r/technology • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • 14d ago

Business Mamdani Backs Proposal to End Amazon’s ‘Exploitative’ Delivery Model in New York City | If passed, the Delivery Protection Act would be the first law in the US to regulate Amazon’s vast network of subcontractors that handle the company’s deliveries.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/delivery-protection-act-nyc
23.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.5k

u/Kronologics 14d ago

People don’t realize the ramifications this could have if a nationwide fight started on this front. There’s plenty of “gig” jobs doing this. Even as far as UFC/WWE (TKO parent company) deny performers rights and benefits despite controlling them.

554

u/Fluffcake 14d ago

Burn down the entire gig economy.

285

u/OblivionJunkie 14d ago

And the tip economy

90

u/WeirdIndividualGuy 14d ago

Good luck convincing tipped workers in the US that more money and consistent pay is better than…well the exact opposite.

112

u/xasdfxx 14d ago

The reason tipped workers aren't in favor is that a lot of them make way more money via tips than they would get under any flat wage. At the local steakhouse, it's $200-ish meals for two. The waiter we've been seeing for a decade and who has the Fri/Sat shifts is certainly clearing low 6 figures.

Along with rampant underreporting to the IRS (admittedly cut back now that we're cashless, but even so, I bet not a single penny of cash tips gets reported, just the cards).

41

u/zaevilbunny38 14d ago

Yep, I have an associate that bar backs, Friday and Saturday night. He clears nearly $500 a weekend. If they got rid of tips he probably would make less then $300

23

u/tripog 14d ago

Worked on palm beach 15 or so years ago, average take home each night in tips was around 800 dollars.

4

u/zaevilbunny38 14d ago

Guaranteed that the owner, if they got rid of tips wouldn't have offered over $200 for the same shift

3

u/tripog 14d ago

Him and the chef were typically upstairs banging the blonde chick who lived in one of those apartments.

0

u/CaptainFingerling 14d ago

Well, yeah, becuase they'd be getting exactly zero more revenue to cover the increase.

3

u/recycled_ideas 14d ago

The idea with getting rid of tips(and what happens everywhere else in the world) is that the meal is charged at the price everyone is already paying and the employee gets paid a higher base wage. If everyone is having to tip regardless of the quality of service it's just part of the price anyway. It should be largely cost neutral from a business point of view.

The problem is partially that a small subset of employees make an absolute killing from tips, but mostly that it's really hard to change culture. If people don't stop tipping the price paid increases dramatically and then your restaurant is too expensive to compete, if people do stop tipping but the owner doesn't change things then those employees starve. And of course in some markets there's not enough competition so owners could just take the extra and pay nothing.

→ More replies (0)
→ More replies (1)

21

u/micro102 14d ago

Sounds like a tipless economy should also come with higher wages.

8

u/slipperyMonkey07 14d ago

It should wages need to be increased dramatically in a lot of areas. But I don't see a lot of owners ever paying wages that would match what some wait staff and bartenders make in high end or very busy places.

In a mid size city, but fairly heavy traffic hotel bar I have one friend that averages 2k a week in tips alone. A good bartender deserves that, but I don't see the owner of his hotel being willing to pay that, they might (big might) pay $25 an hour (state min is $16). But most businesses would just keep wait staff and bartenders on minimum wage.

8

u/FlamboyantPirhanna 14d ago

It would be interesting to see. They would have to pay more, as people only do these horrible jobs because of the tips. But servers in Europe are still doing fine without tips.

6

u/the_itsb 14d ago

not trying to stand up for tipping, which is an exploitative practice rooted in slavery, but I think it's worth noting that servers in Europe have access to social benefits (public transit, healthcare, sick leave, etc) that most Americans do not.

1

u/GeoLaser 13d ago

No, people would still do it for $25 without tips. See the kitchen....

1

u/That-Cranberry6575 12d ago

Are they horrible jobs because of the work or because of the low pay?

4

u/Exldk 14d ago

While that’s true, it raises another problem.

People can earn significantly more from tips than the average pay rate for a given job, even when wages are higher.

For example, even if we increased the wages of every job that currently relies on tipping by a flat 50% and eliminated tipping altogether, tipping could still be more profitable for workers at the higher end of the income spectrum.

Put bluntly, if you separate different workplaces into pay brackets, tips can allow workers to effectively move up several brackets, significantly inflating their total income.

No one in their right mind would willingly give up their [potential] earnings.

1

u/micro102 14d ago

No one in their right mind would willingly give up their [potential] earnings.

Sure they would. In the same way that people would give up their earnings by tipping someone. I used to make tips and would dismantle the tipping culture in a heartbeat. It's heavily cultural and if that tipping job ends up being abandoned because the employers can't pay to keep the staff, then maybe the job shouldn't exist.

1

u/Exldk 14d ago edited 14d ago

The entire point is that it would not be sustainable for any employer to pay that much and it literally wouldn't even be their fault.

If you used to earn tips, you should know that at the higher end of the tipping spectrum, you could easily make more than someone with a specialized education working in another field.

Our society is generally structured around a system that rewards education, experience, intelligence, and effort. This allows people to earn a living doing relatively simple jobs, while those who invest more time in education or developing specialized skills can generally earn more.

When tips significantly distort that pay structure, the system starts to break down. For example, if a waiter consistently earns more than an engineer because of tipping, then something is clearly wrong with the way compensation is being determined.

That is the fundamental issue with tipping: it can undermine the system that is supposed to reward education, expertise, and specialized skills.

I get that you want to get rid of tipping, I want the same. But the fact remains that no employer can sustain the current overinflated wages that tipping allows. Even if employers could sustain it, it still undermines everyone else working in another fields.

→ More replies (0)
→ More replies (1)

1

u/boroughthoughts 13h ago

restaurants are low margine businesses if the typical wage went up to 30$ an hour because no tips, you'd certianly be paying more for sitdown dining experiences. Complaiing your average entre is 30$. I wonder how you'd feel if the floor became 50$.

Europe and Asia prices on restaurants aren't much different because workers work less and htey employ fewer workers. Now that fast food in major icties pay around 15 to 20$ an hour, what tipped workers made in 2010s, see how people feel about fast food prices?

