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More in-depth article on The Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/18/amazon-flex-drivers-in-nsw-win-minimum-hourly-pay-rate https

More in-depth article on The Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/18/amazon-flex-drivers-in-nsw-win-minimum-hourly-pay-rate https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/18/amazo... Most importantly, they only need to pay ~$27/hr immediately. This seems OK at first, as it is above the ~$25/hr minimum wage for casuals (note to non-Aussies: this figure includes a 25% "casual loading" to account for the fact that there is no sick leave, annual leave or guaranteed minimum hours). However, this doesn't consider the fact that the drivers supply their own vehicle as well as out-of-pocket expenses for fuel, maintenance and general depreciation on the vehicle itself. When you take these additional costs into consideration, that initial ~$27 looks closer to an illegally low ~$20/hr. The fact that they were both unpunished for finding loopholes in employment law as well as given a free pass to continue for another 3 years (despite literally being Amazon and therefore having the working capital to pay their drivers properly immediately) looks like it's a win for them.

emdowling 5y ago
> The fact that they were both unpunished for finding loopholes in employment law Why should companies or people be punished for finding and using loopholes? By definition, loopholes are perfectly legal. They may be against the spirit of the law, but they are still legal.
- Retric 5y ago
  Loopholes are legal in theory but not necessarily in practice. They could have just as easily ruled that the use of a private truck requires compensation on top of pay.
  - bennysomething 5y ago
    If you declare loop holes some how illegal you introduce arbitrary judgement.
    - guipsp 5y ago
      All judgement is arbitrary
    - Retric 5y ago
      Often they are exploring bugs in the legal system which unsurprisingly give arbitrary output when litigated.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      For what it's worth, etymology of the word "arbitrary": late Middle English (in the sense ‘dependent on one's will or pleasure, discretionary’): from Latin arbitrarius, from arbiter ‘judge, supreme ruler’, perhaps influenced by French arbitraire . Literally comes from the Latin word for a judge!
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Why should companies or people be punished for finding and using loopholes? You answered it yourself. They're against the spirit of the law. In any other circumstance where rules or obligations are enforced, exploiting loopholes is completely unacceptable behaviour. (To clarify, I'm not arguing that the judge made the wrong decision in this particular case. Instead, I don't think this type of behaviour should be tolerated by the system at all.)
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    In a system based on the rule of law the only way to make people stop using loopholes is to close them by changing the law. People are entitled to do what's in their best interest by staying within the law to the limit. If the issue is one of interpretation of the law then courts are there to decide.
    - gilrain 5y ago
      This is entirely opposite of how our courts are designed and obliged to work. Please educate yourself.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        How does this lead to anything other than the justice system being able to selectively target entities?
        myfavoritedog 5y ago
  - chii 5y ago
    > They're against the spirit of the law. and if you're against the spirit, but find a loophole? you do not technically break the law, and achieve your objectives. The law maker is at fault, if there are loop holes.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  Because we live in a society. Illegals sub contracting delivery vans, delivery drivers using their kids as free labor. The whole industry is screwed. And I'm a hypocrite because I order stuff online as well.
- lenkite 5y ago
  > By definition, loopholes are perfectly legal. They may be against the spirit of the law, but they are still legal As long as you can bribe - oops sorry I meant donate to your local politician(s) to keep these 'perfectly legal' laws intact...
- lordnacho 5y ago
  It wouldn't be called a loophole if it was legitimate. Loophole implies there's some kind of something wrong with it. The fact that you can't quite point out what it is is what makes it a loophole.
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    It absolutely would be. Labeling things as loopholes is politically motivated. It also absolves lawmakers of the responsibility to create functional laws when they can label people who follow them abusive.
- gre345t34 5y ago
  Why should hackers be prosecuted for using systems as they're programmed?
- midasuni 5y ago
  Same reason people breaking into a website using a bug should be punished. The bug shouldn’t be there, and if you find the bug and do a responsible disclosure that should be fine, but to ezploit the bug for your own gain is not ok.
  - lethologica 5y ago
    But it’s still not illegal, which means it’s legal, which means it’s perfectly acceptable to do.
    - PickledHotdog 5y ago
      From a legal perspective, perhaps, but many it's neither a moral or ethical one
    - criddell 5y ago
