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>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizin

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the car.

jbooth 9y ago
It's not patronizing, I don't think I'm stupid and I had no idea of the insurance implications.
GCA10 9y ago
Reinforcement from an unlikely quarter! The Big Ugly for anyone working in retail the past 20 years is that stores have done almost nothing to improve workers' productivity. Price scanners were a 1990s innovation and there hasn't been much to follow. So it's very hard for workers to make an economic case that they should be getting paid more. (There's a human-decency case, but that doesn't always prevail.) In fact, average retail wages were 62% of the national average pay in 2000, and they're 55% now. More numbers are here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2017/05/23/the-looming-retail-bailout/#4c99383a4ec7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2017/05/23/the-loo.... What was a bad job then has become a worse job now. Wal-Mart's new initiative isn't entirely beautiful, but it represents the first effort in a long time to say: "Hey, we discovered something about you that's more valuable than we realized. Your commute home is a potential asset to us, and to date we've paid you zero for it. We've now got a mechanism to pay you something for it, as long as you're willing to do Task X for Payment Y." It's a lot easier for wages to go up -- in any field -- when workers create more value. We can argue about whether Wal-Mart has defined Task X and Payment Y properly, but at least this is a fresh idea in a field that's been devoid of them for a long time.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  > stores have done almost nothing to improve workers' productivity They also got their lesson with Amazon and other online retailers taking productivity to the max by streamlining warehouse operations and removing physical retail with its inefficiencies and expensive leases out of equation. Currently US retail market can be broken down into three large groups - already bankrupt (Circuit City, Good Guys, Borders, Forever 21, Payless Shoe Stores), close to bankruptcy (JC Penney, Sears), or scaling down in order to avoid bankruptcy (Target, Macy's, Fresh and Easy). Improving worker productivity at this point is as useful as optimizing horse-feeding stations a year after Henry Ford has unveiled Model T - you're likely to achieve a local maxima and claim a success, but the global maxima meanwhile changed significantly.
  - fuck_google 9y ago
    Not having to pay sales tax probably also helped Amazon and other online retailers, perhaps even more than streamlining their operations. Bad policies tend to distort competition.
rectang 9y ago
> I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. The difference between the two parties is information asymmetry, not intelligence. Walmart is organized and concentrated and can bring to bear entire departments of lawyers and analysts. It gets to repeat the transaction N times and amortize its costs across all the transactions. The individual workers do not have such resources and are not unified. Each of them is at a severe disadvantage in the negotiation. The result is an inefficient labor market.
- baby_wipe 9y ago
  If Walmart really is taking advantage of its workers, then why doesn't another company come in and offer better terms? Are you claiming Walmart has monopsony power over low-wage workers?
  - xenadu02 9y ago
    Various firms do, both large and small, but it is extremely difficult to compete across so many fronts without a massive amount of capital (logistics, distribution, negotiations with manufacturers, real estate, marketing, product development, etc). The return on investment for such a massive deployment of capital isn't huge and Walmart could adopt your strategies at any time, undercutting your value proposition. I'm also 100% certain there is a lot more collusion going on but with CEOs smart enough not to write it down in an email. That said, a tightening labor market is forcing Walmart and other competitors to slowly raise pay.
  - codedokode 9y ago
    Whys should other companies offer better terms? There is enough unqualified workers everywhere so there is no need to compete for them.
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    They have. The reason why Walmart had to raise wages is directly because of this. Walmart was looked upon as the employer of last resort and it was showing in the cleanliness of the stores. The stores were a mess and turnover was huge. Eventually the paymasters had to relent and open the purse strings.
jlarocco 9y ago
I'm not sure the OP was being patronizing. One alternative to this program would be to buy each store a Fedex style van (or a few) and have a few dedicated drivers make deliveries all day. Once you think about that for a few minutes, you start to see all of the costs that they're offloading to employees. Not just insurance, but also vehicle maintenance, gas, etc. I'm sure Walmart has done a ton of cost/benefit analysis and churned through a lot of data before deciding to offer a program like this, and the employees will almost certainly not get all the details.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  If the delivery is on the employee's typical route home, this could be a win for both the employee and for Walmart (and a minuscule reduction in overall traffic and miles driven). That's not at all the case of Walmart buying a Sprinter van and driving it around all day on routes that weren't naturally being covered.
  - jlarocco 9y ago
    You've completely missed my point. No doubt it's favorable to Walmart - they've had a team of people running the numbers and they get to set the rules. The question is whether or not it's actually favorable to employees and whether or not Walmart will inform them of the costs they'll be responsible for. "Here's $10 to deliver this" sounds great until you realize it's $5 in gas, your insurance is going up $50 a month, and your car will wear out a year faster.
    - sokoloff 9y ago
      The same question exists for Uber/Lyft drivers. I talk to them nearly every time I ride and for the most part, the drivers understand their costs in a rough sense. (I don't buy the "people are blind idiots" narrative that suggests that a commercial entity has all the power and we must protect people from corporations at every turn.) Only one driver (out of 40+ such conversations) struck me as the type who believed that his Uber earnings were straight profit into his pocket. "Hey, there's $10 in it for you if you drop off a package on your way home." Let the employee decide if it's worth it or not. So long as there is no coercion, I don't need Walmart to educate the employees on maintenance, the cost of gas, etc. I do think it's fair and reasonable to disclose/inform/explain the insurance situation.
TallGuyShort 9y ago
Ask yourself if you think you're stupid, then read the entirety of the agreement for your car insurance (or any insurance, for that matter), and then ask yourself if you think you're stupid.
- angry_octet 9y ago
  And even if you read it, you're not actually qualified to understand it unless you're a lawyer. Even if you think you understand it, you don't.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The irony is that if a lawyer gave you legal advice about what a car insurance agreement means with zero background knowledge of insurance law or extra research, that'd be malpractice. But we hold ordinary people accountable for adhering to those agreements and understanding the implications.
    - studentrob 9y ago
      Nothing wrong with holding the lawyer accountable. If someone purports to be a professional about something, I expect them to be, particularly about matters as serious as law. I suspect we hold them accountable because those are the people society has entrusted with such matters. Same goes for doctors and medical malpractice.
      - rayiner 9y ago
        I'm not saying anything is wrong with holding the lawyer accountable. I'm saying that it's ridiculous to hold ordinary people accountable for complex consumer contracts. Even if you're a lawyer, you need either some familiarity with the relevant law or need to do some research to understand these contracts. We'd say it would be reckless for a lawyer to advise a client about such a contract with no background knowledge of applicable law. But we expect ordinary people to do it all the time and pretend like they understand what they're signing.
analog31 9y ago
That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. Maybe it could have been worded differently, but I interpreted it as being that the workers would have a hard time computing the totality of their costs, not that they are of particularly low intelligence. I suspect most people in the US don't know how to work out the financials on this deal.
angry_octet 9y ago
No, it isn't patronizing, it is the reality of 'negotiations' between mega corps and a disunited workers. In fact, I find it pathetic that you call concern for the bargaining strength of low paid workers patronizing. That is a standard right-wing play, an every man for himself narritive, where rich coastal liberals look down on hard working Americans. If Wal-Mart was being fair, or employees had a better negotiation strategy, or there were fair labour laws, there would be no question as to whether Wal-Mart would be the insurer, and employees would know exactly how many dollars they would earn, without having to gamble with life-altering risks.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  It seems that lately chains large and small (Whole Foods, Stater Bros) are going the Instacart route, with both of these retailers advertising their Instacart URL at the store entrances. I think even if the workers had a stronger negotiating position, it might not yield much, as anything they'd offer collectively would have to be a better deal for WMT than Instacart.

