Is the argument really that a couple false negatives slipping through the cracks is somehow worse than literally no system at all to tell people it's potentially disturbing content?
Really?
It won't be just a couple. If you can't trust the tags, and you can't trust the transcribers to only report truly mistagged data, then you will need human review from someone you trust before cutting people from the service.
Is the argument really that a couple false negatives slipping through the cracks is somehow worse than literally no system at all to tell people it's potentially disturbing content?
Really?
Tech companies aren’t in the business of, you know, actually doing things here.
Damn, they cant have 12 year olds transcribe court documents anymore, damn regulation.
How is anyone supose to make money with this much oversight.
I do wonder if using voice to text first, looking for any obvious red flag words or phrases and then giving it over to a transcriber to verify and clean up the text might be a good mix of technology and human work.
But that would be too expensive, better to traumatize contractors working for below minimum wage.
It does amaze me how much of the innovation in these gig jobs are just old things repackaged in an app to disguise the bad parts that made the old system not be allowed or work.
A lot of the "innovation" of the gig economy can be summed up in two words: fuck regulation.
Most frustrating is that they put a nice wrapping around those two words and instead use the other two words: "market disruption" to make it seem like they're actually not being villians.
I kind of enjoy that the companies who figured out that euphemism ran so hard with using it as a quarter-assed fig leaf that, outside of techbro circles, it seems to have almost instantly become synonymous with "this company is probably doing something awful."
Speech recognition generally breaks down on very specific language for industries and jargon/acronym type stuff. This is why legal vs medical transcriber is a thing. Words start to mean different things and this fit in sentences differently.
Speech recognition generally breaks down on very specific language for industries and jargon/acronym type stuff. This is why legal vs medical transcriber is a thing. Words start to mean different things and this fit in sentences differently.
Also, accent, microphone type, microphone position, ambient noise, lack of ambient noise, pathological speech, and children. At least we figured out how to deal with vocal track length a while ago. Somewhat.
And that's assuming the content of the recording being transcribed consists entirely of actual conventional words and not lots of instances of, say, the closed-mouth "I dunno" tritone.
Postmates and Uber have filed a complaint in California federal district court, alleging that a bill limiting how companies can label workers as independent contractors is unconstitutional. The complaint, which includes two gig workers as co-plaintiffs, was filed in U.S. District Court on Monday, days before Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) is due to go into effect on Jan. 1. It asks for a preliminary injunction against AB-5 while the lawsuit is under consideration.
The complaint argues that AB-5 violates several clauses in the U.S. and California constitutions, including equal protection because of how it classifies gig workers for ride-sharing and on-demand delivery companies compared to the exemptions it grants to workers who do “substantively identical work” in more than twenty other industries.
Owner operators have a long history of declining wages because they are stubborn and anti-union. So if they hate this bill it's probably good for them. Also truck driving is almost certainly going to be the first category of vehicle automated.
An increasing number of trucking companies are also requiring GPS tracking for contractors, which really pushes things from provider to employee.
How? The GPS only has to be active while you're on the contract. It's there to ensure that the guy is actually driving in the direction he's supposed to, and it's a safety improvement: rather than calling the driver and asking where they are, rewiring them to take their attention off the road, you can just look.
Owner operators have a long history of declining wages because they are stubborn and anti-union. So if they hate this bill it's probably good for them. Also truck driving is almost certainly going to be the first category of vehicle automated.
An increasing number of trucking companies are also requiring GPS tracking for contractors, which really pushes things from provider to employee.
How? The GPS only has to be active while you're on the contract. It's there to ensure that the guy is actually driving in the direction he's supposed to, and it's a safety improvement: rather than calling the driver and asking where they are, rewiring them to take their attention off the road, you can just look.
Also, to keep track of hours driven, because truckers often drive more than allowed and kill people because they're too tired. The GPS/logging ensures they only drive the legal maximum.
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
+1
Options
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
0
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited December 2019
I think requiring a contractor to abide by federal law does not fall within the definition of regulating behavior to the point of making them an employee.
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
That makes more sense. Companies would 100% "encourage" truckers to drive over the maximum without that.
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
The thing you're missing here, as someone with no experience in the industry, is that truckers lie, just, all the time. About everything. About shit that doesn't matter. It is therefore very important that when an owner-op says "yeah I can totally move this time-sensitive load to pick up and deliver in these windows" that you actually verify that. Because for an awful lot of trucks, the result of "oh hey I had to shut down for ten hours because I'd reached my drive-time limit, I'll be there seven hours late" is "cool, guess this entire factory shuts down while we wait because the input isn't here, that'll only cost $everything a minute." Or "wonderful, everything on that truck is now out-of-temp and worthless, please compensate me two hundred thousand dollars for this spoiled fish."
(And that's the best-case scenario. The alternative is the receiver saying "well, it's not that far out-of-temp," and distributing a load of possibly-contaminated food.)
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
The thing you're missing here, as someone with no experience in the industry, is that truckers lie, just, all the time. About everything. About shit that doesn't matter. It is therefore very important that when an owner-op says "yeah I can totally move this time-sensitive load to pick up and deliver in these windows" that you actually verify that. Because for an awful lot of trucks, the result of "oh hey I had to shut down for ten hours because I'd reached my drive-time limit, I'll be there seven hours late" is "cool, guess this entire factory shuts down while we wait because the input isn't here, that'll only cost $everything a minute." Or "wonderful, everything on that truck is now out-of-temp and worthless, please compensate me two hundred thousand dollars for this spoiled fish."