      Do you live your life by the idea that anything not specifically illegal is acceptable for you to do? Probably not because a lot of societal norms are regulated by shame and shared ideas of decency. This decision was made by a person or small group of people inside Amazon. Maybe those people wouldn’t have made that decision if their identities could become public?
      - chii 5y ago
        > Do you live your life by the idea that anything not specifically illegal is acceptable for you to do? it should be acceptable. > a lot of societal norms are regulated by shame and shared ideas of decency. and i think that's wrong - if it's not a good idea to perform certain actions, then enshrine it in law, and explicitly say it's not alright to do.
        anakaine 5y ago
        Where do you draw the line? When religion gets a foothold in a place then popular sentiment, imparted by religion, can be made law. Examples: Homosexuality, women showing their faces, women travelling without a male family escort, all illegal. There is a saying: "Legislate in haste, perish at leisure". Not all things should require legislation, and those that are to be legislated should be fully and thoroughly considered. Often times it can be best to rely upon the moral will of society to impart a desired action than it is to strictly enforce compliance with that action. Its not perfect, but neither hard-line or soft-line is.
Grimburger 5y ago
Australia's biggest and most profitable publicly owned company certainly doesn't pay their drivers anywhere near that to do the exact same job (literally delivering packages). A note for people thinking this is groundbreaking, it will be when it applies to the vastly larger competitor who pays hefty dividends each year to the federal budget.
- jsmeaton 5y ago
  Are you talking about Australia Post? If so, the numbers I’m finding are $27-$28/h part time gigs that include leave etc. Are you seeing different numbers or have I got the wrong company?
  - PickledHotdog 5y ago
    Right company. And unless things have changed in the last 12 months, a sizeable number of their delivery drivers are contractors, not part timers (though they do exist)
    - cookie_monsta 5y ago
      Not an Oz Post fanboy at all, but in the interest of comparing oranges with oranges, don't they supply vehicles? And what is their casual rate?
      - Fuzzwah 5y ago
        I see plenty of auspost delivery drivers working in vans hired from hertz etc. I've always figured that they were contractors who hired the van for tax reasons.
        ivanvanderbyl 5y ago
        From a business standpoint I would think it'd be cheaper short term for AusPost to rent Hertz vans than own and maintain those assets themselves. Especially over the past 2 years when it's been impossible to buy new vehicles in Australia at a normal price or timeframe.
to11mtm 5y ago
> However, this doesn't consider the fact that the drivers supply their own vehicle as well as out-of-pocket expenses for fuel, maintenance and general depreciation on the vehicle itself. When you take these additional costs into consideration, that initial ~$27 looks closer to an illegally low ~$20/hr. Pardon my ignorance on AU tax law, but is there anything the contractors do with those costs? For instance, in the USA if you are a contractor you are able to 'write off' those costs from your taxes (to be clear here, in most/all cases you are only getting back the taxes you paid on the money you paid for the service, e.x. if you are taxed at 20% and you paid 100$ for repairs to your contractor vehicle, you get 20$ back on your taxes, not 100$)
- robbiep 5y ago
  Yes contractors/self employed are able to write off a lot of those same business expenses
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
foogazi 5y ago
> However, this doesn't consider the fact that the drivers supply their own vehicle as well as out-of-pocket expenses for fuel, maintenance and general depreciation on the vehicle itself. You don’t think drivers consider that? > The fact that they were both unpunished for finding loopholes in employment law Is it a loophole ? Close it
- bombcar 5y ago
  Drivers have proven time and time again very bad at calculating the externalities correctly.
  - 55555 5y ago
    To the people downvoting you for a lack of political correctness... It isn't even relevant if potential drivers are excellent with money. If you advertise a position with excessive externalities -- a really, really terrible job -- the only people that accept it will, by definition, have miscalculated the externalities, and certainly some people will still accept it. Are we then supposed to just say "they are smart so they wouldn't have taken it if it wasn't a good job" and ignore it? People get scammed all the time. idk if this applies to the case of Amazon AU. I'm just saying it's very in vogue to deny that anyone could benefit from help and that doesn't quite seem right.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      It’s the same thing with landlords - there’s a reason that the only single family homes being rented are owned by individuals. Banks will have nothing to do with it because the externalities are too high. Things like insurance alone can be a tipping point - and drivers famously didn’t carry enough of the right type of insurance, which works fine most of the time … Taking advantage of the fact that most people are bad at the math is frankly immoral (a similar argument probably applies to the lottery also but nobody likes mentioning that either).
      - AussieWog93 5y ago