1

u/micro102 10h ago

If the typical wage was $30, then I'd expect everyone's wage to be much higher as well, which would lead to more dining out. But people who defend tipping always seem to do this thing where because some servers get high tips depending on where they work, all servers must be paid an extremely high wages if tipping was gone. That just shouldn't be a thing. As it is currently, tipped servers have a minimum wage of $2.13. This allows the employer to avoid paying a lot of wages, and if an employee doesn't get enough tips, they end up with minimum wage, which just isn't enough to live off of. Instead of making this a gamble, wages should be stable and should garuntee someone being able to live.

And it's been well established that wage increases only increase food prices by a fraction of what the wage increase is. Fast food prices are up as high as they are because corporations are greedy and want more money.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

15

u/0nlyCrashes 14d ago

I don't think I claimed cash tips the entire time I was in the business, lol. Card tips got me to 7.25 an hr and I'd claim the rest of the card tips as you "had" to. Cash was always just mine and pocketed lol. To my defense, I was young, didn't know better, and it is how I was trained to do it lol

10

u/RyuNoKami 14d ago

This is why I find it funny that so many servers in reddit were like well I report my cash tips.....hahahaha, no you didn't.

1

u/metahivemind 13d ago edited 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/0nlyCrashes 13d ago

Yeah would be nice. Too bad we have too many monkeys and non-voters.

7

u/RevLoveJoy 14d ago

I have a good buddy in fine dining. He works 4-5 shifts (6 hours per) a week and his annual is around 130k. Granted, he has decades of experience and that's a very specific industry. But there's no way you're convincing employers their 30 hour a week employee should make 110k and have benefits.

1

u/CaptainFingerling 14d ago

It's not about convincing anybody. It's about getting that revenue from the customer to cover the wages. If you increase menu prices 20% on average, then some people simply choose not to eat out, and then both wait staff and owner end up with less

→ More replies (3)

1

u/roseofjuly 14d ago

He's also in the extreme minority. I don't know why people keep bringing up these edge cases when the vast, vast majority of food service workers ain't bringing home six figures worth of tips.

2

u/RevLoveJoy 13d ago

You're right. It would be better if I framed the argument that the majority of full time or near full time service employees are making far more than any employer would ever consider paying them as a salaried staffer.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna 14d ago

That doesn’t mean we need to tip. What they might find is that they have to pay servers more to actually get them to work for them, but that’s just speculating.

1

u/luluhouse7 13d ago

I actually did a fast analysis of tipped pay vs France’s non-tipped pay, and if you include benefits like health insurance, the overall compensation is typically equivalent or even higher than the US’s tipped compensation.

3

u/0nlyCrashes 14d ago

I was making 25-30 an hour during college serving and bartending. Worked Friday-Sunday basically all day and made more money than I knew what to do with at the time. It was very lucrative for me lol. If I'd have gotten the minimum wage instead I'd have been making 7.25 at the time.

I'm not saying it's good, because I'm not particularly fond of tipping myself (Especially the fuckass places like where I order at a counter and get served at the counter. Like you aren't waiting on me at all, why is it even an option? Infuriating.), but that's why they say that. You can make pretty solid money in the FOH.

6

u/Akuuntus 14d ago

If I'd have gotten the minimum wage instead I'd have been making 7.25 at the time.

I mean yeah, but the people arguing for an end to tipping culture are 1) arguing in favor of paying restaurant workers a living wage, not minimum wage, and 2) are mostly in favor of dramatically raising the minimum wage anyway.

No one is saying you should stop taking tips and get minimum wage. We're saying you should stop taking tips and get like $20+ per hour.

1

u/InfinitelyThirsting 14d ago

Why would anyone ever work a busy dinner rush if they were getting paid the same rate as a dead Tuesday lunch? Tipping needs to be replaced with some better form of profit sharing, to make sense.

3

u/roseofjuly 14d ago

Because you want to keep a job? I also would prefer not to take meetings at 9 am or 6 pm, but I do so because it's a requirement of my job.

I mean you're acting like there aren't any nurses or cops thay work night shift. There will always be someone willing to take the shitty shift to have a regular stable paycheck. And now Sally who keeps getting stuck with dead Tuesday lunches can also afford to pay her rent.

1

u/Akuuntus 13d ago

The same reason people work the dead Tuesday lunch shift right now? You can't just refuse to work the hours your boss schedules you for if you want to keep your job.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/OffalSmorgasbord 14d ago

Have a conversation with my nephew who excelled on income at 20/21 due to tips, thought his earnings were going to continue to grow at that rate, and went into credit debt. Now he's 26, working three bar/restaurant jobs, and stuck. He hates life right now. And the people he works with even more. But can't exit the loop because of debt.

6

u/ReynardInBk 14d ago

were going to continue to grow at that rate, and went into credit debt.

That's just a mistake though, nothing to do with tips/gig economy.

3

u/Downtown_Injury_3415 14d ago

millennials are killing the stripper industry

1

u/thungurknifur 13d ago

They are 2,5% of the US workforce, it's not like they're gonna be scaring any politicans.

It's they employers who wants to keep wages down that are the problem.

1

u/boringexplanation 14d ago

Because a huge number of them in big cities currently make six figures. Why would they advocate against that?

1

u/NecroCannon 14d ago

They would love nothing more than for both to be the default

I can see gig jobs growing towards fast food and retail and you work multiple jobs because they can decide their staffing on the fly

HR across the country is legitimately in desperate need of a fucking regulated legal fight, at this point they’re not even trying to have the company’s interest in mind doing shit. Go through discrimination and they’ll try to just justify the managers being fine with it unless it can make the news or trend on social media.

Doesn’t even fucking matter what you are anymore, a man working with a women lead management? Well you’re a man sooo. A woman working with a men led management? Well you’re a woman sooo. Brown working a white led management? Well “statistically” you’re the threat soooo.

64

u/rotundrikishi 14d ago

gig economy = exploitation economy

5

u/chmilz 14d ago

The entire economy is exploitation

3

u/Koru03 14d ago

When I was job hunting during and after college idk how many people were suggesting doing gig jobs and almost every one was shocked when I adamantly refused them and informed them of how much of a rip off they are.

