7 ms·

It does change something. DoorDash's old policy, weird as it is, reduces variability of daily pay for the Dashers. It literally put a derivative structure ont

It does change something. DoorDash's old policy, weird as it is, reduces variability of daily pay for the Dashers. It literally put a derivative structure onto the Dasher pay that reduces volatility -- the pay was cash plus a call option on the tip. Now they will get cash plus the tip. Obviously DoorDash will tune their base pay, but they can't meet the prior model's mean and variance at the same time. How Dashers balance those two is unclear, but generally people need a higher mean to accept higher variance. The problem is that the old policy only works if the customers don't understand it, and maybe even seems generally unethical.

ljlolel 7y ago
They can offer a "performance"-based weekly "bonus" which would be the difference for under-tipped people. Normalizing the same pay on a weekly (or daily) basis.
rtkwe 7y ago
It was very unethical. Calling something a tip implies a lot in the US and in most other industries the tip legally can't be taken by the employer and compensation has to at least total to the minimum wage.
- bena 7y ago
  They don't work for DoorDash however, they're contractors who are agreeing to terms with DoorDash.
  - koolba 7y ago
    It's going to be a sad day if the argument in court is that the customer is "tipping DoorDash" (and not the actual delivery contractor).
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Most people don't really get the contractor/employee split that all these companies take advantage of and even then the word TIP has certain implications. If I tip someone well I expect the worker to get more not for the company employing or contracting them to pay less, I want the money to go to the person not the company. Even in the US where tips go against wages it's not so bad, generally the first tip or two will cover the difference and workers are probably doing way better than that. Doordash on the other hand applied the same thing to /every/ order.
  - LandoCalrissian 7y ago
    I don't think that justifies wage theft.
    - bena 7y ago
      Didn't say it did, but it's a very relevant point in all of these discussions as normal wage law can get tricky when you're involved with contracted services. DoorDash can claim they aren't paying for the time, but for the service. And how long that service takes is the responsibility of the contractor. Is it dirty? Very. Does that make it untrue? No. So the first step in any of these cases is to get these gig economy apps to admit that they're just trying to circumvent wage law by classifying employees as contracted services.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- shados 7y ago
  Wasn't what they were doing exactly the same mechanics as how typical tipped employee salary work, just at a different threshold? Eg, in Mass, it looks like tipped employee minimum wage is 4.35, and tipped wage plus tip must be $12/hour. If the employee doesn't get any tip, the employer has to foot the difference. So for all practical purpose, all the tips you give up to $12/hour are simply saving the employer money but don't change anything for the employee unless they do dodgy shit like not declaring cash tips. Yeah, the whole system is bullshit which is why we should abolish tips altogether in favor of proper minimum wages (or higher for professions that usually get a lot from tips like bartenders)
  - axaxs 7y ago
    Exactly. I didn't really understand the outcry, unless people in the USA just don't understand fully how tipping works. It's exactly the same model that restaurants use.
    - shados 7y ago
