Exhausted Amazon Drivers Are Working 11-Hour Shifts For Less Than Minimum Wage (mirror.co.uk) 324
schwit1 quotes the Daily Mirror:
Drivers are being asked to deliver up to 200 parcels a day for Amazon while earning less than the minimum wage, a Sunday Mirror investigation reveals today... Many routinely exceed the legal maximum shift of 11 hours and finish their days dead on their feet. Yet they have so little time for food or toilet stops they snatch hurried meals on the run and urinate into plastic bottles they keep in their vans. They say they often break speed limits to meet targets that take no account of delays such as ice, traffic jams or road closures.
Many claim they are employed in a way that means they have no rights to holiday or sickness pay. And some say they take home as little as £160 for a five-day week amid conditions described by one lawyer as "almost Dickensian"... The Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency has vowed to investigate after drivers contacted them to complain about conditions.
Many claim they are employed in a way that means they have no rights to holiday or sickness pay. And some say they take home as little as £160 for a five-day week amid conditions described by one lawyer as "almost Dickensian"... The Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency has vowed to investigate after drivers contacted them to complain about conditions.
Why is this so cheap? (Score:2, Insightful)
Something you will never hear an American ask themselves.
Generally speaking, when you are buying so much "shit" for so much cheaper than the rest of the world, there is a good chance that this is only possible because a lot of people down the line are being fucked.
But hey... cheap tv for you so who give a fuck, am i right?
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I think that’s probably true for quite a few Americans; but by no means all of them. However if stereotyping makes you fell better, who am I to judge?
Not to mention... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason americans have become so complacent about getting shit cheap even if somebody else is getting fucked is because usually said people have been/still are being fucked themselves, and without a better company that is ACTUALLY AND VERIFIABLY BETTER, paying more just means being a bigger sucker and not necessarily helping improve the status quo.
America continues sliding further down the shitter because there *IS NO TRANSPARENCY* making the sort of informed decisions that would allow capitalism to work
Re:Why is this so cheap? (Score:5, Informative)
Except this article is talking about Amazon in the UK, not the USA. Good job RTFAing...
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Amazon is also subsidized in the USA [slashdot.org].
And then we wonder why bookstores keep shutting down. We are not a bright people.
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Could this be the reason why Amazon's Australian launch day prices were higher than anticipated?
We have strict rules about minimum wages, shift length, etc. Perhaps Amazon can't discount prices so steeply because they have to employ more workers and pay them a minimum hourly rate?
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Except this article is talking about Amazon in the UK, not the USA. Good job RTFAing...
... with American investors at Wall Street demanding 15% returns every quarter forever and ever and ever with no end in sight or the CEO is fired. I am sure it is not just consumers who are demanding cheaper and cheaper costs right?
Also Walmart started this not the consumer. Walmart beat the giant Kmart and Woolsworth by forcing suppliers to cust costs so so low. It got the people into the stores and created a culture of budget prices and races to get into Walmart last decade by making it the cheapest.
The c
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Indeed, it was in the US where an Amazon driver was caught on camera hastily taking a dump in a driveway. [abc13.com]
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Every Prime package I have received in the past three months or so has been delivered by an Amazon delivery person, and I live in a medium-sized city in the midwest (big enough to have professional sports teams, but nowhere close in size to New York, Chicago, et al). Odds are a carrier like UPS is moving it from the warehouse to the local area, but the delivery to the home does not always use that same service.
I am sure if I ord
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Re:Why is this so cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about last-mile delivery service, apparently a good deal of which is being done by contractors who sign up to complete the work at a fixed price without having the foresight to contemplate the nature of the seasonal traffic for a few weeks in December.
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All they need to do is not eat or pay rent for a couple of weeks and the problem is solved, right?
Actually it's like this all year round. Has been for years. They are just bringing it up again because of the Christmas rush.
I don't have to ask (Score:5, Interesting)
America abandoned it's working class. Do you really think they care about the rest of the world that abandoned them?
Re:I don't have to ask (Score:5, Interesting)
Liberal whites wanted to be rid of the culturally conservative, economically liberal, working-class white voters whom Democrats had courted in the previous decade. Upper-middle-class whites were embarrassed by these people. After all these centuries of white privilege, they never managed to get into a good schoolâ"or even a state collegeâ"and now they were making demands about trade and immigration.
