?
- iriche 10y agoThe main issue is that they don't have enough customers but they still pull out as many people as they can to work for almost free
- gleenn 10y agoSad, they should be paying them well, Uber is such a mess
- unityByFreedom 10y agoI see your point. In Sweden, I see they don't have a minimum wage, and that they use collective bargaining to make agreements. Since Uber Eats is new, I imagine they haven't established a union yet. I wonder how that will play out.
- bassviola 10y agoIf you join a union you'll get kicked out is how that will work I imagine.
- lsiebert 10y agoOr at least a podcast about how you are better off as an "entrepreneur" without unions. https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/14/14912524/uber-driver-app-podcast-seattle-union https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/14/14912524/uber-driver-app-...
- eru 10y agoI wonder if that would be legal by Swedish law. Probably not.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
- pat_space 10y agoThis is an interesting comparison between the two services in Sweden. I wonder how much variance we would see in the states with the "tipping culture". 4 deliveries per hour with an average tip of $2 is $8/hr by itself, exceeding the hourly "wage" paid by Uber Eats. Sometimes I daydream about being a bike courier/messenger in a city like New York. I've even considered delivering sandwiches over the lunch hour in my current city, Denver. The author's descriptive of cycling in the rain tempered my dream a bit.
- sundaeofshock 10y agoPhysical labor is hard, and often results in shorter lifespans. I was once friends with a bike courier, both of us a similar age. I see him in the streets every few years. I just passed a few weeks ago and he looks old. At least a decade older then me (50). Barring an accident, I'll most likely outlive him by a decade, with a higher quality of life due to his accumulated aches and pains.
- Markoff 10y agoTLDR Uber pays 4.4$ per hour, local competitor 17.9$ remind me again, why we need this shady company in Europe?
- sundvor 10y ago... or anywhere else.
- jerguismi 10y agoTo be fair uber eats is quite a different to the uber core service. I didn't even know that uber eats had any significant market share.
- eru 10y agoWho's forcing those people to work for uber, if those other companies are ostensibly paying better?
- rwmj 10y agoIt sounds (from the article) that Uber is "flexible" about immigration rules.
- eru 10y agoThanks for answering that! So it looks like those higher paying jobs are not actually available for a large part of the Uber Eats workforce? How would those people benefit from being forbidden from working (= minimum wage)?
- mariusz79 10y agoTo those who work for Uber and other similar companies: We, the masters of gigeconomy salute you! Thank you for building our unicorns with your hard work and dedication. Thank you for using your cars, homes and other item without being reimbursed for that in any shape or form. We no longer have to resort to the old school slavery, as thanks to you we now just need to build and app, ignore existing laws and talk about 'disruption' to control you. /s
- edzorg 10y agoHow does this apply to London I wonder?
- fastball 10y agoI don't know about now, but I cycled for UberEats when they first came to London last summer, and averaged £22 an hour due to the crazy incentives they were offering to steal marketshare from Deliveroo.
- alltakendamned 10y agoIt would be good to consider the reasons why certain people still feel it is a good idea to work/drive for a company such as Uber. Is it a lack of alternatives? A "better than nothing" situation? Does anyone have insights?
- thaiphanvevo 10y agoThere's lots of people without jobs?
- reledi 10y agoIn the article he implies that Uber Eats has a poor retention rate compared to the local competitor. Regarding why people apply in the first place. Uber is basically a household name around the world, so they can attract a lot of applicants. There's also little insight into the working conditions and comparisons to competitors. And the sales pitch is very misleading; you're told you receive weekly payments and how much you can expect based on weekly hours, except they don't mention you're quoted a monthly figure unless you clarify.
- aianus 10y agoI drive for Uber on the side despite my real job paying 7x more per hour. It's mostly an excuse to get out of the house and drive my car with someone else paying for the gas.
- whatupmd 10y agoHow much is uber eats making per hour?
- fastball 10y agoI rode for UberEats for two weeks and made roughly £22 an hour. To be fair, this was when they were just coming into London and offering crazy bonuses to steal market share from Deliveroo, but still, this isn't controversial - if someone pays you bad wages, don't work for them...
