It’s upbeat, it’s rational. It’s so good.
You could say the same about Trump, and no, this is not supposed to be a compliment.
1 - https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7...
This matters if they do something and you go to sue them. All of sudden, you find out it's tiny company with only 1Million in assets and crappy insurance after they crash into a bus and cause brain damage. (https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15983591/teenager-lif...)
I’m all about holding Amazon to the same standards, but what precisely does this accomplish? The subcontracting delivery companies already have to follow the same laws as every other company, don’t they?
The problem here is Amazon farms out delivery to these companies, set impossible delivery standards that require these subcontractor employees to do things that break the law OR cause damage to their health. However, since Amazon is technically not employing them, they have no liability.
There are insinuations here, and a good video, but it would be good to have actual examples and then an actual demonstration of a pattern of harm, before we introduce new rules that are likely going to make deliveries more expensive.
I understand that a YouTube video isn't a policy document... and I don't expect it to have all of these things. But as a citizen, I do expect - that somewhere - there should be an actual policy document that outlines the facts.
It also makes sense for Amazon to push hard into drone delivery for NYC as a response, which I also support.
The subcontractors can just fold as well, leaving drivers in the lurch.
However, Amazon gets to dictate everything else about the job. The subcontractors have no authority or autonomy, but are made responsible for the heavier costs of the process.
Amazon wants to have an employer-relationship when it comes to dictating terms, but a contractor-relationship when it comes time to giving benefits or resolving disputes.
As far as I can see from a literal 5 second google search:
- Liability for Injury at work is no longer on Amazon
- Liability for injuries caused by Amazon workers get shifted to the Worker, rather than Amazon (despite the fact that some of the conditions leading to that may come from Amazon themselves)
- It is harder to negotiate, as Amazon's official position is that "They do not work for us"
- It is easier to stop employment of sub-contractors.
The video already mentions this, but the idea of sub-contracting is that you are responsible for your own hours, routes, etc. This is clearly not the case for these workers.
Bottom line - just because Amazon doesn't directly have this liability - it doesn't mean nobody has this liability - the sub contractors do. And if they do, they need to pay for the insurance, and if they pay for the insurance, then Amazon has to pay them more to pay for this insurance.
So the real question is... what concrete harm/problem are we solving for that isn't already solved for today.
But my question for you is: Why do you think Amazon do this if it's not to specifically side track the exact things that I listed? If they were just paying the sub-contractor directly for that insurance? What would be the point.
great comment. However, you could say that about alot of horrible people as well!
I live in a place where alot of those that claim the title 'Democratic Socialist' seem more drawn to 20th-century style identity politics rather than a philosophy of 'the world is complex and we need ethical and competent people to use the power of government to solve problems that markets don't solve', which is a way I might encapsulate my views.
Accepting the premise of my framing, how do you square the two?
If we presume that we will always exist in systems of people, and that there will always be potential bad actors seeking leverage and opportunity to grift through power, we need strong effort by the electorate to elect “good candidates” for lack of a better term. Sometimes we love the wrong people, sometimes we trust the wrong people. Our governance systems should be designed to accelerate good people, and impair bad people until they can be recalled or replaced through elections.
To steal from AWS, this is a “shared responsibility model.”
As always, think in systems. If our systems are suboptimal for the target outcome, we must decompose and understand the system, and improve the components that are leading to the suboptimal outcome.
But why bother? Those candidates will only be successful if they're lucky.
What else would I spend it on? A Lambo? I know better as someone familiar with the hedonic treadmill and not in need of validation from other humans.
Nobody cares about your Lamborghini as much as you think they do - https://archive.org/details/Instagram-DX2i8w9Ahn8
The Man in the Car Paradox: What It Can Teach Us About Real Success - https://ibsu.ac.pg/the-man-in-the-car-paradox-what-it-can-te... - December 13th, 2024
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
It’s an attempt to build political support for passing a specific piece of legislation. It’s not “vaguely defined”, it refers to a specific bill that he wants to pass that has legislative text available on the internet.
Or bribes.
That sounds like an issue with the insurance regime rather than with amazon specifically. Targeting amazon might be politically expedient because of the current big tech backlash, but amazon delivery trucks aren't the only vehicles that can cause millions in damage.
Also, I'm not talking about what the law says, I'm asking if it's ethical.