One of the themes that emerges from Shattered (a chronicle of the Clinton campaign) is that the Clinton operation didnâ(TM)t want to make a strong play for working-class white voters in swing states. The Clintonites thought these voters were disposable. That's you.
Clinton didn't want to be rid of them (Score:2)
And no, that is not me. I'm a Demo
Re:Clinton didn't want to be rid of them (Score:5, Insightful)
a party who's central plank is laissez faire capitalism
Sadly, its worse than that. They want the government out of the picture as long as profits are rolling in, but as soon as shit goes south they're quite happy to beg for giant bailouts on the back of the taxpayer rather than simply letting failed companies fail as should happen in a laissez faire system.
If we look at ISPs (with all the recent flutter over net neutrality..) Their main argument against NN is that regulations are bad competition will fix it. Yet those same ISPs are continually [arstechnica.com] trying to [consumerist.com] block competition [vice.com], frequently by lobbying for you guessed it .. regulations .. that impede if not outright block new competitors.
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One of the themes that emerges from Shattered (a chronicle of the Clinton campaign) is that the Clinton operation didnâ(TM)t want to make a strong play for working-class white voters in swing states. The Clintonites thought these voters were disposable. That's you.
Then he should be grateful that the Republicans won and now how majority of the Legislative branch and veto power of the Presidency that is about to destroy him by eliminating SALT deductions? How would he be worse off with the Democrats in power?
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"culturally conservative, economically liberal"
What does that mean? Because it sounds like it means:
Someone who thinks homosexual marriage should be illegal, transvestites must use their genetic-gender-determined restroom, civilian gun ownership should be legal but not abortion.....but.....the wealthy should be heavily taxed and the money spent on free providence for the unwealthy (and especially the jobless), including a luxury budget.
That sounds like a strange combination. Are there a lot of people like
Re:I don't have to ask (Score:4, Informative)
Trumpists still don't seem to have realised that they were fucked over, even as the tax plans hit and all pretence falls away.
Clinton lost because she became part of the false narrative. "You are under attack by liberals, immigrants, the political elite. I'll drain the swamp, build a big wall. Simple solutions to complex problems. I'll lead your revolution against this crook!"
And you got Trump, who doesn't give a shit about you now he has your vote. The plan is to screw you hard, blame someone else and peddle the same lies next election.
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It depends on your situation.
When I did my taxes a couple of years ago (making 54k), I received a refund (after no withholding) of around 3500-4000 due to child tax credits. Just found a calculator, and put in the same income and other numbers and found one says I would be due a refund of about 4500 on one calculator, and another that says I may be due 6800. Either way, indications are that we'll be better off.
The majority of Americans don't make the sort of money that will result in itemizing taxes, and so
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Oh, why do I do this to myself? I noticed £160 in the blurb and my first thought was "I wonder how much of the comment section is blaming this on Trump?". I should have just ignored the thread.
As to the tax bill, if I may be so direct, you're whining about the working class, and you are in college. If you are in college and are not studying a marketable skill and you don't have a rich family to support you, you are making poor life choices. You don't mention working. Did you pay anything in taxes last
Trump is a symptom (Score:2, Insightful)
The working class actually tried to organize. Remember Occupy WallStreet? It was shut down by a coordinated effort of the FBI and local police using legal tools put in place by the Patriot Act that everybody pinkie swore would never be used against American Citizens.
What gets my goat is the same folks who keep putting these jokers in power yell the loudest about government
Re: Why is this so cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm the wierd American who prefers quality over cost. I refuse to deal with Black Friday bullshit and just stay away from it.
I'll happily pay MORE for an item if the quality warrants it.
Re: Why is this so cheap? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. https://www.fool.com/investing... [fool.com]
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Black Friday is all about the stores clearing shelves of old crap that wont sell. Of course there isn't any quality stuff in there.
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Actually, that is known to happen [forbes.com].
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Not necessarily, but you will often get things that are assembled cheaper. Eg. you'll get the same brand/model of lawn tool but with a weaker/cheaper engine. Manufacturers indeed create stuff special for Black Friday, if you're going to move 100,000 models of something, that's enough for many fabs in China.
Re: Why is this so cheap? (Score:2)
I seriously believe that even if they gave away a product for FREE on Black Friday, I would not bother fighting the crowds for it.
I don't have to have an item quite that badly to deal with that sh*t.
I can wait.