- libeclipse 10y agoThat's some solid advice, but for some people, that's simply not an option. If you can't find work elsewhere, you'd rather work for pennies than for nothing.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Murkin 10y agoSo its better that Uber didn't offer this job at all?
- libeclipse 10y agoI don't see which part of my comment implied any solution, never mind the specific solution you've inferred.
- jacobr 10y agoIt would be better if they offered the job with reasonable wages and conditions. If consumers are not willing to pay enough for Uber to be able to offer this, they have a poor business model or are in the wrong market. You could say the same about any regulation, if you cannot manufacture something at a reasonable price without polluting more than allowed, you need to change your prices or adjust your business model.
- Chris2048 10y ago> It would be better if they offered the job with reasonable wages and condition Out would be better if kfc rained from the sky, but that's not an option. Why is their business model "poor"? If prices go up, so will what is considered a "reasonable" wage. What's a "reasonable" skillset that an employee must offer to get such a wage. Difference with pollution, is that its fine to just not pollute. Just not employing makes the situation worse.
- fiatjaf 10y agoI don't understand what is wrong with Uber Eats charging whatever price they want to charge. If $4.4 is too low just don't work for them. There are probably people for which this is a good price. If not, it's Uber Eats problem, not yours.
- moxious 10y agoIt's not black and white. What looks to you like the free choice of people choosing to work for $4.4 may look to others like a forced situation. What I think you're missing is that your assumption that everyone can freely choose and has alternatives is clearly mistaken.
- reustle 10y ago> may look to others like a forced situation. What I think you're missing is that your assumption that everyone can freely choose and has alternatives is clearly mistaken. Could you please elaborate? I don't exactly follow. Nobody is forcing them to work for Uber. If what you mean is they have bills to pay, etc, it's not like Uber can just magically decide to pay $9/hr, they will likely need to cut most of the jobs at that point anyway.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoUber takes advantage of a lack of (or poor quality) social safety nets. Like Walmart. Its exploitative.
- reustle 10y agoBut is that the fault of Uber (or Walmart)? Isn't them having a crap job better than no job? Yea it's not awesome that the pay is low, but at least they are employing some people. If the pay was higher they probably couldn't create the same service at a sustainable price point?
- door 10y ago
- cousin_it 10y agoI don't understand the libertarian argument for allowing low wages. Let's say company X is paying low wages, which allows it to sell goods for cheap. If company Y tries to enter the market and pay higher wages, they won't get any market share, because their goods will be more expensive. So wages will stay low forever. Am I missing something?
- mnx 10y agoYes. Labour supply is not limitless. So in theory you could treat labour just as any other market good. Therefore, if there's an oversupply of labour, it will be cheap. If the supply is short, it will be expensive. There's many important caveats, and I don't claim to represent the Libertarian view fully, but that's the most important thing you are missing.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- moxious 10y agoIn theory, labor forces higher wages, they are not given by the business. What you're missing is that the power dynamic isn't one way with the company determining everything. Labor has to agree to accept low wages or the whole arrangement falls apart and either the company pays more or stops doing business.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- antome 10y agoThe are two arguments I see: the first is that if the minimum wage is higher, the cost of living increases, leading to the same problem as before. Of course this assumes the two are perfectly correlated, which is a flawed assumption. The second is that if local humans are too expensive, people will use local robots or outsourced humans instead. While technically true, this is inevitable. Lowering wages might slow down the incoming problem, but it will always eventually exist regardless of local wages.
- panitaxx 10y agoNobody is forcing you. Don't like your job get another job. If the job is so shitty they won't have any workers and they would fail. As many other companies had because of this
- qwtel 10y agoas somebody who is entirely financially secure due to my family-ties and level of education, which, statistically speaking, is also due to my family, I could not agree more with this hand-waving, compassion-free, no skin-in-the-game observation from the top of the ivory tower.
- adtac 10y agoNobody is forcing me. But when Uber undercuts competitors by a large margin using inhumane practices, the competitors tend to vanish over time. In the end, guess who is your only choice.
