Amazon's next day delivery service has brought chaos to America's streets and how Amazon escapes any legal blame

thediamondage · Sep 2, 2019

I think most of us know now amazon isn't exactly "great" for us from a moral perspective (intense warehouse worker issues, pay, squeezing sellers), but most of us choose to ignore it so we can get stuff faster. As they try to deliver stuff faster and faster though its also really horrific at a local level

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon-next-day-delivery-deaths

Buzzfeed said:
they would have discovered that the company's drivers worked under relentless demands to deliver hundreds of packages each shift — for a flat rate of around $160 a day — at the direction of dispatchers who often compel them to skip meals, bathroom breaks, and any other form of rest, discouraging them from going home until the very last box is delivered.

Amazon issued Inpax hand scanners that could monitor the progress of its drivers as they delivered their packages and dictated the routes they drove. It had sent Gray's bosses at Inpax a memo just days before the accident, criticizing lackluster delivery rates in the area and instituting a "no package left behind" policy during the critical holiday week. The number of deliveries drivers were expected to make each day was way up, and dispatchers were urged to keep as many of their vans on the road for as long as possible — even if it meant driving long into the bitter winter night.

Buzzfeed said:
But when Escamilla's grieving family sought redress — suing Amazon, Inpax, and Gray for wrongful death — the e-commerce giant refused to accept any responsibility. "The damages, if any, were caused, in whole or in part, by third parties not under the direction or control of Amazon.com," its lawyers said in a court filing.

Inpax had by then been repeatedly cited by the Department of Labor for withholding pay from its drivers. Its owner had several cocaine-related felony convictions and had previously declared bankruptcy after missing insurance payments, failing to pay taxes, and defaulting on loans and other obligations amounting to $15 million. And the company was struggling to make ends meet on the razor-thin margins of a system set up by Amazon to squeeze contractors while minimizing its own costs at every turn.

But despite Inpax's checkered record, after denying any blame for Escamilla's death, Amazon continued using the company to deliver its packages across Chicago and at least four other major cities.

The article is really long but a really, really good year long investigation of amazon and it basically boils down to "we created a last mile delivery system that is outsourced heavily and we are insanely good at tracking EVERYTHING about it but we aren't responsible for any of it". All to save money from using FedEx/UPS, who are 100x better at safety, how they treat workers, etc.

It feels like we're past dystopian at this point, with Amazon contracting out so much of its work to what are essentially gig employee serfs, a step above indentured servants, to deliver loads and loads of junk to highly paid, white collar "new economy" almost-rich people who simultaneously tell everyone on social media how progressive and liberal they are, how they want the government to fix inequality / climate change / racism while blithely ignoring the way they are making the world infinitely worse by using Amazon so much. Every evening when I take a walk I see at least 15 amazon packages sitting around my neighbors front porches, almost all of them very progressive people who are always telling me how much they hate Trump and guns and inequality.

And its probably not just amazon, you could probably apply some of the same logic to Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, Taskrabbit, and the entire gig economy we have created in the past decade. Is it the way of the future, and is it good or is it just a case of natural "rich fucking the poor" that has repeated in every human civilization?

My wife orders like 10x a thing a month from amazon, I really try to avoid using them completely now but man when you just want a cable or something and don't wanna go out...

Jazzy · Sep 2, 2019

Amazon treats its workers just as bad as Walmart does. I have been buying less from Amazon in recent years. It's hard to quit cold turkey but I feel eventually I will get most of my stuff elsewhere and using them as price matchers.

5taquitos · Sep 2, 2019

Dropped our Prime membership last year, haven't looked back.

I will be in a moral conundrum when LOTR and The Culture come out on Amazon TV, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The real hard part is avoiding AWS, which I'm pretty sure is impossible.

Hinkypunk · Sep 2, 2019

No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

BlastProcessing · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

So not forced, just compelled due to a lack of reasonable options.

5taquitos · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

So because you choose where to work, you don't deserve any protections as a worker?

saenima · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

Shit post.

No one's 'forced' to do anything. You can always just lay in a ditch and die, right?

Deleted member 3183 · Sep 2, 2019

BlastProcessing said:
So not forced, just compelled due to a lack of reasonable options.

not really a super meaningful distinction at that point.

Deleted member 22490 · Sep 2, 2019

Capitalism kills.