emdowling 5y ago

> The fact that they were both unpunished for finding loopholes in employment law Why should companies or people be punished for finding and using loopholes? By definition, loopholes are perfectly legal. They may be against the spirit of the law, but they are still legal.

Retric 5y ago
Loopholes are legal in theory but not necessarily in practice. They could have just as easily ruled that the use of a private truck requires compensation on top of pay.
- bennysomething 5y ago
  If you declare loop holes some how illegal you introduce arbitrary judgement.
  - guipsp 5y ago
    All judgement is arbitrary
  - Retric 5y ago
    Often they are exploring bugs in the legal system which unsurprisingly give arbitrary output when litigated.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    For what it's worth, etymology of the word "arbitrary": late Middle English (in the sense ‘dependent on one's will or pleasure, discretionary’): from Latin arbitrarius, from arbiter ‘judge, supreme ruler’, perhaps influenced by French arbitraire . Literally comes from the Latin word for a judge!
AussieWog93 5y ago
>Why should companies or people be punished for finding and using loopholes? You answered it yourself. They're against the spirit of the law. In any other circumstance where rules or obligations are enforced, exploiting loopholes is completely unacceptable behaviour. (To clarify, I'm not arguing that the judge made the wrong decision in this particular case. Instead, I don't think this type of behaviour should be tolerated by the system at all.)
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  In a system based on the rule of law the only way to make people stop using loopholes is to close them by changing the law. People are entitled to do what's in their best interest by staying within the law to the limit. If the issue is one of interpretation of the law then courts are there to decide.
  - gilrain 5y ago
    This is entirely opposite of how our courts are designed and obliged to work. Please educate yourself.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      How does this lead to anything other than the justice system being able to selectively target entities?
      - myfavoritedog 5y ago
- chii 5y ago
  > They're against the spirit of the law. and if you're against the spirit, but find a loophole? you do not technically break the law, and achieve your objectives. The law maker is at fault, if there are loop holes.
AniseAbyss 5y ago
Because we live in a society. Illegals sub contracting delivery vans, delivery drivers using their kids as free labor. The whole industry is screwed. And I'm a hypocrite because I order stuff online as well.
lenkite 5y ago
> By definition, loopholes are perfectly legal. They may be against the spirit of the law, but they are still legal As long as you can bribe - oops sorry I meant donate to your local politician(s) to keep these 'perfectly legal' laws intact...
lordnacho 5y ago
It wouldn't be called a loophole if it was legitimate. Loophole implies there's some kind of something wrong with it. The fact that you can't quite point out what it is is what makes it a loophole.
- nostrebored 5y ago
  It absolutely would be. Labeling things as loopholes is politically motivated. It also absolves lawmakers of the responsibility to create functional laws when they can label people who follow them abusive.
gre345t34 5y ago
Why should hackers be prosecuted for using systems as they're programmed?
midasuni 5y ago
Same reason people breaking into a website using a bug should be punished. The bug shouldn’t be there, and if you find the bug and do a responsible disclosure that should be fine, but to ezploit the bug for your own gain is not ok.
- lethologica 5y ago
  But it’s still not illegal, which means it’s legal, which means it’s perfectly acceptable to do.
  - PickledHotdog 5y ago
    From a legal perspective, perhaps, but many it's neither a moral or ethical one
  - criddell 5y ago
    Do you live your life by the idea that anything not specifically illegal is acceptable for you to do? Probably not because a lot of societal norms are regulated by shame and shared ideas of decency. This decision was made by a person or small group of people inside Amazon. Maybe those people wouldn’t have made that decision if their identities could become public?
    - chii 5y ago
      > Do you live your life by the idea that anything not specifically illegal is acceptable for you to do? it should be acceptable. > a lot of societal norms are regulated by shame and shared ideas of decency. and i think that's wrong - if it's not a good idea to perform certain actions, then enshrine it in law, and explicitly say it's not alright to do.
      - anakaine 5y ago
        Where do you draw the line? When religion gets a foothold in a place then popular sentiment, imparted by religion, can be made law. Examples: Homosexuality, women showing their faces, women travelling without a male family escort, all illegal. There is a saying: "Legislate in haste, perish at leisure". Not all things should require legislation, and those that are to be legislated should be fully and thoroughly considered. Often times it can be best to rely upon the moral will of society to impart a desired action than it is to strictly enforce compliance with that action. Its not perfect, but neither hard-line or soft-line is.