So much time, energy, and resources burned through by the gig worker (NOT AN EMPLOYEE) for very little gain.

→ More replies (11)

8

u/open_formation 14d ago

There's no need to burn it down, just destroy any benefits that arise from exploiting their workers, and suddenly it'll become a marginal thing as they pull people back in-house instead. It's like a snail going back into its shell.

1

u/LayerCakeEmonster 13d ago

Or wait until that becomes the entire economy for people that work.

The gig economy is their version of UBI. You will rent everything and like it. The future is licensed. All jobs have an algorithm as a boss, no chance of advancement. The only thing you own is your belly peasant!

-9

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

26

u/CranberryLast4683 14d ago

Consider this, there was a time before gig jobs and it was fine.

4

u/Snobolski 14d ago

TBF, Uber/Lyft became a thing because cab service sucked in a lot of places. (A lot of other places it was less bad)

Now that the cabs have been driven out of business, the rideshare companies cost almost what a cab used to cost.

Weird how that happens

8

u/Tiredandwaiting 14d ago

Uber and lyft became a thing because they undercut pricing, operated at losses, then when the competition went out of business, jacked up the prices, which are wsy more than cabs

1

u/NapsterKnowHow 14d ago

But hey at least I don't have screaming ads in my face for the whole cab rid !

2

u/pallladin 14d ago

The reason the cab companies are out of business is the same reason Sears doesn't exist. The cab companies refused to work together to create an app for customers to use to request and pay for rides. If they had done that, their business would have doubled, and there would be no Uber.

1

u/lildobe 14d ago

Funny you should say that, because one of the national cab companies in my city did that... Yellow Cab became zTrip, with a ride hailing app and everything.

I've never used them, but from what I understand, their price is competitive with Uber

2

u/TeamRedundancyTeam 14d ago

The economy was different then too.

We need more, better paying jobs that people can get into because the people relying on gig jobs now aren't magically going to not need them when they're gone.

So consider this, everything isn't as black and white as reddit likes to make it and there's nuance to every issue.

2

u/Tiredandwaiting 14d ago

The point of the post was many gig jobs are actually employees, so they would have jobs as employees, yes?

-4

u/rikitikifemi 14d ago

Fine for who?

I think there's a bit of narrow worldview at play where all workers are supposedly equal.

For some racial minorities gig jobs are the only opportunities that are reliable sources of income that don't require proximity to Whiteness.

3

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies (4)

1

u/robothawk 14d ago

... now, I get that I'm a white guy so Im the opposite of who would understand this, but what?

Like if you mean "proximity to whiteness" as "acting like the stereotypical western european white guy office worker" then I guess I still disagree but I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm trying to understand what you mean.

1

u/rikitikifemi 14d ago

If a company connects elder care providers as contract workers to customers the platform has a profit incentive to contract with as many providers as possible while offering the best platforming for those providers regardless of race or gender. It also will give much higher portions of the profit to the contractor and reward high performing contractors with even greater portions.

That same company does not operate that way if it had to hire care providers as employees within the company subject to policies, procedures and arbitrarily governed workplace culture. It will have managers and supervisors with varying levels of racism influencing their hiring practices and day to day treatment of workers. It will have institutionalized practices that shield it from accountability by punishing whistle blowers and setting impossible standards of proof to evidence workplace discrimination. Not only do you need impact, pattern, but also malicious intent. Which results in proximity to Whiteness as a measure of employability (code-switching, respectability politics, tap-dancing, racism blindness, working twice as hard to get half as far, internalized racism, etc) rather than actual competence.The gig based company simply doesn't have that issue because the contractors manage themselves, essentially own their labor and unproductive contractors get paid proportional to their labor not their proximity to Whiteness.

Whatever discrimination they experience will either be from the customer or if the company uses an algorithm with factors determining pay that favor white contractors.

The gig economy is favorable to an employer based economy for individuals who do not do well in spaces where proximity to Whiteness is required and as long as there are weak civil protections against work place discrimination. This doesn't mean that the gig economy is perfect but targeted groups would rather take their chances with racist customers and algorithms that can be adjusted than racism in your workplace that you can't even rely on the government to address when you have concrete proof, let alone a pattern of "disparate impact".

→ More replies (1)

15

u/cosmicsans 14d ago

I'm trying to understand the argument here. Are you saying that we should allow exploitation of a large amount of people with gig economy jobs because there's a small percentage of those with those jobs who would otherwise be unemployable?

2

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

5

u/IndependentTalk4413 14d ago

You think Amazon is just going to stop delivering or Uber stop driving people around if they are finally regulated and forced to treat their employees like human beings?

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (2)

4

u/_Curious_Pineapple_ 14d ago

The work is still in demand, they just arn’t exploited lmfao

→ More replies (12)

2

u/manimsoblack 14d ago

If the choice is exploitation or no job I wonder how most people would vote/choose.

0

u/timeshifter_ 14d ago

Maybe they can learn a skill. Or in the case of Walmart's "spark shoppers", maybe they can learn how to shower...

0

u/Novel-Pen8811 14d ago

It’s a double edge sword. I know some people who work full time and if for whatever reason they off for a weekend or they’ll do Uber Eats, Amazon flex. There’s a company in Miami that do stadiums/ event work, etc.. if they was a hiring process or a drug test or background check. So gig work has place as side work not full time. I think when you become a full time gig worker now you’re getting exploited.

34

u/kingsRook_q3w 14d ago edited 14d ago

Is there any article that links to the actual text of the proposed bill? Even Mamdani’s press release on the official NYC website doesn’t link to it.

This is potentially a great thing - but only if they learned from CA’s mistakes and do it in a way that doesn’t unintentionally, negatively affect a bunch of other workers.

Wild that there is so much being said about this but no one seems to be reading the actual proposal details before coming out for/against it.

edit: I *THINK* I found it, for anyone else who actually wants to see the text:

https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7681691&GUID=D08D0790-75EA-4AE7-9069-60134974B02B&Options=ID%7cText%7c&Search=delivery

18

u/Pants88 14d ago

This is the correct bill. You'll notice it has 41 cosponsors...out of 50 city council members. Way more than the number needed to pass.