      > unless people in the USA just don't understand fully how tipping works. Every "outrage" in the US consists mostly of shit people don't understand. That doesn't mean they're wrong about the cause, but you can be "right" for the "wrong reason". In this case, yes, DoorDash employees are getting screwed. At the -same time-, DoorDash is doing nothing weird or outside of the norm. The solution is wrong. People are trying to get 1-2 companies to make tipping a little less bullshit, when its tipping itself, across the entire country, that is broken.
      - rtkwe 7y ago
        One important distinction to me is DoorDash took benefit from every single tip while restaurants only benefit on the first couple tips until the difference between minimum wage and the tipped minimum wage is negated. After that all tip benefits go directly to the person being tipped where people expect it to go. Generally, depending on a lot of variables, after the first handful (I’m ball parking 2-4) of tips that gap should be covered and most times servers should see way more than that in tips.
- adrusi 7y ago
  It's unethical, but only to the customer, not the deliveryperson. Except to whatever extent market wages are unethical.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Yes, but that's unethical enough to condemn, isn't it? I mean, I was personally horrified that the "tip" that DoorDash had been soliciting with that attractively placed button was in fact really a tip to the parent company and not the dasher. I feel defrauded, and would really like that tip money back. Whether tips or regular wages are better or not is an endless argument, and it doesn't seem like dashers are particularly exploited relative to other gig economy jobs. But still... that fake "tip" button was designed to exploit my emotional desire to fairly compensate low wage workers to goose DoorDash's revenue numbers, and that sucks.
- jupiter90000 7y ago
  I tend to agree, yet I also believe if I'm not mistaken this is kind of how servers at restaurants work too. They have some minimal base wage, then tips. If their tips do not take them to minimum wage, the employer must pay the difference to get them to minimum wage. In essence, we as customers are subsidizing the restaurant owners to get their employees to at least minimum wage pay. So the question is why are we just now getting outraged when this has been being done to people for a while in certain places, and is still happening to servers but it's somehow not complained about that I'm aware of. edit: looks like it depends on which state you're in in USA on this. Mostly West Coast seems to have 'sane' ones: https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
  - rhizome 7y ago
    It's not a matter of agreement, it's a violation of federal labor law for people not involved in the service from taking any portion of a tip. Tony Xu was taking parts of tips to reduce the company's wage commitments.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      You say Tony was taking tips, Tony says he was grossing up workers who don't earn enough tips. The whole outrage is people want to pay less than the job is worth and then blame Tony for it from his side.
      - rhizome 7y ago
        No, the model was to pay $X unless there's a tip, in which case Tony takes it and pays $X-$tip (unless the tip is over 100%?). Management is taking tips, which is hella illegal and has been (to varying degrees) for quite some time, certainly since before DD existed. tl;dr: wage+tips, not wage-tips.
    - jupiter90000 7y ago
      And my point was in various US states this is apparently legal to do if you trade Tony Xu for some restaurant owner and DD drivers for servers. So why has it been Ok for restaurants to do this? Does a different law apply to DD situation?
doctorpangloss 7y ago
> but they can't meet the prior model's mean and variance at the same time. They could just like, pay them a monthly wage, like everyone else in the civilized world?
- flixic 7y ago
  Like everyone else not in gig-economy jobs. The "individual contractors" hiring structure is established in almost every country (where legally possible) for companies like Uber, food delivery, etc. This is not US-specific phenomenon.