It's just stuff.
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Except when you look at some industries/rackets, you wonder why is this so expensive. And if you look, it's completely crooked. For example caskets, which somehow have a 500% markup [howstuffworks.com] -- charged the families of the recently deceased too.
So yeah, I agree with you -- some things are cheap because someone along the line isn't getting a fair deal. Other things are expensive because some rich asshole along the way is lining his pockets and paying off the right folks.
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> a lot of people down the line are being fucked
Two things
1. so true
2. pretty soon there will be a lot fewer people down the line, with no abatement in output or production
The effects are hard to predict. Prices probably will drop. Not sure what people will do for an income. Possibly people will seek higher goals such as space exploration, if Star Wars puts the message inspirationally enough across.
For a long time the third world has been exploited. The advent of machines and more streamlined business pr
Re:Why is this so cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Something you will never hear any consumer ask themselves. Well, apart from wondering if it's a "Rollex" they're buying. The whole idea of capitalism is that money should go to the business that's most efficient, how can you tell if they're just brilliant at process automation and reducing overhead or exploiting the employees? And it's usually not their employees, it's a conglomerate of vendors, sub-contractors, partners, shipping/distribution/sales channels and so on that's five steps removed from the label on the box.
I'll admit that here I expect other regulatory bodies to step in and make sure what's happening is done legally, like those who oversee commercial transportation and work/rest hours, regulations on wages and overtime pay and so on. The general public is not supposed to have that level of internal detail to inspect it themselves, since it'd be a treasure trove of competition-sensitive information. All you'd get are haphazard reactions to real or manufactured scandals leaking to the press.
True, in a few limited areas like child labor, animal testing of products, trees from the rain forest and the use of certain chemicals pressure from the top has actually made an impact. But on basic working conditions like wages and such I don't think that'll ever be effective. It's either the government stepping in through law or the workers uniting through unions. To expect consumers to solve that problem for them I think is foolish. I'm not always going to go with the lowest bidder, but I'm going with the best offer for me.
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Re: Why is this so cheap? (Score:3)
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So you want to pay more for a product for what reason exactly? You think that if things were more expensive that people elsewhere would be treated better? Like all those "Fair Farming" coffee shops etc, for some reason, the plight of coffee growers hasn't changed much since the 80's except that half of them are now farming coca plants and poppies.
Here's a fact: people will try to maximize their profits at any point in the chain. If you want to pay more for a TV, that's fine, someone will charge you more, bu
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Tricky one, that.
I'm in two minds here. It's either because the top executives are anointed by God and paying them less (or others more) would be communism, or it's because they make the decisions on pay.
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And when it's you're turn, everyone will return the favor to you.
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Not yet.
I can hardly wait to try chicken à la hypochlorite that those barmy Belgian bureaucrats say I can't eat.
THis is why Unions were invented. (Score:5, Insightful)
The history of the trade Unions in the US starts with Train Unions. And those formed not to demand higher pay but to demand better working conditions, less overwork and gaurenteed return to home after days traveling far from home. Removal of bars in company towns was another demand (train workers were often left to rot in Railtoad owned hotels (bunkhouses) far from home until such a time as they were needed. They had to pay the hotel cost to the owners and they were in the middle of no where so the only thing to do was drink. Which created alcoholics other railroaders were afraid to work with.
THey need a union. that's what unions are for.
Re:THis is why Unions were invented. (Score:5, Informative)
Brakemen use to have to couple the cars together. Even though there were the same sort of couplers that are used today back then the railroads thought it was cheaper to use the old method. The brakeman held a loop of steel between the two cars as they were pushed together and then pulled his hand back at the last second. Then two pins were hammered into place in the couplers to hold the steel loop in place and the cars together. If there were a fraction of a second too slow getting their hands out of the way they lost fingers. The railway unions helped force the railways to go to the then patented automatic couplers. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_coupling#Link_and_pin).
Brakes on the cars were also controlled by those big wheels you see at the top of the cars in the old photos. Going around a corner the brakemen had to apply the brakes to the cars to make sure they didn't derail. And there were never enough brakemen for every car on the train, so they would have to jump between cars on the moving train to apply and release the brakes. Again there was a then patented invention that used air pressure from the engine to trigger the brakes on the cars, again the companies didn't care about human life and focused on profit. The railway unions helped fix that.