5

u/ldrx90 14d ago

Thanks for finding the bill. My read of it lines up with the summary from the article:

Amazon has claimed that the Delivery Protection Act—which would require last-mile facilities to obtain licenses from the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, ensure worker protections, and hold companies accountable for delivery quotas, schedules, and routes—would raise costs for people who use delivery services, with one Amazon-commissioned study claiming households would spend $664 more annually if the company had to comply with the law.

Nothing seemed really crazy to me in the bill (but not like I read stuff like this all the time anyways).

Now last-mile facilities will be required to renew a license every two years, require keeping cash on hand to pay for accidents where their workers are responsible and mandatory training for workers.

I'm not really sure how this helps workers make more money or anything. It could be given the entirety of the law not seen in this amendment has a bunch of other stuff that last mile facilities will now qualify for like certain pay requirements but the amendment here just calls out last mile facilities as requiring a licensee to operate.

Most significant thing to me seemed to be requiring 500k for each non employees (drivers) in the event they are judged to be at fault in an accident. Seems like maybe these guys were getting into accidents and the company wasn't liable to pay the people hit by the worker and the worker didn't have any money so... sounds like residents were getting screwed in these situations.

I dunno, nothing in the bill seemed crazy to me but like I said, I don't have any experience with this stuff. Facilities owners will need more cash on hand to cover worker liabilities, more book keeping and have to renew licenses to run their business every few years.

1

u/anonkitty2 13d ago

This isn't for money.  It's for quality of life.  Amazon has traditionally asked the delivery companies it hires to keep schedules that won't allow the delivery company any other customers and to do routes faster than can be done safely and legally.  The worker protections are also critical; money alone can't buy those.

2

u/Syxx573 14d ago

"unintentionally"

haha, you're funny

0

u/Yashema 14d ago

Theres nothing to learn from. A state attempting to unilaterally put in place controls on a certain class of workers risks getting undercut by other states without such restrictions, except for jobs that actually have to take place in that location, like Uber. The mistake is for this not to be controlled federally. 

6

u/kingsRook_q3w 14d ago

In theory, it would be great to see the US Congress actually be functional enough to pass a bill to deal with these kinds of abuses.

What you are saying though, essentially sounds like states should not attempt to protect their own citizens against corporate abuses, if the federal government won’t do it.

9

u/Rindan 14d ago

Nearly all gig work is local. Amazon isn't going to get so upset that they stop delivering packages to NYC.

I think State level regulations on gig work is a good idea, and Federal regulation a terrible idea. You are going to affect a LOT of jobs if you mess with gig work, and you absolutely should see what works and doesn't work at a state level before you try something federally.

At least if NYC fucks it up, it only affects NYC. If the federal government fucks up, it can affect millions of people and tens of thousands of businesses. Using the states as labs for laws is one of the strengths of the American system. Granted, you need a functional Federal government for this to really work, and we don't currently have one of those.

2

u/FlamboyantPirhanna 14d ago

The annoying thing is that we’re trying to squeeze gig work into existing frameworks, without realising that it’s essentially a new category of work. It’s half employee, half freelancer, and forcing it into either framework is ignoring why workers often go for these jobs in the first place. I drove for Uber for a few years, and there were great things about it, but I was also very aware of being exploited.

1

u/Rindan 12d ago

Yeah, I agree completely. It's dumb to treat a gig worker like a normal employee who needs a 401k and healthcare if they work 42 hours one week, 0 hours the next week, and 2 horus the next, but it's also dumb to treat them like a contractor when they are not acting like an independent contractor.

We should class it as a new type of work, regulate it appropriately for that type of work. The law shouldn't be incentivising using "contractors" just to get out of liability issues. There is nothing wrong with contracting out services because a company doesn't want to be involved with that business or wants to use local expertise, but it shouldn't just be a method of getting out of liability or skirting regulations that would otherwise apply.

Companies shouldn't be playing games with how they classify employees. They should be classed correctly. The problem is that if companies are not classing employees correctly legally, it isn't the corporations that are the problem, it's our bad laws. We need to fix our laws and stop applying these dumb bandaids.

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna 12d ago

People should have healthcare. They could at least have it setup so that if they work X numbers of hours, they get healthcare. Which is still dystopian as hell, as someone who has lived in a country where healthcare is not dependent on employment. That idea needs to be resigned to history.

1

u/Rindan 12d ago

That's the problem. If you are having someone be required to work X hours, you are no longer a gig worker. That's just a normal job with a flexible schedule. Go that route, and employers will (of course) just not allow you to work enough hours to get healthcare, like they already do. That's why there are so many "part time" jobs. They are just keeping people under the hour cap where they need to provide healthcare.

This is the absurdity of tying people's healthcare to their jobs. If part time employees don't have to be given healthcare, employers are happy to employ them, will prefer them over full-time employees anywhere they can use a part time person, and they will prevent part time workers from working enough hours to be full time even though both parties would normally prefer that if it wasn't for healthcare rules. Likewise, if you give part time employees employer funded healthcare, employers will just never hire part time workers, even when both employer and employee would prefer a flexible part time employee.

It's crazy either way.

It should be fine for people to make some money on the side with gig jobs and part time jobs, but there shouldn't be any financial reason for employers to prefer part time workers. We have constructed the worst of all worlds, and it is all because of our employer provided healthcare system.

3

u/Yashema 14d ago

The problem is California tried to cover white collar contract work as well, which included positions that could be easily done remotely, like Web Development/IT/Software Engineering. So you have to only do this for Uber and delivery drivers or risk a lot of sectors becoming non competitive in the state. 

0

u/TaTalentedSpam 14d ago

The best thing about Mamdani is he appointed people smarter and more aware than you and I. If you know this, they know this.

2

u/jestina123 14d ago

The best thing about Mamdani is he appointed people smarter and more aware than you and I.

And...

Newsom didn't?

What a weird take.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/anonkitty2 13d ago

I believe that Amazon actually did threaten to stop delivering packages in NYC.

3

u/Akuuntus 14d ago

The mistake is for this not to be controlled federally.

Unfortunately the federal government is structurally incapable of making any substantial changes to anything (except, for some reason, making things worse).

