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Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home
- TACIXAT 9y agoI think my biggest complaint is that someone making minimum wager or near minimum wage will value money above their time, so many will take this opportunity. Most will take up any reasonable opportunity to earn a few extra dollars. However, this takes away from time that could be spent with family or used to better their skills. The working poor are in a tough position and this program takes advantage of that.
- petra 9y agoThey are presenting it as a very time efficient thing for the employees. We'll see.
- menacingly 9y agoI think there are valid arguments against this plan, but in general I don't like the idea that we've got to protect poor adults from their own decisions. Like a lot of ideas to protect the poor from the elites, it's elitist itself
- smileysteve 9y agoHow far from minimum wage is acceptable? Walmart's min wage is targeted at $11, 122%; the average is $13.85, 191%
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago"someone making minimum wager or near minimum wage will value money above their time" I understand your concern about the poor not having enough time to spend with their family, but it's not clear why you are singling out this move. This is like going on a minimum wage job posting and claiming that the kind of people who'd take up that job are doing so out of desperation and it will keep them away from their families. This program does not take advantage of poor people. Being poor does.
- GhostVII 9y agoWhy is it our job to determine how much time they chose to spend working? It seems kind of condescending to say that we shouldn't give them the choice to make a bit more money because we think they should spend more time with their families.
- TACIXAT 9y agoI think my point is that they are given the choice, knowing that it is a choice they do not have the luxury to pass up. Just a frustrating situation that these employees will then continue to work outside of their normal work hours. I'm sure many will be grateful for the extra money, I'm sure many pick up shifts or maybe drive for a ride hailing service on the side. That is time they're not building a relationship with their kids, helping them succeed in school, etc. That sucks. It's a shitty situation.
- ensiferum 9y agoNice one, They could also ask them to drive to work on their days off to pick up some deliveries ;-)
- wyldfire 9y agoshrug the natural instinct seems to be to skewer WalMart for oppressing their employees but this seems like a good idea to me. > Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home, the company said Thursday in a blog post. Wal-Mart didn’t specify how the employees will be compensated. It's not uncompensated -- so it could be really symbiotic.
- ensiferum 9y ago"Wal-Mart didn’t specify how the employees will be compensated." They can be compensated by a coffee voucher. Or compensated by the joy and feelings of accomplishment they'll derive from their new work tasks. Just saying. Seriously tho, if they get into an accident delivering the packages is that something that'll get covered by Walmart? How about the wear and tear on the vehicle? It really seems like it's a better deal for Wallmart. A handy way to offload delivery costs to the workers for a small compensation.
- linkregister 9y agoIt's a violation of federal labor law to pay less than minimum wage for work. Wal-Mart stores have been found many times to have coerced employees to work unpaid hours, but this wasn't successfully shown to be corporate policy.
- NoCoastCoder 9y agoThen they're free to not do it. How is this an issue?
- ianai 9y agoOf course it's a better deal for Walmart. This is Walmarts thing to do or not do. They're the biggest party in the negotiation. They will always dictate terms that benefit them at their workers expense. It's negotiation 101.
- kstrauser 9y agoSure, I don't mind running errands during my commute so long as that time's on the clock.
- sabujp 9y agoI can easily see how walmart managers would blackmail^Wencourage employees into doing this.
- mikeash 9y agoI mean, Walmart managers "encourage" injured workers not to seek medical attention so it doesn't ding their safety numbers. Paying extra money to drop off a package seems pretty minor considering.
- basseq 9y agoThere's a pretty well-defined precedent in law to counter this. If an "optional" task is used in performance reviews or to define base pay, it then becomes non-optional and the company is very likely in breach of employment law. Hopefully Wal-Mart tells their managers to tread very carefully.
- sabujp 9y agoreally? so if the # of (optional) interviews i conduct on behalf of the employer is a factor in performance reviews then the company is in breach of employment law?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoAny specific interview you conduct might be optional, but conducting interviews in general might very well be in your overall job spec and may not be optional.
- basseq 9y agoIndeed. Optional to include "outside of working hours". I am still trying to find the suit. I think it was Target. Many managers were in the habit of staying after they clocked out and/or coming in on their days off to make sure their department was tidy. One manager did not, and was either fired or passed over for promotion because her department was not as tidy as others. She sued, and won, alleging that by holding her performance against her peers "optional" activities was against fair labor laws and amounted to forced overtime.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago> Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven, more money for people who want it). I wouldn't mind dropping a few things off on my way home and earning a few extra bucks as long as it made sense financially. I'm very interested to see what incentive they have for it.
- mikeash 9y agoYeah, huge difference between "deliver this on your way home or your fired" and "if you want some extra money, deliver this on your way home." Not much difference between this and, say, LaserShip, aside from it being a small part of the overall job.