The brakemen also had to often run ahead of the train to do the switching. Since switching was another one of those things that could have been automated but didn't. Trains were suppose to stop so that the switching could be done in time and the brakemen get back aboard, but time is money and you know what that means.
There's a reason that the railway owners were called robber barons. And there were a lot of things they did that we would object to, that unions helped to fix.
I am in no way saying that unions are pure and benevolent organizations. Often they're corrupt, and as greedy as the people running the corporations. They have their place, and there are a lot of instances in the 2010s that they should come back. The Amazon story is a good example of it. Uber is another good example. A lot of other areas in high tech could use them too. All of these aren't for wages as the parent to the post said, but for working conditions and safety. When there is too much power in the hands of the employers the employees suffer, and there needs to be a balance.
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I am in no way saying that unions are pure and benevolent organizations. Often they're corrupt, and as greedy as the people running the corporations. They have their place, and there are a lot of instances in the 2010s that they should come back.
That's very grey thinking in the black vs white, red vs blue Slashdot of now. Careful before the new folk come and lynch you.
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THey need a union. that's what unions are for.
Why do we need all these redundant unions when all workers need the same protections? Why can't we just protect all workers from these abuses? Isn't that what government is for? Why should we have all of these private interests involved?
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almost Dickensian (Score:5, Informative)
Noting that Charles Dickens' works were often so long because he usually got paid by the word. (My wife was an English teacher.)
This isn't very hard (Score:2)
Bad job?
Quit.
Can't find another job?
Protest.
Protest doesn't work?
Go to war.
This is how things have always worked before, why shouldn't this work now?
The gig economy has been about this since day 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
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side stepping minimum wage laws. Thing is, I'm guessing 99% of /.ers aren't in a position to worry about this. What we _are_ in a position to worry about is how 40 years of stagnant wages mean it's harder and harder for us to make ends meet. So we'll turn a blind eye. Thing is this will come around to bite us eventually, but when you're barely hanging on eventually doesn't really matter. Me? I'm just trying to get my kid through college and to hell with everything else. And that about sums it up. The working class is too busy surviving to band together and make a positive change. It's almost as if somebody designed it that way...
Yeah, all the gig economy means is the guy at the bottom is guaranteed to get screwed.
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My question is: if these kind of stories weren't on the Internet, would it be any different than 20-30 years ago?
When I was young, I worked as a job student (18yo) which comes with all sorts of regulations, I still regularly worked 14h shifts until 4:00am, I was payed my hourly wages and my boss gave me an extra $50 under the table every week and I was more than happy. IF I had twitter back then, everyone would be outraged but I know everyone was doing it back then too. My boss was making ~$1M/year with his
Funny you should mention that (Score:3)
And you should have been outraged. You were being exploited. Just because there is a time in your life when you were no longer being exploited doesn't mean you weren't. I see this periodically, where people wonder why we need all these regulations, laws and rules when the problems they're supposed to solve are gone. What this usual
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That works when you're young. And basically never again. That extra $50 goes a lot further for a single guy in his late teens (especially if you're still living at home) than it does for a mid-40s guy having to support a wife and 2 or 3 teenagers of his own.
Young people are also more resilient when dealing with excessive strain (whether physical or mental.) By the time you're in your late 30s or 40s, those 14 hour workdays aren't just a strain on your family life but for most people, their bodies just ar
If / when (Score:2)
driverless cars actually become a thing, this will become a non-issue.
It will go from minimum-wage to no wage.
Though I suppose they'll still need someone to actually move package from delivery vehicle to home.
Unless they're gonna install a vehicle mounted trebuchet.
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Amazon has a special PDF that you print out and set where you want to have your packages delivered, then send them a photo of it. The robot in the delivery vehicle will place the package exactly where the paper was in the photo. It must be within 3 feet of your driveway, but they're working on expanding that for drone-deliverable packages. Soon light-weight packages will be deliverable to your back porch or even a balcony.
[This post brought to you by the years 2019 and 2022. You get the idea--there are
Surely not (Score:2, Insightful)
But Bezos is a democrat... you know... that party that is all about the people.
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But Bezos is a democrat... you know... that party that is all about the people.
Sure .. and he personally signed off on the working conditions of these drivers, all the while rubbing his hands while gleefully cackling about world domination, yet cursing Musk for already having the rockets to do it.
