Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

Re:Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their ... by sokoloff on Saturday June 03, 2017 @08:21AM (#14476053)

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.

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Re:Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their ... by rectang on Saturday June 03, 2017 @12:59PM (#14477246)

> I don't buy the "people are blind idiots" narrative

That's like saying criminal defendants shouldn't have lawyers because they aren't "idiots".

The problem is that the negotiation between the corporation and the worker is skewed by information asymmetry. Furthermore, the cost of changing jobs is high, and the same negotiation disparities exist elsewhere.

Collective bargaining would address those concerns, as it allows workers to amortize the cost of analysis across all their transactions. But labor unions are a heavyweight solution.

It would be nice to see other suggestions from people who don't wave off concerns over information asymmetry as paternalism.

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