Virtua Saturn · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

You are about to get roasted "my dude"

thediamondage · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

I think the point is more that people who buy from amazon a LOT need to really think more about who they are doing business with. Walmart drove off a lot of small businesses in the 90s, amazon is accelerating that trend in most cities and maybe thats not a good thing and it is totally in all our power to "change" that. The cost is of course we can't just click something and have it delivered to us, and we will have to pay more for stuff. Maybe buy less stuff.

fontguy · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

Are you Jigsaw?

neon_dream · Sep 2, 2019

Dropping Amazon is difficult when I'm working 60+ hours a week. The rest of the retail world needs to catch up to what Amazon's done.

At the same time, we need work laws to handle stuff like this, not just Amazon but companies like Uber too. Gig-economy jobs and companies are skirting traditional work laws and our lawmakers are too tech/digital-inept (or corrupt) to do anything about it.

American city design is also not up to snuff when it comes to modern logistics. We're coasting on infrastructure from the early 1900s in places like Chicago or Boston. Which is why cities built in the late 90s/2000s, cities in east Asia for example, are so much more efficient. It's going to take a lot of pain and money to re-engineer the US for problems like this.

Ambient80 · Sep 2, 2019

BlastProcessing said:
So not forced, just compelled due to a lack of reasonable options.

The choice is simple! Work for a company who pays you a little more but works you to death, or work for a place who won't pay a livable wage! Why are people complaining, it's so easy!!!!!

Pagusas · Sep 2, 2019

I'm a little confused OP, you bitch how your neighbors are basically two faced than admit at the very end you are too?

Anthony Hopkins · Sep 2, 2019

I predict in 10-15yrs there will be self driving trucks where the amazon customer can go to the truck and collect there goods, in 30yrs we will have robots which will replace the need for human delivery people. Drones will probably do some delivery to.

So all these drivers won't have a job soon.

thediamondage · Sep 2, 2019

neon_dream said:
Dropping Amazon is difficult when I'm working 60+ hours a week. The rest of the retail world needs to catch up to what Amazon's done.

At the same time, we need work laws to handle stuff like this, not just Amazon but companies like Uber too. Gig-economy jobs and companies are skirting traditional work laws and our lawmakers are too tech/digital-inept (or corrupt) to do anything about it.

Yup, thats my families problem too. My wife works (i'm retired), she has long, stressful days and she orders a lot of her stuff on amazon. She can browse it at work, find exactly what she wants, and return it easily if she doesn't like it. I've told her she can just tell me what to get and I'll go get it for her, but other retailers are TERRIBLE at showing what they have let alone pickup/delivery/etc.

Amazon is thriving off the fact that no one else seems to be able to compete with them.

Pagusas said:
I'm a little confused OP, you bitch how your neighbors are basically two faced than admit at the very end you are too?

oh yeah totally, i'm a hypocrite as well don't deny that. I try a lot now (for the past year) not to order from amazon, i think i've had 3 total items in the past 12 months and all were things not in stock anywhere locally. My wife orders a lot but as I mention above she has decent reasons and I'm stumped when it comes to alternatives, other than spending a LOT more time browsing small stores in person which is not realistic for her.

Detective Loki · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

Right and they're making way more money than I am and I'm working just as hard/even harder than they are.
I don't have any benefits either.

thewienke · Sep 2, 2019

Jazzy said:
Amazon treats its workers just as bad as Walmart does. I have been buying less from Amazon in recent years. It's hard to quit cold turkey but I feel eventually I will get most of my stuff elsewhere and using them as price matchers.

Are we in that weird place in society where shopping at Walmart is the slightly more ethical choice because at least they employ a lot more locally?

Randomly Generated · Sep 2, 2019

thewienke said:
Are we in that weird place in society where shopping at Walmart is the slightly more ethical choice because at least they employ a lot more locally?

They also don't sell creepy facial recognition software to cops

WedgeX · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

...labor is always exploited by capital, friend. People deserve safe conditions and fair wages for their labor.

Tater · Sep 2, 2019

BlastProcessing said:
So not forced, just compelled due to a lack of reasonable options.

Yep, that's exactly what large corporations love, and why unions exist.

Virtua Saturn · Sep 2, 2019

We are at a place where there are varying shades of gray and black when it comes to shopping. The only large company I can think of that is known to treat it's employees well is Costco but that's only from hearsay.