ljlolel 7y ago

They can offer a "performance"-based weekly "bonus" which would be the difference for under-tipped people. Normalizing the same pay on a weekly (or daily) basis.

rtkwe 7y ago

It was very unethical. Calling something a tip implies a lot in the US and in most other industries the tip legally can't be taken by the employer and compensation has to at least total to the minimum wage.

bena 7y ago
They don't work for DoorDash however, they're contractors who are agreeing to terms with DoorDash.
- koolba 7y ago
  It's going to be a sad day if the argument in court is that the customer is "tipping DoorDash" (and not the actual delivery contractor).
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Most people don't really get the contractor/employee split that all these companies take advantage of and even then the word TIP has certain implications. If I tip someone well I expect the worker to get more not for the company employing or contracting them to pay less, I want the money to go to the person not the company. Even in the US where tips go against wages it's not so bad, generally the first tip or two will cover the difference and workers are probably doing way better than that. Doordash on the other hand applied the same thing to /every/ order.
- LandoCalrissian 7y ago
  I don't think that justifies wage theft.
  - bena 7y ago
    Didn't say it did, but it's a very relevant point in all of these discussions as normal wage law can get tricky when you're involved with contracted services. DoorDash can claim they aren't paying for the time, but for the service. And how long that service takes is the responsibility of the contractor. Is it dirty? Very. Does that make it untrue? No. So the first step in any of these cases is to get these gig economy apps to admit that they're just trying to circumvent wage law by classifying employees as contracted services.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
shados 7y ago
Wasn't what they were doing exactly the same mechanics as how typical tipped employee salary work, just at a different threshold? Eg, in Mass, it looks like tipped employee minimum wage is 4.35, and tipped wage plus tip must be $12/hour. If the employee doesn't get any tip, the employer has to foot the difference. So for all practical purpose, all the tips you give up to $12/hour are simply saving the employer money but don't change anything for the employee unless they do dodgy shit like not declaring cash tips. Yeah, the whole system is bullshit which is why we should abolish tips altogether in favor of proper minimum wages (or higher for professions that usually get a lot from tips like bartenders)
- axaxs 7y ago
  Exactly. I didn't really understand the outcry, unless people in the USA just don't understand fully how tipping works. It's exactly the same model that restaurants use.
  - shados 7y ago
    > unless people in the USA just don't understand fully how tipping works. Every "outrage" in the US consists mostly of shit people don't understand. That doesn't mean they're wrong about the cause, but you can be "right" for the "wrong reason". In this case, yes, DoorDash employees are getting screwed. At the -same time-, DoorDash is doing nothing weird or outside of the norm. The solution is wrong. People are trying to get 1-2 companies to make tipping a little less bullshit, when its tipping itself, across the entire country, that is broken.
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      One important distinction to me is DoorDash took benefit from every single tip while restaurants only benefit on the first couple tips until the difference between minimum wage and the tipped minimum wage is negated. After that all tip benefits go directly to the person being tipped where people expect it to go. Generally, depending on a lot of variables, after the first handful (I’m ball parking 2-4) of tips that gap should be covered and most times servers should see way more than that in tips.
adrusi 7y ago
It's unethical, but only to the customer, not the deliveryperson. Except to whatever extent market wages are unethical.
- ajross 7y ago
  Yes, but that's unethical enough to condemn, isn't it? I mean, I was personally horrified that the "tip" that DoorDash had been soliciting with that attractively placed button was in fact really a tip to the parent company and not the dasher. I feel defrauded, and would really like that tip money back. Whether tips or regular wages are better or not is an endless argument, and it doesn't seem like dashers are particularly exploited relative to other gig economy jobs. But still... that fake "tip" button was designed to exploit my emotional desire to fairly compensate low wage workers to goose DoorDash's revenue numbers, and that sucks.
jupiter90000 7y ago
I tend to agree, yet I also believe if I'm not mistaken this is kind of how servers at restaurants work too. They have some minimal base wage, then tips. If their tips do not take them to minimum wage, the employer must pay the difference to get them to minimum wage. In essence, we as customers are subsidizing the restaurant owners to get their employees to at least minimum wage pay. So the question is why are we just now getting outraged when this has been being done to people for a while in certain places, and is still happening to servers but it's somehow not complained about that I'm aware of. edit: looks like it depends on which state you're in in USA on this. Mostly West Coast seems to have 'sane' ones: https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
- rhizome 7y ago
  It's not a matter of agreement, it's a violation of federal labor law for people not involved in the service from taking any portion of a tip. Tony Xu was taking parts of tips to reduce the company's wage commitments.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    You say Tony was taking tips, Tony says he was grossing up workers who don't earn enough tips. The whole outrage is people want to pay less than the job is worth and then blame Tony for it from his side.
    - rhizome 7y ago
      No, the model was to pay $X unless there's a tip, in which case Tony takes it and pays $X-$tip (unless the tip is over 100%?). Management is taking tips, which is hella illegal and has been (to varying degrees) for quite some time, certainly since before DD existed. tl;dr: wage+tips, not wage-tips.
  - jupiter90000 7y ago
    And my point was in various US states this is apparently legal to do if you trade Tony Xu for some restaurant owner and DD drivers for servers. So why has it been Ok for restaurants to do this? Does a different law apply to DD situation?

doctorpangloss 7y ago

> but they can't meet the prior model's mean and variance at the same time. They could just like, pay them a monthly wage, like everyone else in the civilized world?

flixic 7y ago
Like everyone else not in gig-economy jobs. The "individual contractors" hiring structure is established in almost every country (where legally possible) for companies like Uber, food delivery, etc. This is not US-specific phenomenon.