Re:Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions
by consp on Monday December 11, 2017 @06:33AM
(#15896423)
This happened in the Netherlands with PostNL (former TNT) and the lawmakers actually are working to prohibit this false contracting (since there is a direct relation between employer and employee thus no contracting but regular employment). Though they are overdoing it and taking some self employed people down with it in the process. It's called 'wet DBA' and needs some refinement in the coming years but might work in the end.
You could call it progress though. And it is an example in which both regulation is needed and can be achieved somewhat.
Re:Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions
by snarf21 on Sunday December 10, 2017 @09:43PM
(#15894794)
Right, that is what I was trying to say (and maybe did poorly). A plumber bids his own contract. These deliveries are bid and structured by someone else. It should be more like how most mechanics work (especially at a dealership). There is a book that says that job X should normally take Y hours to complete. The mechanics know their rate of payment per hour. The way you really make money is by being better than Y hours. Yes, you can still screw up and take 2Y but there is a floor that is "fair" and you don't have to be worried about people bidding Y / 2 and a race to the bottom.
Re:Amazon delivery drivers complain about bad work conditions
by zxd1098 on Monday December 11, 2017 @11:01AM
(#15897843)
Incorrect, they are not given a route by Amazon. I have had friends doing this through On-Trac, and they were either calculating routes themselves (as a driver) or via a system at the On-Trac center.
The problem is that companies, Amazon and their contractors in particular, have been able to mischaracterize employees as "contractors" in order to get around minimum wage laws.
It's the lax enforcement of 1099 mischaracterization that has allowed the "gig economy" shit-sandwich jobs to proliferate. A deliver driver who has to maintain a delivery schedule or meet delivery deadlines given by Amazon (and in likelihood follows a programmed route given to them by an Amazon routing system) is in no real sense an INDEPENDENT contractor in the way that definition was originally meant.
Contractors are exempt from minimum wage laws because otherwise there would be a catch-22 situation if, say, a plumber you hired mis-estimated the amount of work involved in a job. (If he gave you an estimate that a job would be $100, and it turned out to take 10 hours plus $50 in materials, he could very well end up making below minimum wage. But he can't go back and squeeze you for more money; he's the one who gave you the estimate! But it hardly makes sense to penalize him again for not paying himself enough.) But these exceptions envisioned bona fide independent contractors, mostly skilled tradespeople, and not today's largely-unskilled and entry-level "contract" jobs.