Grimburger 5y ago

Australia's biggest and most profitable publicly owned company certainly doesn't pay their drivers anywhere near that to do the exact same job (literally delivering packages). A note for people thinking this is groundbreaking, it will be when it applies to the vastly larger competitor who pays hefty dividends each year to the federal budget.

jsmeaton 5y ago
Are you talking about Australia Post? If so, the numbers I’m finding are $27-$28/h part time gigs that include leave etc. Are you seeing different numbers or have I got the wrong company?
- PickledHotdog 5y ago
  Right company. And unless things have changed in the last 12 months, a sizeable number of their delivery drivers are contractors, not part timers (though they do exist)
  - cookie_monsta 5y ago
    Not an Oz Post fanboy at all, but in the interest of comparing oranges with oranges, don't they supply vehicles? And what is their casual rate?
    - Fuzzwah 5y ago
      I see plenty of auspost delivery drivers working in vans hired from hertz etc. I've always figured that they were contractors who hired the van for tax reasons.
      - ivanvanderbyl 5y ago
        From a business standpoint I would think it'd be cheaper short term for AusPost to rent Hertz vans than own and maintain those assets themselves. Especially over the past 2 years when it's been impossible to buy new vehicles in Australia at a normal price or timeframe.

to11mtm 5y ago

> However, this doesn't consider the fact that the drivers supply their own vehicle as well as out-of-pocket expenses for fuel, maintenance and general depreciation on the vehicle itself. When you take these additional costs into consideration, that initial ~$27 looks closer to an illegally low ~$20/hr. Pardon my ignorance on AU tax law, but is there anything the contractors do with those costs? For instance, in the USA if you are a contractor you are able to 'write off' those costs from your taxes (to be clear here, in most/all cases you are only getting back the taxes you paid on the money you paid for the service, e.x. if you are taxed at 20% and you paid 100$ for repairs to your contractor vehicle, you get 20$ back on your taxes, not 100$)

robbiep 5y ago
Yes contractors/self employed are able to write off a lot of those same business expenses

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

foogazi 5y ago

> However, this doesn't consider the fact that the drivers supply their own vehicle as well as out-of-pocket expenses for fuel, maintenance and general depreciation on the vehicle itself. You don’t think drivers consider that? > The fact that they were both unpunished for finding loopholes in employment law Is it a loophole ? Close it

bombcar 5y ago
Drivers have proven time and time again very bad at calculating the externalities correctly.
- 55555 5y ago
  To the people downvoting you for a lack of political correctness... It isn't even relevant if potential drivers are excellent with money. If you advertise a position with excessive externalities -- a really, really terrible job -- the only people that accept it will, by definition, have miscalculated the externalities, and certainly some people will still accept it. Are we then supposed to just say "they are smart so they wouldn't have taken it if it wasn't a good job" and ignore it? People get scammed all the time. idk if this applies to the case of Amazon AU. I'm just saying it's very in vogue to deny that anyone could benefit from help and that doesn't quite seem right.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It’s the same thing with landlords - there’s a reason that the only single family homes being rented are owned by individuals. Banks will have nothing to do with it because the externalities are too high. Things like insurance alone can be a tipping point - and drivers famously didn’t carry enough of the right type of insurance, which works fine most of the time … Taking advantage of the fact that most people are bad at the math is frankly immoral (a similar argument probably applies to the lottery also but nobody likes mentioning that either).
    - AussieWog93 5y ago