- eru 10y agoIf that dynamic worked, why isn't McDonald's (or so) the only restaurant left?
- dsr_ 10y agoMost libertarians are fine with one party having all the power in negotiations, as long as the government isn't involved.
- evgen 10y agoCoincidentally, you will find that most libertarians also seem to end up on one side of the power dynamic when this actually plays out in the real world...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sundaeofshock 10y agoIt seems that most libertarians are fine with conditions that ultimately result in feudalism.
- employee8000 10y agoFalse. Libertarianism isn't fascism or totalitarianism. It's about freedom.
- adultSwim 10y agoGuess that's not my idea of freedom. Freedom to me is what I can actually do, not what the government won't stop me from doing.
- Fnoord 10y ago> Guess that's not my idea of freedom. Freedom to me is what I can actually do, not what the government won't stop me from doing. Isn't that the good ol' BSD versus GPL discussion? Gun restriction versus gun liberty? The socialism versus libertarianism discussion? One's in favour of an enforceable mechanism (by law) which restricts the freedom of a person (or their behaviour) so that the freedom of all is ensured whereas the other one is some kind of "let the survival of the fittest" figure it out.
- 10y ago
- totalizator 10y agoWhat about tipping in Sweden? Do you tip the couriers that deliver food to your home (and what would be an average tip)?
- kwhitefoot 10y agoI don't think tipping is very common in Sweden. I live in Norway, just next door, and it would never occur to me to tip a courier. It's unusual to tip in restaurants here too.
- arkitaip 10y agoNo, we don't tip couriers in Sweden. Tipping is almost done at restaurants and very few other places/situations.
- andreasklinger 10y agoWouldnt that just push the "guilt" to the consumer?
- Fnoord 10y agoWikipedia has good information about tipping customs and laws in countries throughout the world. Here's the Swedish entry [1]. As a rule of thumb: apart from the English-speaking countries in EU, tipping is not mandatory. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity#Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity#Sweden
- GordonS 10y agoIt's not mandatory in the UK either. It's certainly pretty common in restaurants, as long as they don't already add a service charge, but it's unusual to tip in just about any other situation.
- libeclipse 10y agoThat's less than half a dollar per kilometre. Damn.
- blfr 10y agoMany of them are immigrants and are looking for a better future. I meet very few who can speak Swedish. Only a massive supply of labour via immigration makes it possible to pay people $4/hr and have any takers.
- jstanley 10y agoOnly for the short term. Once enough people have died, prices will reach a new equilibrium. And you can't keep everybody alive. Population will grow exponentially until something bounds it. The ultimate bound is the amount of resources we can extract per person. There's going to have to be competition for resources, and those who lose out will die. We may as well get used to that now.
- arkitaip 10y ago"Once enough people have died, prices will reach a new equilibrium." What a nasty way of looking at people and the world.
- jstanley 10y agoIt'll happen whether you like it or not. Acknowledging it doesn't make a person "nasty".
- mgkimsal 10y agoBut... it doesn't just "happen" - our behaviours shape how this plays out. And if some of my behaviours can either hasten the death of these folks, or improve their lives in some way, I'd like to know about it, and potentially modify my behaviour.
- jstanley 10y agoThat's fine. Donate to charities that help the poor and homeless. That's a noble cause. You will not be able to keep everybody alive. The more people you keep alive, the more people there will be in the next generation who also need to be kept alive.
- arkitaip 10y agoI was referring to your opinion and not your person but I have to say that to a complete stranger, you don't come of as that likable when you casually suggest genocide on a global scale as a means to solve the planet's resource crisis. Frankly, I'm tired of constantly reading this line of selfish thinking on HN.