- pyre 9y agoWell, where the rubber meets the road here is in whether or not there is an unspoken expectation that you need to do this, compensation or not. "Official" policy doesn't always reflect what gets implemented, and is sometimes just used as a way to legally CYA so that you can have your cake and eat it too.
- mikeash 9y agoThat's true for literally every aspect of every job, though, so it seems like a pointless thing to say unless there's some indication they're actually abusing this.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- djrogers 9y agoFTA: "Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home" This sounds like a really good strategy - Walmart has thousands of locations and hundreds of thousands of people driving home form those locations. If they can leverage that into some efficiencies in the delivery chain, for either faster or cheaper delivery, that'd be awesome for them and their e-commerce customers.
- nugget 9y agoIt took Wal-Mart a long time to wake up and realize they have one of the largest captive workforces in the world (and that there's a lot of untapped on-demand value therein). Great move on their part to start experimenting with this.
- Ensorceled 9y agoMy hate for Wal-Mart is white hot, but this is a very uncharitable headline. This would have been better: "Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home"
- dang 9y agoOk, we'll use that. Thanks!
- Ensorceled 9y agoNow, I just have to get Bloomberg to update their original article ...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- santoshalper 9y agoThe discomfort I have with this is that Wal-Mart has a long history of sensible corporate policies (seriously, Wal-Mart at the corporate level has been surprisingly progressive on a lot of issues) that turn into draconian mandates by regional or store managers who are under intense pressure to maximize profit-per-employee. This just sounds like another good idea by corporate that will inevitably be crammed down workers throats.
- Uehreka 9y agoI don't think corporate gets a pass on this. If they were serious about creating a more progressive workplace, they could change the incentive schemes for managers or fire managers who don't comply with the spirit of their policies.
- sharkweek 9y agoIn general I think this is a pretty cool program, but what I worry about is the "optional" nature of it. Do people who go the extra mile get promoted faster? Qualify for more raises? Don't get let go during slower times? I could see it becoming a stick pretty quick.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThe intense pressure is itself a product of corporate policy, so its effects must also be considered in assessing the reasonableness of other corporate policies which interact with it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Nelkins 9y agoFun fact: the mobile app for associate delivery was written in F# using Xamarin. Source: I work at Jet, but not on this team.
- wehadfun 9y agoWhy F#?
- Nelkins 9y agohttps://tech.jet.com/blog/2015/03-22-on-how-jet-chose/ https://tech.jet.com/blog/2015/03-22-on-how-jet-chose/ The app for associate delivery was written by Jet developers. Pretty much all of Jet's code is written in F#. Edit: Actually I think it was written mostly by a contractor who had experience writing Xamarin apps in F#, possibly with contributions from full-time Jet developers.
- qmarchi 9y agoYou in the WM Slack?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Nelkins 9y agoAlso if anyone is interested here's the announcement blog post. http://blog.walmart.com/innovation/20170601/serving-customers-in-new-ways-walmart-begins-testing-associate-delivery http://blog.walmart.com/innovation/20170601/serving-customer...
- antihero 9y agoWho assumes liability? If they fall foul of some regulation (using their cars as commercial vehicles), will Wallmart have their backs?
- colechristensen 9y agoIn any lawsuit against the driver, Wal-Mart would also be named as a defendant. It might be that enough of these types of things will have to happen before local laws regulate this sort of non-traditional thing.
- bsiemon 9y agoUPS/FedEx drivers make decent salaries. I wonder how much base pay impacts desire to steal obviously valuable packages. For a Walmart employee the pay is much lower but they will end up with the same knowledge of where/when packages arrive.
- stevenwoo 9y agoIf someone wants to steal something, they aren't going to steal what they just delivered (mostly they are not that stupid) - people already do that just cruising neighborhoods that they do not live in - it's enough of a problem that vids pop up every month on reddit. Real thieves would be casing houses and figuring out which one would be worth burglarizing.
- amelius 9y agoWill they, from now on, hire people strategically based on where they live?
- SurrealSoul 9y agoLooks like some internal manager won their "Its like uber but with packages" pitch. I wonder how self-driving cars will leave my mail on my doorstep in a couple years
- tuna-piano 9y agoAmazon has a program, "Fulfillment By Amazon", where you can pay Amazon $2.50-$4.00 to pick, pack and ship an item for you[1]. Would Wal-Mart be better off just paying Amazon than paying all the people involved in its process? I'd imagine Wal-Mart is paying its people at least $3 per delivery, in addition to paying the people in its stores to pick/pack the item... Does turning Wal-Mart stores into distribution centers and retail employees into pickers and delivery people beat dedicated DC's and delivery people? I'd guess not. [1]https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.htm/ref=asus_fba_snav_p https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.ht...
- jcastro 9y ago> Would Wal-Mart be better off just paying Amazon That sounds like McDonald's paying Burger King to sell Big Macs.