Asd someone that's worked Seattle Hundreds... (Score:2)
for much of my adult life, I have no sympathy. I'm working several hours more than than that seven days a week. Most of my friends in tech are too.
Re:Asd someone that's worked Seattle Hundreds... (Score:5, Interesting)
Which illustrates why "solidarity" was a principle of the labor movement, back when there was one in this country. It was also the name of the labor union in Poland that broke the power of the Communist Party.
That is how do you deal with the fact you're too politically insignificant and an indivdidual to do anything about being screwed. Get together with enough other insignificant people that you're not insignificant. It's mind boggling to me that people react with stories of people being treated like shit by claiming they get treated even shittier, as if that were something to be proud of.
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Keeping a stiff upper lip (Score:2)
Investigation completed ... (Score:2)
... after the holidays.
The Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency has vowed to investigate after drivers contacted them to complain about conditions.
A very common appearance as it seems... (Score:2)
What is the underlying reason for this happening?
Or - is it required to obtain certain goals and what would they be?
Who benefits from it and why are other's paying with their health and well-being?
Reminds me of certain animal species where dominant males kill offspring fathered by other males....
Maybe there is or has been an advantage in evolution for that, but what is the advantage now.
Nothing exists in human behavior without advantage, being it real or imaginary fantasy - i. e. mindfuck.
just wait for a bad crash with maybe some deaths (Score:2)
just wait for a bad crash with maybe some deaths and what will take a few $1M pay outs may hurt amazons bank account
Re:MAGA (Score:4, Informative)
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s/asshole/arsehole/g
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...for those who don't want to work.
Buddy you should brush up on your rhetoric figures of speech and avoid alienation of readers.
I work very hard and I am being well paid and I should agree with you and join you in your rant against unwilling freeloaders. But I don't. I find your writing unnecessary hurtful.
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Re: MAGA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: MAGA (Score:3)
Re: MAGA (Score:2)
It doesn't work that way. It can't go to zero as unemployment includes people who voluntarily quit their job to move, look for a new job, etc. Unemployment is currently lower than what economists once predicted was the lowest it could possibly go. One reason it might be so low is because employed people are lining up their new job before quitting their old job. Also, unemployment doesn't include the underemployed or the people not looking for work. i.e. The people who have given up searching.
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You know, when you to assemble something, and you have a few pieces (like screws) left over, it's not that you're a genius, and those parts were unnecessary (usually).
I imagine something similar with the employment issue...chronic unemployment issues speaks of a bigger problem, perhaps of some people with an obtuse vision of how things ought to be.
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Just be wealthy, and that won't be a problem.
Re: MAGA (Score:5, Insightful)
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'Cuz you're doing it wrong - it's hookers and blow.
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He's such a noob.
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I dream of a society where ever teenager can buy hookers and blow with their own money without asking for mom or dad to raise their allowance!
Re: MAGA (Score:5, Insightful)
Going through rush hour traffic every single day, dealing with road rage, near-misses, all the time with an unforgiving schedule that doesn't let you deliver just 180 parcels that day.
For less than minimum wage.
Yeah, that does fit the definition of a brutal job.
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I haven't, but I've laid bricks, shoveled ditches, built circuit boards, etc... I even held a "Slow/Stop" sign for 10 hours in Florida summer heat at a construction site.
I think it taught me a few important things in life. And I never did those things for more then a few days each. I did learn to respect the people around me. I also learned that what was easy for me wasn't always easy for other people.
As for the driving and delivering packages.... you'd be absolutely shocked how
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11 hour days? Holy first world problems.
Not to say this report isn't important or that Amazon shouldn't do better, but wow is the first world out of touch.
So you want stressed out drivers, holding their bladders while zipping around at high speed in traffic breaking speeding (and probably other) laws in order to make a minimal amount of money?
Sure it's a first world problem but it also has first world consequences that can affect a lot of people. All it takes is one delivery guy to slip up and all of a sudden he's driving a multi-ton vehicle into a crowd of people.
There's a reason that government entities like OSHA exist.
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The peeing into a plastic bottle trick is pretty common for “professional” drivers, and the 11-your days seem like a pretty good deal to America s. The thing I dislike about it all is that Amazon, Uber, and Lyft all do things with their algorithms to waste driver’s time and productivity.