Because we should construct our laws to favor ethical outcomes.
I mean, what if the law said that no matter what, I dunno, Target was responsible for all damages in the state. You'd shrug your shoulders and say "Well, that's what the law says".
Source? Is it actually physically "impossible", or simply a race to the bottom dynamic?
Also what are the harms that new rules introduce? Are you going to eliminate a bunch of new small businesses that do deliveries and replace them with everything being under one, giant, multi-trillion dollar company?
1 - https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7...
The hidden assumption is that there is some sort of responsibility that amazon ought to have, and that by shirking it, they're doing you harm. Instead of facts, they're listing things that give viewer a bad gut reaction like injury and accidents. The idea is already baked into the premise of the video, rather than propose a neutral question to the viewer; ala, at what level are a client responsible for the contractor's health and wellbeing. Why don't they ask this for tradies and plumbers?
This act is basically saying "Nope, we are considering them Amazon employees, so we can sue or fine Amazon for their actions regardless of name on employees paycheck or car registered owner." Also, if they combined into single company, it makes union actions much easier.
This happens with FedEx/UPS as well.
They’ve problem is that most of these are not really small businesses, in the same way that most Uber drivers aren’t really a small business.
They don’t drive a generic truck, they drive an Amazon branded truck, often an Amazon financed truck, often a vehicle specific to Amazon deliveries.
Can they use the Amazon-truck they financed from Amazon for non-Amazon deliveries?
I don't know, can they not? If that is the case then it's definitely problematic.
You're describing the "what" - you're not describing the "why" is that an issue...
Is "Joe's delivery company" not already required to have liability insurance? Do we think this insurance is not big enough? Should we make it bigger for all delivery companies or do we need to single out Amazon's liability insurance? Do we think that a delivery company delivering the same package for Amazon vs. FedEx vs. Mary's Flowers Inc. vs. NYC Movers Inc. should have a different amount of liability? (e.g., if that delivery driver injures a pedestrian, should we require that NYC Movers Inc. covers fewer costs than Amazon)?
I wouldn't say subcontracting is a bad thing always. It depends on reason for subcontracting and in this case, I'd call it bad since subcontracting is clearly to avoid liability for what is critical business function.
>Is "Joe's delivery company" not already required to have liability insurance?
Yes they are. It is enough? Not always. States are always trying to balance allowing protecting general public but not strangling small businesses. It doesn't always work out.
>Do we think that a delivery company delivering the same package for Amazon vs. FedEx vs. Mary's Flowers Inc. vs. NYC Movers Inc. should have a different amount of liability? (e.g., if that delivery driver injures a pedestrian, should we require that NYC Movers Inc. covers fewer costs than Amazon)?
This law would impact all those companies if they move their drivers into subcontractor. Amazon is getting called out because they are BIGGEST users of this system but no, they are not only ones.
1 - https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7...
pandanube•1h ago
slackfan•1h ago
jasonlotito•1h ago
runako•1h ago
toomuchtodo•59m ago
I’m supposed to be afraid of socialists but not authoritarian technofeudalism paperclip maximizers? If both scenarios are “you’ll own nothing an be happy,” I’ll take the system where someone actually tries to make their constituents happy.
You can’t scare people who realize we’re already at rock bottom. People who are delusional and think they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires and billionaires are always a lost cause, they are in a cult or belief system similar to a religion.
slackfan•51m ago
toomuchtodo•50m ago
slackfan•45m ago
toomuchtodo•44m ago
Measure impact, outcomes, and improvements in quality of life. Numbers in a database or spreadsheet are none of those.
To die with zero and an overflowing funeral attendance is success (great book on this topic literally called “Die with Zero” by Bill Perkins, I highly recommend). If you don’t want to be hated as a very wealthy person, super simple, give most of it away (efficiently!) and make lives better. Keep enough to be cozy (nice crib, don’t have to work, fancy trimmings), but not enough to be a villain.
We may see wealth and the purpose of life differently, totally cool. But these are my thoughts from ~half a century of existence.
levinb•34m ago
noir_lord•40m ago
christkv•34m ago
dylan604•41m ago
manphone•37m ago
gruez•41m ago
richwater•30m ago
What happens next year?
DangitBobby•29m ago
richwater•17m ago