Gyro Zeppeli · Sep 2, 2019

Any Prime subscriber is complicit in a web of abuse and neglect. You don't need a package immediately.

BringBackSonics · Sep 2, 2019

thediamondage said:
I think most of us know now amazon isn't exactly "great" for us from a moral perspective (intense warehouse worker issues, pay, squeezing sellers), but most of us choose to ignore it so we can get stuff faster. As they try to deliver stuff faster and faster though its also really horrific at a local level

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon-next-day-delivery-deaths

The article is really long but a really, really good year long investigation of amazon and it basically boils down to "we created a last mile delivery system that is outsourced heavily and we are insanely good at tracking EVERYTHING about it but we aren't responsible for any of it". All to save money from using FedEx/UPS, who are 100x better at safety, how they treat workers, etc.

It feels like we're past dystopian at this point, with Amazon contracting out so much of its work to what are essentially gig employee serfs, a step above indentured servants, to deliver loads and loads of junk to highly paid, white collar "new economy" almost-rich people who simultaneously tell everyone on social media how progressive and liberal they are, how they want the government to fix inequality / climate change / racism while blithely ignoring the way they are making the world infinitely worse by using Amazon so much. Every evening when I take a walk I see at least 15 amazon packages sitting around my neighbors front porches, almost all of them very progressive people who are always telling me how much they hate Trump and guns and inequality.

And its probably not just amazon, you could probably apply some of the same logic to Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, Taskrabbit, and the entire gig economy we have created in the past decade. Is it the way of the future, and is it good or is it just a case of natural "rich fucking the poor" that has repeated in every human civilization?

My wife orders like 10x a thing a month from amazon, I really try to avoid using them completely now but man when you just want a cable or something and don't wanna go out...

🤔 calls out neighbors for being progressive and using amazon....admits his family does exactly the same thing.

I think most people are where you at I suppose, we are 'progressive' until we need to use amazon for something 'prime video, AWS services. Etc)

Dreamwriter · Sep 2, 2019

I for one was happy with Amazon's 2-day deliveries when they used real delivery services. I don't need overnight, and I'd much rather have UPS or Fed-Ex quality service. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't give us the choice to pay more for that.

TyraZaurus · Sep 2, 2019

I can't drive and I can only get out to the store occasionally on the whims of people who are able to drive me there.

Amazon is usually my only recourse for things like this.

But let's talk more about how the onus is on consumers and not the government or the companies themselves.

Cation · Sep 2, 2019

Just gonna get worse and worse until it's all autonomous. These companies are trying to lower costs to make the bridge toward autonomous shipment

higemaru · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for coal mines my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for the coal mine companies.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

*black lung disease intensifies*

Rover · Sep 2, 2019

neon_dream said:
Dropping Amazon is difficult when I'm working 60+ hours a week. The rest of the retail world needs to catch up to what Amazon's done.

I'm not convinced you can't buy your stuff the way anybody has done in all the history of commerce, even working 60+ hours a week.

In most cases you don't need anything Next day, 2--day, or even in a week. You elect these options because Amazon has trained you to buy impulsively, and abuses workers to make it possible.

thediamondage · Sep 2, 2019

BringBackSonics said:
🤔 calls out neighbors for being progressive and using amazon....admits his family does exactly the same thing.

I think most people are where you at I suppose, we are 'progressive' until we need to use amazon for something 'prime video, AWS services. Etc)

yeah, I didn't mean to thumb my nose at my neighbors, totally get why all of them do it - they are all busy families with shit to do and no time to shop. I've thought a few times of setting up some sort of neighborhood shop program where me and a few of the other retired families could buy stuff for other people (we babysit the neighborhood kids for free) but i just come up with a 100 ways things could go wrong, government arrests us, etc and most people i broached the subject with thought it was weird and hippy.

I just find it kinda interesting that we all do that, we kind of have to (but do we?), we all focus on Trump and the 2020 presidential elections. I do appreciate the democrat candidates do talk about amazon

https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-repeatedly-call-out-amazon-in-presidential-debates-2019-6

But I wonder if any of them get elected whether they would actually do anything. Ironically Trump hates Amazon more than any of them, but even he doesn't seem to want to actually do anything to them.

