I've noticed this sort of thing a lot in the job market: performance or pay are directly tied to metrics resulting in employees being incentivized into odd behaviors (breaking the law, sabotaging coworkers, skipping breaks/lunch, stagtegically cancelling or avoiding work, etc). This type of management through metrics goes hand in hand with the gig economy and also temp agency/contract work.
And the people making those incentives know it! They can't always legally tell an employee to do bad/illegal things, but they sure know how to build a system where thats the only option.
Exactly, it's in the company's best interest to have people do as much as possible for as little as possible money. This is why we have worker rights, things like minimum wage and maximum working hours. As well as health coverage etc.
Or should anyway. But nope, money first, people second.
Thanks, Ctulhu, for looking out for the common man. :)
On-topic: Workers' rights have taken a backseat due to aggressive lobbying for several decades, not least in the US.
Even in countries with very strong socialist foundations unions are hollowed out to the point where entire fields like IT feel like they have no use for them. Sweden is a good example: IT professionals are sought after to the point where they currently (rightly) feel like they have no use for unions, but when they turn out to be the new factory workers they won't have an already established base to unionize on.
Maybe I'm silly to worry, but I feel like this is all a pretty big mistake.
Maybe that's because the Swedish unions did not historically unionize as much in the M&P area.
Are you actually advocating for socialism on a site centered around VC-funded tech companies that absolutely couldn’t exist in a socialist country? Awesome.
VC-backed companies do exist in socialist countries (i’m from Denmark). maybe it’s all time Hacker News readers did start arguing for socialism: self-obsession exists now in more abundance than ever and capitalism is doing everything it can to broaden the cloak of its dreadful shadow
I guess my point is, the socialist movement in the USA seems to favor things like taxing income over 1MM USD at 90ish percent. At that point, what would possibly be the point of risking a 1MM investment to only make 10% if the company doubled in value?
Our system is already structured in a way to incentivize actually reinvesting and doing stuff with that money instead of adding it to one's personal hoard -- think that but enough to actually be effective
Socialism and unions aren't the same thing. You can have unions without socialism, and socialism without unions.
it's in the company's best interest to have people do as much as possible for as little as possible money.
If you're in an industry where hiring costs are high (eg software) then it's often cheaper to keep staff happy than to recruit new ones. 'as little as possible money' is sometimes spending more now in order to save a larger sum of money you'd have to pay out on recruitment if someone left.
That said, I strongly suspect this is not the case for delivery drivers.
> but they sure know how to build a system where thats the only option.
That's also how research/PhD programs work. Sure, you aren't forced to work like a slave and sure, you don't need to endure slave wages... But your supervisors and advisors tell you that's what it takes to get that competitive advantage in a very competitive field, and if you want to get ahead in life you need to have what it takes and be a team player...
There should be laws against creating a metric-based system that clearly causes people to work for less than minimum wage and to violate standard employment conditions (e.g. required breaks.)
This type of gig is just a means to exploit poor people by one of the riches, most successful companies on the planet.
Also note that the better carriers that don’t do bullshit like this (FedEx Express, UPS) perform better and are very competitive.
I work at a place that has acquired ITIL religion for technology operations. Just like the minimum wage driver, it encourages bullshittery like this and wastes money to provide inferior service. Unfortunately, once you’ve found Jesus (aka metrics), the answer to all questions is more religion.
That is why taxi drivers are such bad drivers. They are incentivised to drive fast and run red lights.
Not to mention Wells Fargo...
Completely agree, but I would say that this is not a new gig econmy/temp contract thing but originates actually from the world of manufacturing. It's almost like a retro trend.
Manufacturing piecework has existed for hundreds of years, you're right, but there are some crucial differences.
If you're assembling widgets at home, your throughput - and hence your workload and earnings - will be about the same from day to day and from week to week. If you're sick you don't earn money - but you're not otherwise punished.
On the other hand if you're delivering for Amazon, your earnings vary with their sales, which you have no control over. And if you can't drive due to poor weather or sickness? Sometimes you owe your employer money!
I agree it's not new for companies to structure themselves to incentivises breaking the law and unsafe behaviour. What the gig economy adds is transferring business risks like poor sales, bad weather and sickness to hourly paid employees also.