- kh_hk 10y agoSeveral things the article does not mention: - Some workers are pressured to rent a scooter or an e-bike. Having bike carriers is cool, but they prefer faster and long ranges. They rent from companies that have a deal with the parent company. This makes it even more difficult to earn a profit. - On some countries, you must register as self-employed or freelance. Taxes and you also pay for social security. - This highlights something interesting. These companies have a pool of riders at zero risk - The part about few orders really depends on the city and the part of the day you work. Busiest hours can give you a solid 7 - 10 deliveries on a 3 hour period.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- nraynaud 10y agoHere, in Montpellier, France there is a crazy competition between Foodora and Deliveroo, I don't know how healthy this is, they are just trying to kill each other so that the victor raises the prices, all that on the back of medicine students speeding with bikes while dodging trams and busses. I have never tried those services since I live downtown and I don't really need home delivery.
- mtkd 10y agoI've seen noticed so many high voted anti-Uber stories across so many media channels recently - I can't help but suspect there is something more going on here there are plenty of other companies pushing boundaries in other areas not getting near as much negative PR right now I don't use Uber but I know many who consistently do without ever having a negative word to say about them
- rando444 10y agoYou might want to clarify what "use uber" means. If you're just talking about customers who eventually benefit from people being paid low salaries, it's not really a good point of comparison.
- mtkd 10y agoit wasn't a specific comment about the article - but volume of Uber related articles currently in the media generally
- adultSwim 10y agoUsers aren't complaining, workers are. I sincerely encourage you to talk to some of their "contractors". When we freelance, we expect higher wages due to insecurity, having to pay employers share of taxes, having to pay for benefits. Compare that with these workers. Uber is cheap because their workers are subsidizing it.
- kilroy123 10y agoI have noticed this as well. I honestly think people just hate uber now. Too many scandals.
- arkitaip 10y agoUber's 10 000 SEK per month for working 50 hours is an awful exploitative salary in Sweden. Usually that's the kind of pay you get doing sweat shop jobs as an undocumented immigrant, not working for a legitimate business.
- throwaway83901 10y agoAren't many of them undocumented migrants? https://www.thelocal.se/20170308/swedish-police-fear-for-undocumented-immigrants https://www.thelocal.se/20170308/swedish-police-fear-for-und... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-sweden-insight-idUSKCN0ZN0VV http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-sweden-ins...
- PeterisP 10y agoHave you read the article? There's no 10000 SEK per month, it's just an empty promise; noone gets paid the described amount because the number of deliveries simply isn't there. The best scenario mentioned was a guy who managed to get 6000 sek per month, and working much more than the 50 hours.
- panitaxx 10y agoThat sounds great. Let's regulate it. I am from Venezuela and can tell you the wonders regulation has done for my country's economy.
- door 10y agodid you know that the united states has a federal minimum wage and is also the wealthiest country in the world
- gizzlon 10y agoI'm from Norway and the economy is quite regulated. We're still/therefore (take your pick) very successful [1]. Macro economy is complicated. It seems obvious to me the it's not as simple as "just let everyone run free". On the other hand regulation has it's disadvantages as well. Complicated. [1] as in #3 in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
- panitaxx 10y agoIt is complicated. Sweden also seems very regulated (as most of the EU).
- krrrh 10y agoMeasuring "regulation" isn't straightforward, but based on the Heritage Foundation's criteria, Norway has a relatively light load. It's basically on par with the US.[1] Its a very free economy by international standards. Venezuela is near the bottom of the list, just above North Korea. Economic regulation and the extent of the social safety net can be quite independent of each other. [1] http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
- totalZero 10y agoI'd say corruption is a bigger culprit than regulation in Venezuela.
- 10y ago
- nopinsight 10y agoIn food delivery service, natural monopoly/oligopoly might exist and companies could eliminate competitors which adhere to minimum wage or treat their workers better. The eventual result could be unfairly high profits for these companies, not due to a better system or innovation but from shady practices. In general I believe well-implemented negative income taxes work better than minimum wages, but given the weakening power of less skilled labor and political situations that limit redistribution of wealth/income, minimum wages are justified in certain cases.
- rocqua 10y agoI've always liked the simplicity of a linear tax with a rather large tax credit and paying out rather than collecting when income after tax credit is negative. I'm not sure if such a system can be made sufficiently progressive.
