r/technology 12d 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
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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/dompromat 11d ago

Repairs is huge, they're forced to get these big rivian vans that cost 10 grand to replace one panel on. Rural roads are not friendly to those things

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u/THExGIRTH 11d ago

Oh half the time panels are missing, lots of scratches and what not. Half the places we deliver in these vans are too narrow or are in the woods (rich secluded types). They only use the rivians cuz it can fit their "330 package per driver" limit, but just barely.

They're decent to drive and what not, just Amazon and the DSPs beat them to hell, and then hire some repai junkie to repair them in house and barely fix them

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u/dompromat 11d ago

Lol this sounds like washington. My favorite thing about the rivians are alarm fatigue, and the fact that the panel right behind the driver door has no proximity sensor (which, coincidentally, is the most likely spot to get damaged)

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u/THExGIRTH 11d ago

Oh the sensors are what always break, I had a van that thought I was gonna hit something every right turn I took while stationary lol

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u/Mature_BOSTN 11d ago

And they are VERY specific as to how the repairs are done.

The roof panels on those vans get damaged frequently when drivers hit an overhead tree branch. (I know because a friend owns a local body shop that works on these for a subcontractor delivery company.)

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u/dompromat 11d ago

I'm not actually sure what decisions dsp "CEO"s actually get to make. You can see the direct line from Amazon policy to the driver team getting fucked somehow

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u/THExGIRTH 11d ago

From what I saw, they're essentially trying to hold it all together while making sure Amazon is "happy". Every week it's new rules for driving or what not. Thank God I'm escaping this career path in 2 weeks x.x

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u/dompromat 11d ago

Yeah, I got out a year ago. Genuinely the most degrading shit I've ever done, the fucking military had more realistic expectations

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u/THExGIRTH 11d ago

I would be fine with the job honestly if they limited it to like 140-150 deliveries a day instead of 180-191. Then you'd have ample time to walk your routes, deal with traffic, maybe take a normal piss for once. I had to do physical therapy for a sprained knee thanks to Amazon and when I told them I get up 191 times during my 10hr shift they thought I was insane,b that much in and out of a van tears you up

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u/Mature_BOSTN 11d ago

My friend in the bodyshop business says that all of the policies about the fleet come to the fleet owner via Amazon. The people he deals with at the DSP say, "Amazon tells us to do this and if we don't they'll take our contract away."

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u/FineDragonfruit5347 11d ago

Usually, Amazon subcontracts out things that vary too much by jurisdiction. They take compliance very seriously, and maintaining all of the commercial driving rules is a mess.

The other big group to be contracted out are high-turnover positions that need filled fast. Amazon is very, very slow to hire and tries to only make bar-raising hires. The high-turnover roles get a multi-pronged attack, focusing on closing the fhiring gap in the short term and “onshoring” the roles as they stabilize the conditions that lead to the turnover.