- petra 9y agoWalmart is paying it's people their hourly wages(let's say $14/hr in Texas), and lets them deliver up to 10 packages. With the right route. If 10 packages take an hour, it's $1.4 per package. It may take less. It leaves $1.6 for handling, and shipping to store(large trucks, very cheap). Seems possible. BTW: Are there any distance limits for the Amazon offer?
- colechristensen 9y agoWalMart is trying to compete with Amazon at the logistics business, not give them more. Wal-Mart's business isn't just stores, it's their whole system of product acquisition, inventory, distribution, etc. The store is just the frontend. They don't want to retreat into just being distributors, they want to expand into front-door delivery.
- david927 9y agoWhat are the liability concerns for this? If they get in a car crash on their way home, does Wal-Mart pay? And if not, why not? To me, personally, this smacks of late-stage capitalism. How long until "voluntary and paid" becomes "coerced and paid little"?
- rectang 9y agoIt's all about corporate entities with massive analysis resources using information asymmetry to offload risk onto individuals who are not in a position to understand what they are agreeing to. ETA: Yep, insurance costs are on the workers. From https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-using-store-staff-for-last-mile-deliveries/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi... : Workers also have to submit to additional background checks, motor vehicle record inspections and provide proof of insurance.
- pembrook 9y agoThis hits it right on the head. Wal-mart has all the data and resources to analyze it for efficiency opportunities. Not only that, they also have have the marketing muscle to "brand" this program internally and make it seem appealing to their lowest wage workers. Meanwhile, the average Wal-mart worker (many of whom are actually on food stamps and struggling to get by) has none of the resources or education or even time to properly evaluate this deal. No single mother with a high-school level education holding down 2 jobs to feed her family is going to have the time to properly discount the statistical increases to risk of injury; vehicular accidents and the subsequent insurance premium increases; the myriad of vehicle-related depreciation costs; the fuel consumption implications; the increased risk of encountering crime; etc. Ultimately, the power and incentive structures at play here are inevitably going to lean toward exploitation in the absence of protections being built in to the program.
- rectang 9y agoSomething I really hope to understand better is what opportunities we have to improve the efficiency of the labor economy, so that labor resources are allocated according to better information. This would drive down the margins of exploitative companies, while improving the efficiency of the economy as a whole. I'd like to think that such an approach is compatible with a "left-libertarian" marketplace-friendly outlook.
- lightbyte 9y agoMaybe this is just me, but I wouldn't want some random person that lives near me to know what I'm ordering from Walmart and have them hand deliver it to me.
- stevenwoo 9y agoJust because they have the uniform and the truck of a brand you might trust, doesn't mean that person is a decent person. This happened recently in Silicon Valley of all places. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/23/hayward-man-charged-with-committing-3-burglaries-in-atherton-menlo-park/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/23/hayward-man-charged-wi...
- smileysteve 9y agoThe similarities to Uber/Uber Eats exist. Is a neighbor uber driving knowing who you are, where you live, and leave the house keeping you from using their service?
- mickrussom 9y agoWe live in sad times when you cheer for Walmart for trying to take down the evil empire of Scamazon Amazon. AMZN - Second rate, B stock and non-genuine products. Brutal treatment of vendors. Amazon AWS watches all major users of their infrastructure then COMPETES with them once their model is validated. Amazon also competes with a race to the bottom pricing which is a typical monopolist tactic of loss leadership to break competition then become the price setter. I wish Walmart luck. Also, Walmart is paying PEOPLE, Scamazon wants to replace people with drones.
- yourapostasy 9y agoQuestions I haven't seen answered yet: * Employee gets a destination with no parking available, who gets dinged for non-delivery? * Employee gets a destination with no parking available, but is told to double-park by local manager. Gets ticketed. Who gets dinged? * Does this constitute a non-CDL delivery service, or courier service? Will Wal-Mart handle licensing and insurance coverage of personal employee vehicles? * What exactly constitutes "on their way"? A block out of their way? Several kilometers out of their way? * What guarantees are in place that the definition of "on their way" isn't expanded without due consideration in the future? * Is the compensation piece work, or based upon time? If piece work as implied by the 10-package maximum, and an unforeseen traffic stoppage takes up employee's time, does employee have flexibility to bail on delivery and do some shopping while waiting for stoppage to clear? If there is no such flexibility, I can practically count upon the absence of "surge compensation". * Do recipients have the option to view a picture of employee and vehicle, with map showing location as delivery draws near, ensuring security and privacy? * Employee slips on stairs while walking down them after completing last delivery on way to their car, breaks a leg. Is this covered by worker's compensation, or is employee on their own? * Employee is assaulted by dog/perp while making delivery. Who pays? This is a laudable effort, I like the general idea, but this is all but guaranteed open to worker abuses in the future as management "optimizes" it, in a "pray I don't alter it further"-fashioned deal. I don't expect Wal-Mart stocker staff for example, to think of these and many other contingencies when signing up, for which they will almost certainly be hung out to dry if their number comes up.