- jsherwani 10y agoDid anyone catch the part where the journalist got the co-founder of Foodora (also his Foodora-boss) to impersonate him as an Uber courier? He mentioned it like it was the most normal thing. I wonder if there's a deeper relationship at play here. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Uber is staying true to its "Do be evil" doctrine. But I wonder if there's a separate vested interest (e.g., support local businesses) operating behind the scenes.
- e_proxus 10y agoIt was his boss at the news agency. Not his Foodora boss.
- circlingthesun 10y ago"Breakit’s co-founder" not "co-founder of Foodora".
- rocqua 10y agoThat was the paper's co-founder i.e. his boss for his real journalist job.
- losteverything 10y agoAs a comparison, $17.40 is what a rural carrier starts with the us postal service. [1] After a strike in the '70s postal workers could bargain. This has led to stable, unglorified, mid pay jobs. The bargaining was and is key. Now, if you sign up as a City carrier you can (with luck) become "regular" in 90 days. You will get 23 paid days off, eligible for federal pool health insurance (quite good 2m pool) where you pay 25% premium, never work Sundays, guaranteed 40 hours work a week, no email, stress, home by 5pm. [1] https://wp1-ext.usps.gov/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/hrrcf_a_unreg_job_search# https://wp1-ext.usps.gov/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/hrrcf_a_unreg_... Choose state and "delivery"
- Shivetya 10y agoCurious who in the USPS isn't delivering on Sundays when their little trucks are everywhere on Sunday. Still comparing this to Uber is a bit absurd. Uber is contract for hire/etc - there is little more needed than being clean of record and signing up. Good luck getting into the USPS. Plus with Uber and similar your workload is what you make of it. So while Uber is on many people's shit list we must not make comparisons which are in effect meaningless. Instead we need to compare them to direct competitors, the other for hire services and other private delivery options on the low end. The higher end open delivery might be FedEx Home, FedEx and UPS are similar to USPS, you have to first get past the hiring process and live under someone's schedule and tight rules
- losteverything 10y agoNot " regulars" in most cases New carriers are "temporary" until a route is open. They do the sunday and holiday deliveries. They get fired every 360 days and after 5 days they get rehired. Thats why i said "lucky" there is a two tier structure
- mrbill 10y agoAmazon pays the USPS to do deliveries solely for them on Sundays.
- dghughes 10y agoI was looking at the job board here in Canada and saw a rural postal delivery job. It said it paid $15,000 but $7,500 of that was for vehicle expenses. You need your own vehicle with a plug able to plug in the post office light for the roof. I can't see how this would appeal to anyone or how it is even legal. If you worked an eight hour day that's only $3.60 per hour.
- pikzen 10y agoYour profile links to a twitter account, that has the same name as a Github account, which suggests that you are using Atom, which again, may suggest that you have a job in software development. You are in an ivory tower, relative to most of the other people in Venezuela.
- panitaxx 10y agoThat's the cool thing about socialism: is the same for all. Call me to discuss my ivory tower when you have to stand 2 hours in line to buy one loaf of bread.
- dang 10y agoThat's unduly personal and crosses into incivility, indeed personal attack, which is not allowed here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14330781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14330781 and marked it off-topic.
- pikzen 9y agoWhen the entire argument is based on social status, commenter's own status has to be known. It is everything but incivility. Said commenter has this information publicly shown in his bio. If you prevent that from being known, while still allowing the user to comment, you are making the whole discussion absolutely pointless. I'm sorry Dan, but you are full of shit.
- johnchristopher 10y agoPush it a little bit harder and you are going to argue minimum wage is a stalinian horror.
- patrickaljord 10y agoNice refutation. Also, are you aware that minimum wages laws were originally designed to prevent low skilled blacks from competing on price with whites, right? Even to this day, minimum wage keeps minorities out of jobs. But if it makes you feel better at night that at least no one is payed $4 an hour, even if that means staying at home with $0 an hour. For those downvoting, this is a historical fact: - https://www.forbes.com/sites/carriesheffield/2014/04/29/on-the-historically-racist-motivations-behind-minimum-wage/#6bae094c11bb https://www.forbes.com/sites/carriesheffield/2014/04/29/on-t... - http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0405-leonard-minimum-wage-20160405-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0405-leonard-mini... When you have no skills, you need to compete on price, that's just a fact of life. Preventing people from competing on price will keep them poor and unemployed. When this is done on purpose to racial minorities, it's called racism.