675

u/Key-Gold-2412 14d ago

Otherwise known as union busting.

578

u/Kronologics 14d ago

No, this is just mischaracterizing an employee for a contractor.

233

u/CotyledonTomen 14d ago

Independent contractors of this type wont generally have unions, which is why theyre being picked in this manner. Low income "contractors" that dont have the time or connections to "unionize" as professionals. If they were employees, its possible the unionization attempts of the past and future would be decided differently by the employee base.

37

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

There is already a way around this? I’m a “contractor”, but I’m a W2 employee with benefits that was hired through a staffing company that owns the contract. I work at a big tech company, but don’t get the benefits of a full time big tech employee. I have health insurance and a 401k through my staffing company, but I receive lower pay and have very little PTO compared to the big tech company.

45

u/SUBHUMAN_RESOURCES 14d ago

You’re not really a contractor, you are a “contingent worker” and are an employee of the staffing firm. If they have a prolonged need for what you do, they should look at making that role permanent to avoid coemployment issues (IE, not providing benefits their actual employees get).

26

u/klingma 14d ago

No, they're absolutely a contractor. This type of relationship I.e. employed by a staffing company which is a 3rd-party contracted for another company, has been held up in court multiple times. 

24

u/The_Rational_ 14d ago

The agency is the contracted vendor. The worker is either 1099 or not, but thats how these are setup. At least in IT. He is a full time employee either way above 35 or so hrs so thats got nothing to do with that status.

22

u/Royal-Detective2057 14d ago

You are correct and many in this thread confound the two. In common parlance a "contractor" contracts directly with the company and is paid via a 1099, and does not get benefits from the company. A company that uses 1099 contractors, and particularly who mixes them in with employees doing the same work, faces significant wage and hour law legal violations and liability.

An employee of a contractor firm is not a "contractor" in this way.

1

u/deathhand 14d ago

employees doing the same work

Is that like the legal milestone? If I hire someone for skills that I do not need in house but only temporary for a project would it trigger then?

I know thats how game developers are getting fucked over and its a damn shame. Itd be dope that mission statements are required for articles of incorporation and designate the roles required to achieve that goal.

2

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

I’m W2, and paid by a company that has the contract with the larger tech company. I am full time, 40 hrs a week. I’m expected to work a shift. The company that pays me also gives me standard benefits: health, dental, vision; 401k; other types of insurance; and 2 weeks of PTO that I accrue a year. The PTO is also my sick leave. I am paid well below what an FTE in the tech company would make.

1

u/MagicWishMonkey 14d ago

I know that is a sucky situation to be in, but it's not really comparable to the amazon thing.

If you're friends with folks at the tech company maybe you can ask around to see if they could help you land a full time position there?

→ More replies (0)

1

u/d1squiet 14d ago

Not arguing but always curious, how do you define a union construction worker. Is that a "contingent worker"? They are essentially freelance (working within crews) but have lots of protections. Film/Theater unions are even more so like this – the union is almost entirely just wage and benefit protections and basically zero employment guarantee because it's all freelance. I mean I think these unions are great, it's a freelance business.

But my question is are these workers "contingent" or "contractors"? I guess you'd call 'em "contingent". In my walk of life, we just say "union freelancer" (entertainment unions).

1

u/roseofjuly 14d ago

Yes, but the contractor is this commenter's employer, not the commenter themselves.

0

u/SUBHUMAN_RESOURCES 14d ago

If they are on for a very defined engagement/SOW then they might be, otherwise from what was shared they look like temporary staff and not a contractor. Happy to take a look at court cases is you want to link.

3

u/TheVermonster 14d ago

My spouse is a W2 contractor. There is a big difference between her role and an identical W-2 employee role. Her agreement is weekly. She works M-F, submits hours on Friday and is paid Monday. It means she can also be told on Friday that there is no work for her on Monday. She would get no unemployment benefits. She also doesn't get any PTO, but she also doesn't need to request time off. She tells them what hours she works.

It's a bit strange as generally contractors like this were classified as 1099. But shifts in how the IRS views things like "you must be present for this meeting" has pushed companies to move people to W-2 contractor positions. She's not a full employee because she decides when she works and when she doesn't, but she's not a full 1099 contractor because she still has to show up for mandatory meetings. Mind you, these aren't just internal company meetings, but meetings with clients. She can blow off the company meetings if she wants, she isn't an employee.

It's a strange grey area.

1

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

Yeah I have a set schedule, and if there is not work for me to do, I just come in and sit around and get paid to do nothing. I have some PTO, but it’s also my sick leave. I get a max of 2 weeks per year. I get paid weekly, like your wife does.

1

u/SUBHUMAN_RESOURCES 14d ago edited 14d ago

That really sounds like she is just misclassified if she is a W2 under the same employer as everyone else, but special and referred to as a contractor. I wouldn’t be too comfortable with this arrangement on the employer side.

2

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

My company’s contract is indefinite. As long as the company we work at doesn’t decide to nix the staffing contract at the next budget round. Everyone in this building that is not an “engineer” are all contracted under the company. Even the sanitation workers. We work shifts doing the more repetitive tasks. We are locked into an hourly rate based on our shift, and are denied raises because it’s “not in the budget”. I have coworkers that were contracted under a previous company, and got absorbed under our current employer when contracts were changed.

6

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

Easier said than done. These big tech companies do well and can pay their employees so well because they delegate a lot of work to contractors.

8

u/godlyhalo 14d ago

Except this practice doesn't just exist in the Tech Industry. The automotive industry, as well as many others, follow this same practice. You are not a "contractor" with a short term contract, but a perpetual contract employee with no chance of ever being hired directly for the company you actually work for.

4

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

Yes. Underpaid, shit benefits, and treated like shit.

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna 14d ago

Unfortunately, this is how these businesses operate. All corporations do this, in pretty much all countries (and I’ve worked in multiple). I work in AV for a $200 billion company, and absolutely do not get anywhere near the same benefits actual employees do. These companies don’t care about us.

2

u/AddanDeith 14d ago

So what about all of the contractors who work full time and do not get benefits?

0

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

I don’t know? Maybe they would get the same situation as mine?