- vkou 9y agoNow, if only there was some sort of way to force Wal-mart to answer these kinds of questions. Maybe... A union of employees, who want to understand their relationship with their employer better, and to push back on unfair parts of said relationship.
- twoquestions 9y ago> Maybe... A union of employees Wow that's a laugh! Last time I checked, even speaking the word 'union' is enough to be fired for cause at Wal-Mart. Also, most of the people who work there have few or no other options, the only thing keeping them out of company towns is what little worker protection legislation that's left.
- losteverything 9y agoAs a professional delivery worker and an employee of the everyone-hates retailer i have this view: This is an experiment. Only. Lore has said that 75% of delivery cost is labor related. Wal-Mart is insane about not working off the clock. They won't force associates to do this. From the delivery aspect: When we get a new delivery person they suck for months. There are so many variables that make failure probable: unmarked addresses; multiple units; obstacles (including dogs); access; daylight; wrong address labels; "who gives a sh#t" attitude ("i just cant return with my delivery"); scanning failures Plus. Ups fedex and usps are trusted with access-walking on peoples properties without question. Imo lore is good at pushing things and this test will be called off.
- petra 9y agoInteresting view. You mention many problems. Most of them can be solved with data gathering - what's this unmarked address, which is the relevant unit, what the right access path, which workers do and don't give a shit, etc. and with the right app, and so many employees, you can gather all that data relatively fast, assuming some repeat orders. Heck, maybe do that with augmented reality via phone, to make it dead simple. Also, if the employee still can find where to go, some sort of remote help from another employee can be had.
- ianai 9y agoYes, let's just magic up a borderline plausible/sci-fi fix to a foreseen problem.
- losteverything 9y agoTurn by turn directions are used sundays for Amazon. Gps in the scanner screams at the deliverer if the address is "far away" (eg 2.5 miles from location) like instead of 25 Hickory trail they are at 25 hickory lane or 25 highland st. And still carriers get it wrong. Every Sunday. Remote help from another employee? First, if that other employee is off the clock they cant help. Repeat knowledge of family/address makes success.
- 9y ago
- eiji 9y agoa) How many employee commute routes will map to affluent delivery buyers? b) More none-descriptive cars and persons in residential neighborhoods knocking on doors, waiting to be shot through the closed door. (I'm not even kidding.)
- rbanffy 9y agoSo... Will they lay off their delivery drivers?
- menacingly 9y agoI'm a fan of the idea, but unless the data is completely hidden from local management, it's difficult to imagine this not being mandatory in practice. No matter what the posters in the breakrooms say.
- HarryHirsch 9y agoDoes anyone remember Parcelnet from Britain 15 years ago? It was mums and retired people delivering packages for several retailers, and it was a complete disaster. Your orders just wouldn't show up. That's on top of the sharing economy exploitation.
- ge96 9y agoWhat package? haha
- eganist 9y agoInteresting detail I haven't seen mentioned here: There's not just added income per delivery (or whatever model Walmart chooses to employ here); there's also the tax write-offs employees can take on mileage driven between their Walmart location and the final delivery stop assuming that mileage hasn't been specifically covered by Walmart directly. Can an accountant check me here? My thinking is this also helps with commuting costs for quite a number of low-wage employees.
- logfromblammo 9y agoAs long as you pay me at least $0.54/mile, pay me my regular wage for the entire time spent driving, and insure me and my vehicle until I get home, I would have no problem with this. That said, I doubt Wal-Mart would be avoiding dedicated delivery drivers if they intended to do all that.
- Taylor_OD 9y agoMy initial guy reaction is that this is really weird and I wouldnt want my package to be delivered by a stranger. Then I remembered my packages are already delivered by people I dont know. It seems like a nice way for Wal-Mart to cut down on shipping costs and a good way for their employees to pick up a little extra cash.
- michaelmrose 9y agoHaving worked for walmart I fully expect many walmarts to have a goal for buy in to this program and employees to be pressured to make deliveries without compensation. They are the worst company I have ever worked for, just bad people.
- swanson 9y agoSam Walton, in the early days of WalMart, got a pilot's license so he could fly between store locations (vs a much slower commute by car). He noticed while flying that he could see traffic patterns and scout out new store locations for his expanding business. I think Sam would be proud that the same out-of-the-box, resourceful thinking is still happening today.
- nnutter 9y agoNext step could be to use employees homes, cars, etc. as a distribution of drone base stations.
- lkjasdsdf7877 9y agoSo does this count towards weekly hours worked? That is, if they work 30 in the store and 15 on the road, do they get 5 hours of OT?