- johnchristopher 10y agoThank you :). FWIW: `Nice refutation.` were the only words of the original post I replied to.
- gnaritas 10y agoYour points are only meaningful if you think the goal of life is to have a job. When you realize others have different goals, then you'll be getting somewhere. Are you aware that penicillin was discovered by accident therefore it must not work... that's the argument you're making; it doesn't matter why something started if it turned out to be valuable in the end.
- patrickaljord 10y agoMy point is that if living (and surviving) requires resources and gathering these resources requires working, then preventing people from working will only make their lives worse. > Are you aware that penicillin was discovered by accident therefore it must not work I've read that three times and it still doesn't make sense to me. Most scientific breakthrough happen while working on something else yeah. What does that have to do with the minimum wage topic?
- maxnevermind 10y agoI wonder Is there gonna be a response from Uber to that? I mean, except for prohibiting hiring journalists :) ?
- iriche 10y agoThey where going to look over the bonus system to make it easier to get the bonuses
- kisstheblade 10y agoUsed Wolt and Foodora (in Finland). The Wolt people usually use cars for delivery. Wonder how that factors in the profit calculations for the delivery person. Anyhow, I'm really wondering how any one of these companies can survive when the VC subsidies run out. There have been other food delivery services here before them but the have been shut down for being too expensive. On the other hand they had actual employees and paid their taxes etc. Wonder how much tax avoidance is possible for foodora/wolt workers, or how much the corporations do "tax structuring" which seems to be all the rage nowadays for hipster startups.
- mschuster91 10y ago> Anyhow, I'm really wondering how any one of these companies can survive when the VC subsidies run out. The one with the biggest amount of $$$ and the (relatively) lowest cash burn will prevail, and once the competition is shot, raise the prices by (ab)using the now dominant position. This is then followed by either an IPO or acquisition.
- macwas 10y agoSo Uber Eats won't send you jobs to prevent you earn the bonus? Or was it just you waiting at a 'wrong' location?
- neom 10y agoI saw an obviously distressed/very low income guy sitting on the sidewalk in Manhattan last week with a sign that said he had worked for two weeks with uber eats but they didn't tell him they will only do direct deposit not a cheque and he needed help because he doesn't have a bank account.
- usaphp 10y agoIf he has a driver license and a car - how come he can't open a bank account? Getting a driver license is much harder and requires more paperwork then opening a bank account I thought
- neom 10y agoI'm not entirely sure how one would do any type of meal delivery in Manhattan by car. Even UPS mostly cart things around.
- usaphp 10y agoYeah but don't you need to provide some paperwork in order to open a delivery account with uber?
- 300bps 10y agoThere are many reasons people can't have a bank account. His name could be on the OFAC list or too similar to one on it. He might've bounced a number of checks for whatever reason and now has a bad record with Telecheck so is banned. Could provide several other examples.
- merb 10y agoaren't there accounts for such people, too? In germany/europe you can be homeless and has negative entires in "schufa" and you would still get a bank account (since 2016). https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.girokonto.org%2Fkonto-ohne-deutsche-meldeadresse-wohnsitz https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...
- caub 10y agoWell I do that too, but only for feeding myself
- lightedman 10y agoThat's about exactly what happened with Mr. Klumpp's CrunchButton - people learned very quickly that $6 per delivery kills your wages when college students don't usually tip and you can make only a delivery roughly every hour unless you get lucky with multiple orders coming in for the same food place. Most Crunchbutton drivers were actually losing money once they figured in gas expenses (which of course Crunchbutton did not pay.)
- fixxer 10y agoIn the absence of federal support programs, are people who would drive for Uber or any of these gig-type apps better or worse off with the opportunity to earn $4.40/hr? If you raise that wage, most likely the business model ceases to be worthwhile for Uber, so the job goes away. I don't think that means it is replaced with something better.