jbooth 9y ago

It's not patronizing, I don't think I'm stupid and I had no idea of the insurance implications.

GCA10 9y ago

Reinforcement from an unlikely quarter! The Big Ugly for anyone working in retail the past 20 years is that stores have done almost nothing to improve workers' productivity. Price scanners were a 1990s innovation and there hasn't been much to follow. So it's very hard for workers to make an economic case that they should be getting paid more. (There's a human-decency case, but that doesn't always prevail.) In fact, average retail wages were 62% of the national average pay in 2000, and they're 55% now. More numbers are here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2017/05/23/the-looming-retail-bailout/#4c99383a4ec7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2017/05/23/the-loo.... What was a bad job then has become a worse job now. Wal-Mart's new initiative isn't entirely beautiful, but it represents the first effort in a long time to say: "Hey, we discovered something about you that's more valuable than we realized. Your commute home is a potential asset to us, and to date we've paid you zero for it. We've now got a mechanism to pay you something for it, as long as you're willing to do Task X for Payment Y." It's a lot easier for wages to go up -- in any field -- when workers create more value. We can argue about whether Wal-Mart has defined Task X and Payment Y properly, but at least this is a fresh idea in a field that's been devoid of them for a long time.

prostoalex 9y ago
> stores have done almost nothing to improve workers' productivity They also got their lesson with Amazon and other online retailers taking productivity to the max by streamlining warehouse operations and removing physical retail with its inefficiencies and expensive leases out of equation. Currently US retail market can be broken down into three large groups - already bankrupt (Circuit City, Good Guys, Borders, Forever 21, Payless Shoe Stores), close to bankruptcy (JC Penney, Sears), or scaling down in order to avoid bankruptcy (Target, Macy's, Fresh and Easy). Improving worker productivity at this point is as useful as optimizing horse-feeding stations a year after Henry Ford has unveiled Model T - you're likely to achieve a local maxima and claim a success, but the global maxima meanwhile changed significantly.
- fuck_google 9y ago
  Not having to pay sales tax probably also helped Amazon and other online retailers, perhaps even more than streamlining their operations. Bad policies tend to distort competition.

rectang 9y ago

> I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. The difference between the two parties is information asymmetry, not intelligence. Walmart is organized and concentrated and can bring to bear entire departments of lawyers and analysts. It gets to repeat the transaction N times and amortize its costs across all the transactions. The individual workers do not have such resources and are not unified. Each of them is at a severe disadvantage in the negotiation. The result is an inefficient labor market.