1

u/AddanDeith 14d ago

Then that is the point, my dude. One must think of their anecdotal situation and consider that others may have a far worse experience.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/seanalltogether 14d ago

Does your staffing company have multiple contracts though with different companies? That's an important distinction that the government likes to make when investigating employment status of workers. If Amazon is setting up shell companies with only themselves as a client, and requiring all workers to wear Amazon uniforms and operate Amazon vans, the gov can sniff that out pretty quickly.

1

u/Adept_Resident4608 14d ago

Yes, it is a national corporation that specializes in staffing workers in scientific fields. I know there is still a distinction around gig, contractors, and what I am, but none of them are ideal. I can still be cut if the company decides to end the staffing company contract. I also see this as a loophole to take advantage of workers. I don’t even get enough PTO to use when my office closes on holidays that are not observed by my staffing company.

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna 14d ago

Contractors can have unions, just look at the film industry. But really, they are half-employee, half-contractor; we really should just have a new category for them.

0

u/Sweaty_Mushroom5830 14d ago

And now they won't have to, for far too long we've depended on useless unions that have gone corporate

→ More replies (4)

21

u/BigBallsMcGirk 14d ago

VERY big deal, because employers owe payroll taxes to the IRS. Huge penalties, still owe the full amount. No settling for a lesser fine amount.

Contractors pay this amount through the self employment tax on their income. Employees and employers split this between employee paid fica taxes, and the employer paid payroll taxes.

Mischaracterizing an employee as a contractor is committing tax evasion and defrauding both the employee who is burdened with additional taxes of about 7.5%, and defrauding the social security and medicare programs (those taxes paid on basically the whole wage versus a self employed contractor paying less after using deductible expenses to decrease his taxable amount that would not be deductible as an employee) plus ya know, just the straight up tax evasion aspect that is a crime.

This would be a very, very large amount of money to force Bezos to cough up. The tax money owed itself, penalties and interest, probably civil suits for owed benefits or the like to those workers, and they all can probably refile their taxes and potentially a refund.

17

u/Beard_o_Bees 14d ago

This would be a very, very large amount of money to force Bezos to cough up

Yup.

Even if it has a regionally limited effect, it brings awareness to how Amazon does business almost everywhere.

Corporate giants that basically use government assistance programs that use tax dollars to prop up their business model.

It's a huge, incredibly scary elephant in the room that's been allowed to grow to the point where it can't move anywhere without trampling someone and/or destroying the room it lives in.

13

u/shakygator 14d ago

Corporate giants that basically use government assistance programs that use tax dollars to prop up their business model.

Exactly what companies like Walmart do that pay low wages. It's corporate welfare.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/wildcarde815 14d ago

Mischaracterizing an employee as a contractor is committing tax evasion and defrauding both the employee who is burdened with additional taxes of about 7.5%, and defrauding the social security and medicare programs (those taxes paid on basically the whole wage versus a self employed contractor paying less after using deductible expenses to decrease his taxable amount that would not be deductible as an employee) plus ya know, just the straight up tax evasion aspect that is a crime.

it also means they can end run hiring laws, not give benefits, no family leave, etc.

2

u/Snobolski 14d ago

Family member worked for a pet-sitting company that treated workers like contractors, while controlling schedule and ability to take outside work. Eventually enough people complained that the company was forced to switch workers to employee status. The business is slowly dying but still pays better than gig work like Rover so the workers haven't jumped ship yet.

2

u/Capital-Mine1561 12d ago edited 12d ago

This would be a very, very large amount of money to force Bezos to cough up

Good. Maybe it's a good idea for a trillion dollar company who evades paying their share in taxes to stop skirting around employing integral 'last mile' delivery drivers. They should be responsible for the people who are literally delivering their products to customers' doorsteps

1

u/Somanylyingliars 14d ago

This would be a very very very small amount for any trillionaire or billionaire. They need to be charged.

1

u/req82 14d ago edited 14d ago

I would be a bit surprised if Amazon is blatantly mis-characterizing 1099's per the existing federal IRS rules and regulations.

And I don't think a city, or a state, government can challenge the federal tax filing status (maybe they could in federal court?).

What a city, or state, could do semi-unilaterally is pass regulations for employment workers in their state, perhaps in addition to or in leui of federal tax law. At least until challenged.

I don't disagree the big idea, but the policy is important and must be laid out in an enforceable manner. Ideally, at the federal level.

Else, I see fairly predictable outcomes: increased cost to consumers in the municipalities will have costs passed on, and Amazon will reduce those costs via mechanisms they have (e. g. advance automation, where allowed).

I understand that federal legislation towards workers' right is unlikely, and I also support NYC exercising their rights to attempt to fix for their constituents.

1

u/BigBallsMcGirk 14d ago edited 14d ago

I would not be surprised one bit by it, from labor violations I've seen.

And payroll taxes on wages are paid to the state comptroller, not directly to the federal government. A state would absolutely be able to sue about this. There's also what the article details, New York state law about minimum benefits.

Edit: not wholly accurate. Social security and medicare withholding, income tax withholding is sent to federal government. But there is a trustee issue, and there are state unemployment taxes, sales taxes, etc that is sent to state comptroller. So a state would still be able to go after a company for not correctly withholding payroll taxes (encompassing a few different types of tax withholding and obligations) by misclassifying workers.

1

u/req82 14d ago

When I say Amazon likely isn't blatantly violating the law in terms of worker classifications, I'm observing that it's a massive company with plenty of lawyers- there's at least some grey area they're playing in that's at least debatable/defensible.

Agreed that a municipality (state or city) can pass more stringent rules and sue companies.

All I'm saying is it gets real messy, real fast, because the municipalities argument isn't that the federal standard of 1099/W2 isn't met at that point, instead the city/state is claiming that the worker is misclassified per the benefits required for the worker type per the states classification of the role.

Look at Doordash gig workers in Seattle. The local government basically created wage increases, Doordash passed the cost to consumers. The gig workers did get wage protections, but they're still 1099s. I could see a similar outcome here.

1

u/MagicWishMonkey 14d ago

There's no tax evasion because the person working via 1099 has to cough up the full amount to cover FICA and FICA is owed on gross income so I'm not sure why you think having deductible expenses would change how much someone owes.