- FrozenVoid 10y ago"Gig/Contract economy" is the analogue of outsourcing, except for the cheap workers being drawn from local population. Its a logical consequence from corporations wanting to reduce wages and legal trickery to avoid work liabilities and benefits for the workers. Its exploitative and ruthless example of what "capitalism" becomes when law doesn't hold the punch, companies just figured out the necessary mix of legal and tech means to avoid the system being labeled as "work" and pay fair wages/expenses per worker. Expect this type of "work" to increase and subsume new sectors of economy as they figure out how to transform them into uber model.
- joshu 10y agoOutsourcing just means using another entity to do the work. Did you mean offshoring?
- Sebguer 10y agoIf you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. The commonly understood meaning of 'outsourcing' is to use foreign labor. So commonly understood that even Webster includes it as part of their definitions: : to procure (something, such as some goods or services needed by a business or organization) from outside sources and especially from foreign or nonunion suppliers : to contract for work, jobs, etc., to be done by outside or foreign workers (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outsource https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outsource)
- joshu 10y agoThat does not jibe with common usage I hear in the field, despite what Webster says. For example, young startups frequently outsource CFO functions to someone up the street. To be truly pedantic, your definition doesn't say remote workers, just foreign, without specifying their region. OP talked about local workers in contrast. Not only does the definition not say I am wrong (it includes the thing I said) but I was speaking in context of OP's comment (about location) So you complained about my lack of precision and to do so you lost even more and didn't actually understand the context.
- wjossey 10y agoWhile not 100% analaogous, there was a fantastic EconTalk episode recently that touched on sweat shops and human behavior. I'm not attempting to say that UberEATS is an "American" sweatshop, but the relative wage in our market might result in similar behaviors. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/12/chris_blattman_1.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/12/chris_blattman_1.ht...
- vivekd 10y agoI wonder if the results would have been different in North America where the delivery people would make tips on top of their delivery fares.
- tallanvor 10y agoI don't think I would use Uber Eats even if they were available in Oslo, but I already outright refuse to order through Foodora. They might pay better, but the number of times one of their cyclists has almost hit me or my dog has put me off ever using them. They should at the very least make those boxes have easily visible ID numbers so that you can call in complaints about them!
- abrown28 10y agoNo one owes you a "living wage". No one owes you a wage at all.
- Noos 10y agoa living wage makes sense because at $4.40 an hour, you are going to get people who will not show up when they feel like it, will rob you to make up for wages, and will not care about your business because they cannot making a living at it. What's hilarious about this example is that it makes more sense to work for them one day a week, eat a single meal you were supposed to deliver, and keep it up for as long as you can till they find out, because a single meal probably costs more than your entire wages for the day.
- bweitzman 10y agoPerhaps, but they do owe it you to not pay you an exploitative wage.
- kinos 10y agoNo one asks to be born into a society that doesn't allow someone to eschew its rules as they wish. There is literally no way to consent to being born. It is not a choice someone makes. People are being born into a society they can not afford to live in, and have no options to leave it. I personally find that disgusting.
- valuearb 10y ago"The middle man PaySalary, which formally recruits Uber Eats bike couriers, then deducts employer fees as well as an administrative fee of 3.3 percent. A statuary holiday entitlement of 12 percent is added. After this, a 30 percent tax is deducted. To summarize: If I am guaranteed a payment of 300 SEK, that translates to an hourly pay after fees, but before taxes, of just over 150 SEK plus holiday entitlement. That’s just short of 17 dollars an hour" Why do Europeans brag about how great their governments are, then bitch about the mad taxes they have to pay for them?
- detritus 10y agoTo be fair, it's my impression (as a Brit) that Nordics rarely 'bitch about the mad taxes'. Such concerns are often doled out by those in countries who don't feel they get a good return on their investment — the Mediterranean countries and higher earners in the likes of France and the UK.
- valuearb 10y agoIn this case the author was complaining about how low the aftertax earnings were, without realizing he was bitching about how high the taxes were.