Amazon uses boxes grossly larger than needed, and could often get by with bags instead, limiting the number of packages they can take— all while sending multiple drivers to the same address, from the
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The peeing into a plastic bottle trick is pretty common for “professional” drivers
Also small plane pilots. The bottle is way cheaper and more comfortable than buying adult diapers.
Free advice: Do NOT use a bottle that still has an "Apple Juice" label on it.
Amazon uses boxes grossly larger than needed
I have never understood this. I get boxes from Amazon that are WAY too big for the contents all the time. This must be costing them money, for the cardboard, padding, weight, and volume. Why do they do this?
It seems to me that it would be trivial to write some code to add up the size of the contents to pick the right box. A robot
Re:11-hour days? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon uses boxes grossly larger than needed
I have never understood this. I get boxes from Amazon that are WAY too big for the contents all the time. This must be costing them money, for the cardboard, padding, weight, and volume. Why do they do this?
It seems to me that it would be trivial to write some code to add up the size of the contents to pick the right box. A robot could then pull the box and add it to the picking bin.
There is also a cost to stocking shipping boxes that just happen to be the right size for the products you buy. Making things a uniform size has an efficiency (and hence minimizes cost) of its own. EG look at how cargo containers transformed shipping.
Do you really think that given the number of boxes that Amazon ships that they haven't looked at the price/performance of differing box sizes?
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There is also a cost to stocking shipping boxes that just happen to be the right size
Instead of stocking boxes, they could just stock flat sheets of cardboard, and laser cut the cardboard to the ideal size on-demand.
But, anyway, I don't think stocking is the main problem. I get boxes that are WAY too big, while on the same day receiving other smaller boxes that would have easily held the contents of the first box. So they clearly had the smaller boxes in stock.
I realize that the Packing Problem [wikipedia.org] is NP-Hard, but there are heuristics that allow an adequate solution. They should be able to d
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Re:11-hour days? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well part of what makes these first world countries is the higher standards of living and various employment laws to prevent unscrupulous employers from abusing their employees.
Re:Things to come (Score:5, Interesting)
If you paid them for waiting, then you'd need to cap the number of drivers active in any given area, restrict the areas drivers are allowed to wait and force drivers to take jobs on a rota, otherwise you could have drivers just "waiting" and getting paid in the middle of nowhere so they won't get any passengers.
Conversely, sparsely populated areas would never get any service because it would be unprofitable to pay someone to wait there.
When i lived in a small village there was a part time taxi driver who usually worked on vehicle maintenance/restorations... Because of the low population he might drive one or two jobs a week and make a few extra pennies, and when doing so he'd temporarily down tools on his other job and return to it when he got back. Sometimes if the passenger went to the nearest town he'd use the opportunity to go shopping.
Calling a driver from the nearest town could mean waiting more than an hour for them to arrive, and paying a fare just for them to arrive, plus wherever you wanted to go.
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That's what they all say. But when the time comes, they all bend over.
It's how late-stage capitalism works.
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Do you honestly think Amazon can meet their delivery targets with a modest pool of part timers?
Also
> it's something women
What the fuck is this, 1930?
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No. women weren't allowed to work in manual labor until the Second World War took all the men away. So, 1940s.
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So delivering parcels was always intended to be in violation of the law? Because minors aren't allowed to be delivery drivers.
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Minors not miners [youtube.com].
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Upon looking, I see that Amazon requires it's drivers to be 21 or older. What was that about being for teens to make extra money again?
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That has to be the weakest come back ever. It only makes you look stupid and petty in addition to simply wrong.
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You don't get to pull definitions out of your ass.
It's a viable business. Their employee's lives my not be viable, but that's their own fault. Their purpose is to serve as a warning to the next generation. Don't make the choices they made.
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OP is correct. if the business isn't able to pay enough to keep it's employees in food, clothing, shelter, etc, then it is not a viable business. If it CAN but won't then it is a leech on society.
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That aside: A job this gruel-ing you might want to quit.
Even though the "conditions [have been] described by one lawyer as "almost Dickensian"", I hear that some of them actually ask for more [youtube.com].
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It depends on the economy. If things are great (from a wider perspective than that of just the 1%), nobody would take these jobs and conditions would improve (or the problem would be avoided).
If you have a large enough bunch of people desperate for money, though, suddenly they don't really have much choice but to be exploited.
We have laws about such things because history shows us enough rich people are OK with defacto slavery that if you let them, they'll enslave everyone they can.