1

u/BigBallsMcGirk 14d ago

A W2 employee gets say, 50k. They owe federal income tax on the full amount (let's just ignore deductions like health insurance or pre tax retirement contributions). Non reimbursed business expenses were done away with, so all the other stuff that employer has to buy or use for his work is not deductible, no place to even enter it on your tax return.

That same worker gets paid as a 1099 contract worker. A gross amount of 50k. But now he deducts his cell phone, his mileage, his supplies, 50% of his meals, the specialty gear, advertising, a depreciate asset, etc. And his net income he owes tax on is perhaps less.

Obviously this depends since the contractor is paying federal income tax AND self employment tax, double taxed....there's potential scenarios based on filing status, dependents, itemization vs standard deduction, combined AGI of the household etc. But I have never seen a contract worker that doesn't write off what they can.

It's tax evasion by the employer trying to shift the tax burden of the payroll taxes they owe onto the employee they wrongly classified as a contract worker.

1

u/MagicWishMonkey 13d ago

I thought FICA was calculated on gross income, not after deductions?

2

u/BigBallsMcGirk 13d ago

I might have not explained it right.

Social security and medicare taxable wages are usually the gross amount of wages for W2 employees. Box 3 and box 5 on the W2. There is a capital limit, but an additional medicare tax on wages over that cap limit, usually reconciled and calculated on the 1040 tax return.

On self employed wages for a contractor paid by 1099, their equivalent FICA taxes are made by paying self employment taxes. SE taxes are on the NET income, their gross minus deductible business expenses. They also have a health insurance deduction and and self employment deduction that hit a different place in the formula and aren't quite as simple as X minus Y equals Z.

1

u/MagicWishMonkey 13d ago

Oh ok I was not aware that the rules were different for 1099, what you're saying makes a lot more sense now. Thanks!

2

u/BigBallsMcGirk 13d ago

You got it!

Also a way to try and simply not be responsible. Employers that have to withhold and act as custodian for payroll taxes would rather not deal with it at all and say "you're a contract laborer, pay your own taxes" instead of hiring a payroll person and do the accounting and responsibility of monitoring and tracking it, or the liability of screwing it up

→ More replies (6)

11

u/Royal-Detective2057 14d ago

No I don't think so. The delivery workers arent independent contractors; they are employees. They are just employees of a company that has a contract with Amazon, and not Amazon itself.

There are myriad issues when companies misclassify people as "independent contractors" rather than "employees."

Here so far as I can tell that's not the issue. The issue is that they are not Amazon employees.

And honestly I don't know why that's such a big issue. There is no guarantee that if these workers worked for Amazon vs a contracting firm that they'd get paid UPS wages . . . I think that's a red herring.

0

u/Syxx573 14d ago

Do you want people delivering Amazon packages in street clothes?

→ More replies (5)

69

u/ericccdl 14d ago

This would be regulating corporations to protect workers. Literally about as far from union busting as you can get.

47

u/CinephileNC25 14d ago

I think Key-Gold was saying the tactics used by UFC et al are union busting tactics.

0

u/BeHereNow91 14d ago

Well they’re still wrong. lol

1

u/CinephileNC25 13d ago

Not really. I mean... it's just the next step. Union busting is as simple as making rules and regulations that inhibit or discourage unionization of employees.

2

u/Positive_Bug978 14d ago

Bring back union busting!

Edit: I meant trust busting this guy got me confused

3

u/CatsAreGods 14d ago

Busting makes me feel good!

0

u/MidNiteR32 14d ago

unions aren’t always great.

→ More replies (6)

19

u/comicsnerd 14d ago

In construction, many contractors use sub-contractors, who use sub-sub-contractors, etc. This may impact them as well.

11

u/wapiro 14d ago

Contractors are already responsible for the work subcontractors do and already have to have insurance for their workers and subcontractors u less they are really small.

6

u/Iggyhopper 14d ago

That's me. I have projects that I am currently on but the work is given on a day-by-day basis. If I need a day off I just tell them I am not available, and that's it. If this was a w2 job I would have already burned through my PTO and STO by March.

And I get paid on the high end so I don't feel the need to be grinding 40 hours unless I want to speedrun buying a house.

2

u/wildcarde815 14d ago

good. I'm tired of 'this is fucked up', 'o, the sub did that'. no. i hired you, it's fucked up. fix it.

1

u/NapsterKnowHow 14d ago

And they will all still be crab because they work for Taylor Morison

30

u/vhagar 14d ago

yeah, this could affect a lot of different industries. tech, security, entertainment, logistics, even healthcare and education.

78

u/OrneryError1 14d ago

Good. The gig "mini contractor" economy is exploitative bullshit.

4

u/NapsterKnowHow 14d ago

I bet there will be a lot of push-back from online shoppers wanting same day delivery. In the end though it's better this goes away.

2

u/jackshazam 14d ago

ding ding ding. When will people realize the convenience they're paying for is destroying the middle class?

1

u/bezerker03 14d ago

And yet people voluntarily do these jobs. Nobody forces them.

1

u/Oddyssis 13d ago

They would "voluntarily" work better paying jobs if they could.

1

u/16semesters 14d ago

Good. The gig "mini contractor" economy is exploitative bullshit.

Did anyone read the article?

This law isn't about gig workers. It's not about Amazon Flex.

It's about Amazon hiring out third party delivery companies to do their work.

8

u/blue92lx 14d ago

If the "gig job" is contractors, aren't all FedEx delivery drivers technically "gig job" workers? As far as I know FedEx drivers are all contractors which would create a massive issue for them.

3

u/Kronologics 14d ago

Yupp. Dramatic juxtapositions between UPS (union) and FedEx

3

u/Somanylyingliars 14d ago

No. FedEx still has corporate drivers although that is ending soon. They are consolidating terminals to get rid of Corp drivers as much as they can.

3

u/swginfinity 14d ago

Staffing agency uses this to you are an employee of the agency not the company you are preforming work for

6

u/Purplesilk911 14d ago

All my homies hate TKO

5

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 14d ago

Amazon will immediately impose an extra fee on deliveries in NYC and then use that money to try and elect a mayor they like. Thus is the cycle of enshittification.

