6 ms·

Well, 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" polic

by pyre 9y ago

Well, 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 ago
That'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.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Not sure if it's pointless to point this out. The mechanism is pretty obvious, so the right question is: what (if any) measures will WallMart undertake so that this doesn't happen?
- david927 9y ago
  We can create laws without an indication of previous abuse. We can regulate not just because we have indicators of abuse but because we can imagine potential abuse. We don't give toddlers handguns because our pre-frontal cortex allows us the foresight to see that it's a bad idea -- we don't need to actually wait and see if one toddler shoots another.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Sure, but that only makes sense if there's a reason to anticipate unusual problems. Like, if Walmart was offering employees extra money to dispose of toxic waste or collect debts from delinquent customers or something, I'd see a huge potential for abuse and wouldn't consider it to be at all a good idea. Those things need special training and the potential for problems is high. But this is package delivery. It's a relatively unskilled, low-end job. Its abuse potential seems to be to be on the same level as the abuse potential of, say, lifting boxes, or stocking shelves, or mopping floors. "Walmart pays people to stock shelves" wouldn't get anyone up in arms, so why would this?
    - david927 9y ago
      Because this is "off-the-clock, off-site" work. It has the potential to be extended in a way that it much harder to quantify and regulate. My, and many others', biggest concern is that the workers at Wall-Mart often need their job for subsistence; it's often not a job that they feel they can say "no" to. So if this gets extended from "Do this only if you want to make some side money," to "Doing this greatly influences if you get to keep your job," there is a problem because it's no longer within their normal hourly wage limits and it's no longer in a set physical space. Do they want to go a different direction than than directly home -- say to go to their daughter's birthday party? Again, if it's elective, there's no problem but if it becomes coerced then Wall-Mart is directly exploiting that need to keep that job. In fact, I don't see how this is much of a win for the workers. I only see how Wall-Mart is leveraging its indentured workforce, including passing the risk on to them, to expand its profit base. This is late-stage capitalism, pure and simple.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        If the pay comes out to less than their normal wage plus costs incurred then I'll completely agree. I just don't see why we'd jump to that conclusion before the details are available. If the news was "Walmart hires 100 workers for new store" we'd assume they'd get paid enough to make it worth their while (although probably not a lot!).
      - dsacco 9y ago
        > This is late stage capitalism, pure and simple. What is late stage capitalism, and why is this representative of it?
        david927 9y ago
        The idea is that capitalism will lead, inexorably, to fewer big companies and fewer people who control those companies. Those fewer companies and people will have more and more power, the people at the other end of the spectrum (e.g. unskilled workers) will have less and less power, over time. Wall-Mart has a lot of power; its workers almost none. In fact most of its workers are kept part-time so that they don't have benefits and more than half of the full-time hourly make less than $25,000/year[1]. Remember that almost 60% of Americans don't have $500 in savings. These people are often terrified of losing their job. The notion of using workers to make deliveries is representative of late stage capitalism in that at first it sounds like Wall-Mart is letting its employees "hustle" for a bit more money, but instead it's really putting itself in the situation where it can leverage its employee's circumstances. Note that, even in this proof-of-concept stage, the risks and insurance costs are already passed to the workers[3]. Please note that I don't think Wall-Mart as a company is particularly evil or would ever try to not pay its workers for this service -- on the contrary, they will certainly, always compensate. My concern is that that compensation will not cover the costs when all variables are factored in and that while it might start as voluntary, if it's indeed profitable, that would start to be pushed toward a work culture pressure of, "Do you want to keep your job? Deliver this at a net loss to you." [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-23/more-than-half-of-wal-marts-hourly-workers-make-less-than-25-000 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-23/more-than... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings [3] 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...
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Well, we don't allow people to sell handguns to toddlers. A quick search will reveal that there are quite a few deaths every year due to people negligently allowing guns to fall into the hands of toddlers. Last time I checked there was an average of ~one fatality a week.
- pyre 9y ago
  I'm just stating that the real question about how good this will be or not will be what happens in practice. If not enough employees are volunteering for this, then entire program could end in failure. Will there be pressure to make this work from upper management? The opt-in nature of this from existing employees is what makes this suspect. The question is will Walmart use their current employment relationship with these people to try and coerce them into opting in. Hiring outside help from people that Walmart has no previous relationship with doesn't raise such questions. Walmart also doesn't have a great public image, so people are more likely to go over their actions with a fine-toothed comb.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this? Would you be happier if they just forced their employees to do it? Most job descriptions include a phrase like "and any other duties as required" and as long as they paid the employees and followed the relevant regulations it would be perfectly legal to do this.
    - heyheyhey 9y ago
      > This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this? Agreed. At any job I've worked at, doing the bare minimum for awhile will probably get you fired; if you want to stand out or get a promotion, you're expected to do more than you're asked.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Well, you could always look at the actual history of Walmart's employee relations and pay policies and make a guess.
differentView 9y ago
Exactly! If part of middle management's evaluation is based on how many packages their underlings deliver, middle management will start hiring (or give more hours to) people they think are more likely to signup for this and cut (or reduce hours to) people that don't do this.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Particularly since I could imagine hiring staff based on their regular commutes. "Oh, you live in the Dundas neighborhood? We don't have any other employees from there". ... later ... "Wait, you don't want to do an after work delivery again? Dude, this is why we hired you."
EpicEng 9y ago
When is that not true for any job ever? A lot of fear mongering before we even see how it works in practice.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Fomite 9y ago
"Not a team player"