baby_wipe 9y ago
If Walmart really is taking advantage of its workers, then why doesn't another company come in and offer better terms? Are you claiming Walmart has monopsony power over low-wage workers?
- xenadu02 9y ago
  Various firms do, both large and small, but it is extremely difficult to compete across so many fronts without a massive amount of capital (logistics, distribution, negotiations with manufacturers, real estate, marketing, product development, etc). The return on investment for such a massive deployment of capital isn't huge and Walmart could adopt your strategies at any time, undercutting your value proposition. I'm also 100% certain there is a lot more collusion going on but with CEOs smart enough not to write it down in an email. That said, a tightening labor market is forcing Walmart and other competitors to slowly raise pay.
- codedokode 9y ago
  Whys should other companies offer better terms? There is enough unqualified workers everywhere so there is no need to compete for them.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  They have. The reason why Walmart had to raise wages is directly because of this. Walmart was looked upon as the employer of last resort and it was showing in the cleanliness of the stores. The stores were a mess and turnover was huge. Eventually the paymasters had to relent and open the purse strings.

jlarocco 9y ago

I'm not sure the OP was being patronizing. One alternative to this program would be to buy each store a Fedex style van (or a few) and have a few dedicated drivers make deliveries all day. Once you think about that for a few minutes, you start to see all of the costs that they're offloading to employees. Not just insurance, but also vehicle maintenance, gas, etc. I'm sure Walmart has done a ton of cost/benefit analysis and churned through a lot of data before deciding to offer a program like this, and the employees will almost certainly not get all the details.

sokoloff 9y ago
If the delivery is on the employee's typical route home, this could be a win for both the employee and for Walmart (and a minuscule reduction in overall traffic and miles driven). That's not at all the case of Walmart buying a Sprinter van and driving it around all day on routes that weren't naturally being covered.
- jlarocco 9y ago
  You've completely missed my point. No doubt it's favorable to Walmart - they've had a team of people running the numbers and they get to set the rules. The question is whether or not it's actually favorable to employees and whether or not Walmart will inform them of the costs they'll be responsible for. "Here's $10 to deliver this" sounds great until you realize it's $5 in gas, your insurance is going up $50 a month, and your car will wear out a year faster.
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    The same question exists for Uber/Lyft drivers. I talk to them nearly every time I ride and for the most part, the drivers understand their costs in a rough sense. (I don't buy the "people are blind idiots" narrative that suggests that a commercial entity has all the power and we must protect people from corporations at every turn.) Only one driver (out of 40+ such conversations) struck me as the type who believed that his Uber earnings were straight profit into his pocket. "Hey, there's $10 in it for you if you drop off a package on your way home." Let the employee decide if it's worth it or not. So long as there is no coercion, I don't need Walmart to educate the employees on maintenance, the cost of gas, etc. I do think it's fair and reasonable to disclose/inform/explain the insurance situation.

TallGuyShort 9y ago

Ask yourself if you think you're stupid, then read the entirety of the agreement for your car insurance (or any insurance, for that matter), and then ask yourself if you think you're stupid.

angry_octet 9y ago
And even if you read it, you're not actually qualified to understand it unless you're a lawyer. Even if you think you understand it, you don't.
- rayiner 9y ago
  The irony is that if a lawyer gave you legal advice about what a car insurance agreement means with zero background knowledge of insurance law or extra research, that'd be malpractice. But we hold ordinary people accountable for adhering to those agreements and understanding the implications.
  - studentrob 9y ago
    Nothing wrong with holding the lawyer accountable. If someone purports to be a professional about something, I expect them to be, particularly about matters as serious as law. I suspect we hold them accountable because those are the people society has entrusted with such matters. Same goes for doctors and medical malpractice.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      I'm not saying anything is wrong with holding the lawyer accountable. I'm saying that it's ridiculous to hold ordinary people accountable for complex consumer contracts. Even if you're a lawyer, you need either some familiarity with the relevant law or need to do some research to understand these contracts. We'd say it would be reckless for a lawyer to advise a client about such a contract with no background knowledge of applicable law. But we expect ordinary people to do it all the time and pretend like they understand what they're signing.

analog31 9y ago

That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. Maybe it could have been worded differently, but I interpreted it as being that the workers would have a hard time computing the totality of their costs, not that they are of particularly low intelligence. I suspect most people in the US don't know how to work out the financials on this deal.

angry_octet 9y ago

No, it isn't patronizing, it is the reality of 'negotiations' between mega corps and a disunited workers. In fact, I find it pathetic that you call concern for the bargaining strength of low paid workers patronizing. That is a standard right-wing play, an every man for himself narritive, where rich coastal liberals look down on hard working Americans. If Wal-Mart was being fair, or employees had a better negotiation strategy, or there were fair labour laws, there would be no question as to whether Wal-Mart would be the insurer, and employees would know exactly how many dollars they would earn, without having to gamble with life-altering risks.

prostoalex 9y ago
It seems that lately chains large and small (Whole Foods, Stater Bros) are going the Instacart route, with both of these retailers advertising their Instacart URL at the store entrances. I think even if the workers had a stronger negotiating position, it might not yield much, as anything they'd offer collectively would have to be a better deal for WMT than Instacart.