Deleted member 14663 · Sep 2, 2019

But I want my stuff even faster! /goes on aliexpress to order something much cheaper with a delivery time of 40 days.

Doctoglethorpe · Sep 2, 2019

They got quite the system though. Pay your employees shit so you can undercut prices and the laugh as people can't afford to shop anywhere but from you and your undercut prices.

Famassu · Sep 2, 2019

I stopped buying from Amazon altogether. Don't need these kinds of stories weighing on my conscience. If I need something fast (I rarely do, I'm not that impatient), I'll just buy from a local store and pay a little more. If I need something cheap, I'll wait for a sale on digital services or other online companies selling physical goods instead of Amazon.

Aeana · Sep 2, 2019

I really felt like the switch to one day shipping was unnecessary. I can wait another day if it means people aren't killing themselves.

Nitori · Sep 2, 2019

They have people delivering Amazon packages in my area in Budget rental vans. It threw me off the first time I saw it because other cities in my area have Amazon vans with the logo on it.

Chasex · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

I'm not going to dogpile this but I do have a question. I discuss this with my roommate who is of similar philosophy. If we had a spectrum of 0 - 10 where 0 is systemic socioeconomic issues forcing/compelling individuals to accept these awful jobs, and 10 being completely the fault of the individuals lack of effort - what would you say? I'm at like 3 fwiw.

There is a point to be made that there /is/ still opportunity in America for those who work for it. You could take night classes at a subsidized trade school, or study online for a certification to get ahead, or apply yourself to be promoted out of the dungeons. This is true, I'm an example of this myself. There are also a lot of reasons someone might not be able to pursue this too. Anyways I think your point gets completely lost in the discussion when it should be part of the equation. Namely self responsibility and discipline.

InspectorJones · Sep 2, 2019

I am or was the worst at just impulsively shopping on Amazon; it's slowed down a bit, but I probably still get anywhere from 1-3 packages a month delivered. It's hard to get customers to NOT do something that's majorly convenient for them. Expect things to only get crazier with automation and if they ever roll out even faster delivery times for Prime members.

Old Gimlet Eyes · Sep 2, 2019

When someone else offers a service that competes with amazon, I'll use it. Until then, I'll keep adding to my cart.

neon_dream · Sep 2, 2019

Rover said:
I'm not convinced you can't buy your stuff the way anybody has done in all the history of commerce, even working 60+ hours a week.

In most cases you don't need anything Next day, 2--day, or even in a week. You elect these options because Amazon has trained you to buy impulsively, and abuses workers to make it possible.

I never said I CANT and I didn't try to convince anyone that I NEED to use Amazon.

Most of my 12-14 hour work days I come home to cook, clean a bit, prep food for the next day, then sleep. When I work 8 hours on weekend days, I'm too burnt out at the end and the end of the week for most shopping. Yeah, I can spend my one full day off going to 3-4 different department stores for silicon nose pads for my glasses, a screw in foot for a chair, stick-on hangers to put utensils on the wall, and several other things. It saves me a lot of time just to click through Amazon in a few spare moments so I can have one day off in a week where all I have to do is grocery shopping (that's today) and laundry.

What I said NEEDS to get better is modern logistics for retail, city design and engineering, and US work laws.

Good Kid mAAd Poster · Sep 2, 2019

Been known that Amazon can do no wrong. Liberals and progressives aren't going to stop shopping there.

Actions speak louder than words.

Wilsongt · Sep 2, 2019

I may buy a game from Amazon every now and then but I barely use it outside of that and always use free shipping option..

EvilChameleon · Sep 2, 2019

Nitori said:
They have people delivering Amazon packages in my area in Budget rental vans. It threw me off the first time I saw it because other cities in my area have Amazon vans with the logo on it.

I've seen rental vans, Amazon vans, and just people in regular cars delivering packages.

Deleted member 4783 · Sep 2, 2019

Hinkypunk said:
No one is forced to work for Amazon my dude. It's a horrible job but the pay is usually above-average for comparable menial labour work, hence why people choose to work for Amazon or its contractors.

These are adults making decisions for themselves.

Found the sociopath

Rover · Sep 2, 2019

Famassu said:
I stopped buying from Amazon altogether. Don't need these kinds of stories weighing on my conscience. If I need something fast (I rarely do, I'm not that impatient), I'll just buy from a local store and pay a little more. If I need something cheap, I'll wait for a sale on digital services or other online companies selling physical goods instead of Amazon.