by pyre 9y ago

mikeash 9y ago

That'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.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Not sure if it's pointless to point this out. The mechanism is pretty obvious, so the right question is: what (if any) measures will WallMart undertake so that this doesn't happen?
david927 9y ago
We can create laws without an indication of previous abuse. We can regulate not just because we have indicators of abuse but because we can imagine potential abuse. We don't give toddlers handguns because our pre-frontal cortex allows us the foresight to see that it's a bad idea -- we don't need to actually wait and see if one toddler shoots another.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Sure, but that only makes sense if there's a reason to anticipate unusual problems. Like, if Walmart was offering employees extra money to dispose of toxic waste or collect debts from delinquent customers or something, I'd see a huge potential for abuse and wouldn't consider it to be at all a good idea. Those things need special training and the potential for problems is high. But this is package delivery. It's a relatively unskilled, low-end job. Its abuse potential seems to be to be on the same level as the abuse potential of, say, lifting boxes, or stocking shelves, or mopping floors. "Walmart pays people to stock shelves" wouldn't get anyone up in arms, so why would this?
  - david927 9y ago
    Because this is "off-the-clock, off-site" work. It has the potential to be extended in a way that it much harder to quantify and regulate. My, and many others', biggest concern is that the workers at Wall-Mart often need their job for subsistence; it's often not a job that they feel they can say "no" to. So if this gets extended from "Do this only if you want to make some side money," to "Doing this greatly influences if you get to keep your job," there is a problem because it's no longer within their normal hourly wage limits and it's no longer in a set physical space. Do they want to go a different direction than than directly home -- say to go to their daughter's birthday party? Again, if it's elective, there's no problem but if it becomes coerced then Wall-Mart is directly exploiting that need to keep that job. In fact, I don't see how this is much of a win for the workers. I only see how Wall-Mart is leveraging its indentured workforce, including passing the risk on to them, to expand its profit base. This is late-stage capitalism, pure and simple.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      If the pay comes out to less than their normal wage plus costs incurred then I'll completely agree. I just don't see why we'd jump to that conclusion before the details are available. If the news was "Walmart hires 100 workers for new store" we'd assume they'd get paid enough to make it worth their while (although probably not a lot!).
    - dsacco 9y ago
      > This is late stage capitalism, pure and simple. What is late stage capitalism, and why is this representative of it?
      - david927 9y ago
        The idea is that capitalism will lead, inexorably, to fewer big companies and fewer people who control those companies. Those fewer companies and people will have more and more power, the people at the other end of the spectrum (e.g. unskilled workers) will have less and less power, over time. Wall-Mart has a lot of power; its workers almost none. In fact most of its workers are kept part-time so that they don't have benefits and more than half of the full-time hourly make less than $25,000/year[1]. Remember that almost 60% of Americans don't have $500 in savings. These people are often terrified of losing their job. The notion of using workers to make deliveries is representative of late stage capitalism in that at first it sounds like Wall-Mart is letting its employees "hustle" for a bit more money, but instead it's really putting itself in the situation where it can leverage its employee's circumstances. Note that, even in this proof-of-concept stage, the risks and insurance costs are already passed to the workers[3]. Please note that I don't think Wall-Mart as a company is particularly evil or would ever try to not pay its workers for this service -- on the contrary, they will certainly, always compensate. My concern is that that compensation will not cover the costs when all variables are factored in and that while it might start as voluntary, if it's indeed profitable, that would start to be pushed toward a work culture pressure of, "Do you want to keep your job? Deliver this at a net loss to you." [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-23/more-than-half-of-wal-marts-hourly-workers-make-less-than-25-000 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-23/more-than... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings [3] 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...
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Well, we don't allow people to sell handguns to toddlers. A quick search will reveal that there are quite a few deaths every year due to people negligently allowing guns to fall into the hands of toddlers. Last time I checked there was an average of ~one fatality a week.
pyre 9y ago
I'm just stating that the real question about how good this will be or not will be what happens in practice. If not enough employees are volunteering for this, then entire program could end in failure. Will there be pressure to make this work from upper management? The opt-in nature of this from existing employees is what makes this suspect. The question is will Walmart use their current employment relationship with these people to try and coerce them into opting in. Hiring outside help from people that Walmart has no previous relationship with doesn't raise such questions. Walmart also doesn't have a great public image, so people are more likely to go over their actions with a fine-toothed comb.
- mikeash 9y ago
  This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this? Would you be happier if they just forced their employees to do it? Most job descriptions include a phrase like "and any other duties as required" and as long as they paid the employees and followed the relevant regulations it would be perfectly legal to do this.
  - heyheyhey 9y ago
    > This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this? Agreed. At any job I've worked at, doing the bare minimum for awhile will probably get you fired; if you want to stand out or get a promotion, you're expected to do more than you're asked.
anigbrowl 9y ago
Well, you could always look at the actual history of Walmart's employee relations and pay policies and make a guess.

differentView 9y ago

Exactly! If part of middle management's evaluation is based on how many packages their underlings deliver, middle management will start hiring (or give more hours to) people they think are more likely to signup for this and cut (or reduce hours to) people that don't do this.

Pxtl 9y ago
Particularly since I could imagine hiring staff based on their regular commutes. "Oh, you live in the Dundas neighborhood? We don't have any other employees from there". ... later ... "Wait, you don't want to do an after work delivery again? Dude, this is why we hired you."

EpicEng 9y ago

When is that not true for any job ever? A lot of fear mongering before we even see how it works in practice.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Fomite 9y ago

"Not a team player"