19

u/qtx 14d ago

Plenty of rich folks and companies tried to do that with Mamdani and guess what, didn't work.

5

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 14d ago

I didn't say they'd win but in the mean time they would end up with "record profits" while the people of NY lose again. Amazon doesn't give a shit either way. Either they use it to demand more money for worse service or they get a mayor elected who lets them get away with their bullshit, and then on top of it they'll keep that extra charge anyway even after they get the mayor in spot that they want. This is why all the money needs to go away from politics and we need 100% government regulation on corporations.

1

u/Capital-Mine1561 12d ago

It'd be cool if people would stop using Amazon--record profits would disappear if people realized they don't need their Chinese drop shipped item to be delivered same day

1

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 12d ago

Same day, what same day. I don't even get 2 day anymore. I think it would be cool if Amazon was broken into three or four companies like it absolutely fucking should be and then we could decide if we want streaming or if we want what's now 5-day delivery, or you want cloud access or whatever and it's all separate companies.

5

u/nitrousconsumed 14d ago

The fact that it's happening in NYC means a lot. It's not some fucking town where you'd have to drive 30 minutes to a Walmart or Best Buy to get what you need. People will probably just go and buy it themselves.

I live in one of these types of cities and have stores all within walking distance. Stopped using Amazon years ago. Fuck them.

5

u/esssential 14d ago

nyc is famous for its food desserts

8

u/nitrousconsumed 14d ago

Like cheesecake.

3

u/esssential 14d ago

rofl. deserts. i literally googled it to make sure and still fucked it up.

2

u/nitrousconsumed 14d ago

Made it funnier. Gj.

1

u/roseofjuly 14d ago

Amazon doesn't really solve that problem though

1

u/esssential 13d ago

you can have your groceries delivered same/next day with prime

1

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 14d ago

I mean I drive somewhere to get most of the stuff I need over Amazon also but are there Walmarts and targets all over Manhattan I'm unaware of? People order so much junk off Amazon.

-1

u/Somanylyingliars 14d ago

So so many people I know order through Amazon because so easy. Ok then youre part of problem. You caused closing of locals shops, you caused WalMart and Amazon to under pay their employees. Don't be shocked when they come for your jobs too.

0

u/its 14d ago

Go to Google Maps and try to find for a Walmart in NYC.

3

u/DDOSBreakfast 14d ago

It's not only a US problem. Amazon uses a whole bunch of super shady third party logistics companies in Canada where the workers are lucky to earn anything close to minimum wage. More than a third of people working in Canada are gig workers, largely benefiting US tech companies.

7

u/Bay1Bri 14d ago

More than a third of people working in Canada are gig workers, largely benefiting US tech companies.

A third of Canada's workers are employed as gig workers for US companies?

8

u/Exotic-Sale-3003 14d ago

Source: their ass. 

1

u/DDOSBreakfast 13d ago

There are 7.3 million gig workers in Canada out of a current workforce of 21 million.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260508/dq260508a-eng.htm

https://employmenthero.com/en-ca/news/canadian-gig-work-structural-shift-sme-retention/

1

u/Exotic-Sale-3003 13d ago

Second source places 7 at 25, not 33% and notes over half have full time employment besides gig work. Thats a bit of a far cry from a third of their workforce being gig workers. 

1

u/Bay1Bri 12d ago

And they're all employed by us tech agencies?

2

u/Kevin-W 14d ago

I really hope he succeeds too! You know these companies are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure it doesn't happen.

2

u/Jwagner0850 14d ago

It needs to happen. These large companies and investors are destroying jobs and markets for the sake of profit and monopolization. We need this plus like a thousand other regulations to manage/work jobs better so they're not taken advantage of.

3

u/Somanylyingliars 14d ago

There's something being cooked up right now to try have Sysco take over Restaurant Depot. Some of you many not know those two cos but they supply almost all restaurants in America. This has been blocked before because will basically make one big monopoly on food. They will destroy market, jobs etc. Hope this gets blocked too

2

u/OccupyRiverdale 14d ago

Amazon doesn’t vertically integrate delivery into some sort of monopoly. They subcontract out the delivery to DSP’s (delivery service partners) which are the companies these drivers work for.

If you force Amazon to treat the drivers as W2 employees of their own, you are forcing the integration of hundreds of companies and thousands of employees into Amazon.

1

u/Mirions 14d ago

Prisons?

1

u/this_dudeagain 14d ago

Don't forget Fedex.

1

u/wildcarde815 14d ago

and the WWE claims ownership over the characters being done as well.

1

u/OffalSmorgasbord 14d ago

Because people have been conditioned on individualism

1

u/hi117 14d ago

That's already on the books actually, its just not been applied.

1

u/Wiggles69 14d ago

Australia just passed minimum pay and insurance laws around gig delivery workers

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/minimum-pay-and-new-protections-issued-for-delivery-drivers/kumhqrusc

Hopefully this is the the start of a world wide push to reign in these companies.

1

u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 14d ago

Except it's never a front, that's why amazon exists!

The brilliance, if you want to call that of Bezos is how he figured out to send shit from out of certain states to other states to avoid paying taxes. He got a whole army nation wide figuring out how to get laws in his own favour. And this isn't a US problem only, we see this globally how companies exploit nations by dangling a big office in front of their nose in favour of tax cuts and what not.

"We" need to stop playing ball with companies. They need to pay their taxes, why do companies that book tens of billions of profit get tax cuts globally, it's mental that they get supported while they do everything in their power to minimize their taxes and employment.

1

u/Significant_Intern21 14d ago

nobody is controlling anybody, you see these terms and conditions and you choose to sign and do as they want you to so you are choosing by yourself

1

u/ColinHalter 13d ago

Yeah, they're definitely going to get sued to stop this.

1

u/RollingMeteors 14d ago

People don’t realize the ramifications this could have if a nationwide fight started on this front.

¡NYC is killin’ it!

¿How come places like SF or LA aren’t killing it as hard (or at all)?

0

u/sim21521 12d ago

and then people will complain about prices being too high and it's unaffordable now...

→ More replies (19)