And for me the extra cost usually doesn't add up to what I'd be paying for Prime, plus I avoid getting all the counterfeit knockoffs that plague Amazon.

Nitori said:
They have people delivering Amazon packages in my area in Budget rental vans. It threw me off the first time I saw it because other cities in my area have Amazon vans with the logo on it.

I have seen the same thing.

Old Gimlet Eyes said:
When someone else offers a service that competes with amazon, I'll use it. Until then, I'll keep adding to my cart.

You can buy things at countless other stores. The thing Amazon offers (impulse shopping and next day delivery) is something you don't actually need.

Good Kid mAAd Poster said:
Been known that Amazon can do no wrong. Liberals and progressives aren't going to stop shopping there.

Actions speak louder than words.

I'm a progressive, ended my Prime membership and don't really think to buy there anymore. I will go in store to other shops or order from them online. But I really hope contributing the demand for employee abuse and being hooked on a company's marketing tactics isn't a political issue.

saenima · Sep 2, 2019

Chasex said:
I'm not going to dogpile this but I do have a question. I discuss this with my roommate who is of similar philosophy. If we had a spectrum of 0 - 10 where 0 is systemic socioeconomic issues forcing/compelling individuals to accept these awful jobs, and 10 being completely the fault of the individuals lack of effort - what would you say? I'm at like 3 fwiw.

There is a point to be made that there /is/ still opportunity in America for those who work for it. You could take night classes at a subsidized trade school, or study online for a certification to get ahead, or apply yourself to be promoted out of the dungeons. This is true, I'm an example of this myself. There are also a lot of reasons someone might not be able to pursue this too. Anyways I think your point gets completely lost in the discussion when it should be part of the equation. Namely self responsibility and discipline.

The bootstraps philosophy always misses the most obvious. A hierarchic society like the one we live in is essentially a pyramid. Where a few get access to the good jobs and the rest doesn't. If literally everyone follows your example and studies really hard and takes a degree/trade course, two things will happen. First, you'll have a lot of people with higher degrees and trade courses and not enough of the good jobs for all of them. Secondly, you'll still have a lot of these shit jobs that no one will want to do. Especially if they followed your example and spent years studying for something better. In a pyramid scheme, only a few can 'make it'. That's the whole point of the system. And capitalism is the very definition of a pyramid scheme.

The problem isn't that people need to work harder to lift themselves out of the 'dungeons'. The problem is the whole system itself. The system needs its losers so it can have its winners. So, on your scale, i'll go with a 0.

Freakzilla · Sep 2, 2019

I'm pissed I have to wait until Wednesday to get my headlamp and thermos. 2 day delivery is definitely not fast enough and would appreciate getting these items hours after ordering like in store pickup.

Deleted member 7373 · Sep 2, 2019

Honestly I kind of dislike the idea that a personal Amazon boycott is going to affect meaningful change. You can never expect people to disadvantage themselves under our system. If something is cheaper and more convenient we are supposed to take that option. The goal should be to make the cheapest and most convenient option also not have horrible working conditions (by force... with government action).

MikeProtagonist · Sep 2, 2019

Apart from all that, I find it pretty hard to justify all that shipping around tiny individual items because you can't be arsed to go to a store. Whenever I order something online, I usually want to combine shipping for a couple of things. Partly this is because shipping costs in/to Sweden are horrible, but it also feels bad to just buy something like a cable or a phone cover or a fucking screen protector or something.

Around here Amazon isn't that huge though. It's usually those Chinese super warehouse sites that ship so much crap over here that they had to add more import fees to actually cover shipping domestically, since Chinese shipping costs are subsidized (iirc). And then those huge sites made a deal so that the fees only apply to other sites that weren't the problem to begin with.

Rover · Sep 2, 2019

N. Tyranno said:
I can't drive and I can only get out to the store occasionally on the whims of people who are able to drive me there.

Amazon is usually my only recourse for things like this.

But let's talk more about how the onus is on consumers and not the government or the companies themselves.

Amazon is not the only online retailer delivering to you.

Amazon's next day delivery service has brought chaos to America's streets and how Amazon escapes any legal blame

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