(And that's the best-case scenario. The alternative is the receiver saying "well, it's not that far out-of-temp," and distributing a load of possibly-contaminated food.)
None of that is relevant to the question asked.
+4
Options
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
The thing you're missing here, as someone with no experience in the industry, is that truckers lie, just, all the time. About everything. About shit that doesn't matter. It is therefore very important that when an owner-op says "yeah I can totally move this time-sensitive load to pick up and deliver in these windows" that you actually verify that. Because for an awful lot of trucks, the result of "oh hey I had to shut down for ten hours because I'd reached my drive-time limit, I'll be there seven hours late" is "cool, guess this entire factory shuts down while we wait because the input isn't here, that'll only cost $everything a minute." Or "wonderful, everything on that truck is now out-of-temp and worthless, please compensate me two hundred thousand dollars for this spoiled fish."
(And that's the best-case scenario. The alternative is the receiver saying "well, it's not that far out-of-temp," and distributing a load of possibly-contaminated food.)
None of that is relevant to the question asked.
Are they required to do so by federal law? No.
Is it a gigantic liability issue for the person issuing the contract if they don't? Yep!
I'm not getting taken to court because you don't want me to verify that you are where you say you are and are legally able to do the work I'm contracting you for. These are by no means unreasonable asks.
Yep, if the logs are off or shit goes down they'll go after the company, not the trucker. Also I believe there's a pile of fed and state reporting that needs the data.
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
The thing you're missing here, as someone with no experience in the industry, is that truckers lie, just, all the time. About everything. About shit that doesn't matter. It is therefore very important that when an owner-op says "yeah I can totally move this time-sensitive load to pick up and deliver in these windows" that you actually verify that. Because for an awful lot of trucks, the result of "oh hey I had to shut down for ten hours because I'd reached my drive-time limit, I'll be there seven hours late" is "cool, guess this entire factory shuts down while we wait because the input isn't here, that'll only cost $everything a minute." Or "wonderful, everything on that truck is now out-of-temp and worthless, please compensate me two hundred thousand dollars for this spoiled fish."
(And that's the best-case scenario. The alternative is the receiver saying "well, it's not that far out-of-temp," and distributing a load of possibly-contaminated food.)
None of that is relevant to the question asked.
The underlying question is whether, absent some federal requirement to share that data, a contract issuer requesting that data is exerting a level of control or monitoring that justifies employment rather than contracting.
I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
I don’t think requesting proof that you are in compliance with laws applicable to the contract, or physically capable of performance, is an unacceptable level of control for a contract issuer to exert at all.
I’m not stating how you conduct your business, or managing how your allot your hours to get the load where it needs to be. I’m simply verifying that it’s theoretically possible for you to do so legally, and that you did. The only elements of performance I’m monitoring or enforcing are legal mandates, they were never optional to begin with.
At least that would be my argument. No idea if that plays in court, I suppose.
isn't that the concern of the person taking the contract? if you want gps information and logging to ensure they only drive the legal minimum you should probably hire them on as an employee.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
The thing you're missing here, as someone with no experience in the industry, is that truckers lie, just, all the time. About everything. About shit that doesn't matter. It is therefore very important that when an owner-op says "yeah I can totally move this time-sensitive load to pick up and deliver in these windows" that you actually verify that. Because for an awful lot of trucks, the result of "oh hey I had to shut down for ten hours because I'd reached my drive-time limit, I'll be there seven hours late" is "cool, guess this entire factory shuts down while we wait because the input isn't here, that'll only cost $everything a minute." Or "wonderful, everything on that truck is now out-of-temp and worthless, please compensate me two hundred thousand dollars for this spoiled fish."
(And that's the best-case scenario. The alternative is the receiver saying "well, it's not that far out-of-temp," and distributing a load of possibly-contaminated food.)
None of that is relevant to the question asked.
The underlying question is whether, absent some federal requirement to share that data, a contract issuer requesting that data is exerting a level of control or monitoring that justifies employment whether than contracting.
I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
I don’t think requesting proof that you are in compliance with laws applicable to the contract, or physically capable of performance, is an unacceptable level of control for a contract issuer to exert at all.
I’m not stating how you conduct your business, or managing how your allot your hours to get the load where it needs to be. I’m simply verifying that it’s theoretically possible for you to do so legally, and that you did. The only elements of performance I’m monitoring or enforcing are legal mandates, they were never optional to begin with.
At least that would be my argument. No idea if that plays in court, I suppose.
There's also a pile of insurance incentives they get for more advanced tracking as it correlated with better safety. Not to mention logistical awareness for reroutes/incidents etc
Trucking has been GPS tracking since the early aughts.
Today, Judge Dolly Gee, who is presiding over the case (Lydia Olson, et al. v. State of California, et al) denied the motion.
While the ruling has no immediate impact on gig workers for better or ill, “the denial of the injunction confirms what we have long known: the arguments that Uber & Postmates are making to avoid having to comply with basic employment laws are not likely to be successful,” Veena Dubal, an associate professor of law at the University of California, Hastings, wrote to Gizmodo.
In her denial, Judge Gee details why the injunction is unnecessary, citing that AB5 does not specifically target gig work companies in particular, nor does it prevent contractors from doing whatever kind of work they want to do. Most convincingly, Judge Gee upends Uber’s have-it-both-ways strategy of arguing (publicly) that the new standard under AB5 would not be applicable to its drivers while (privately, in court) claiming such a law impairs their existing contracts with those drivers.
Last year, Shipt flooded its markets with new workers and began rolling out an algorithmic pay model in certain cities, like Seattle, that many workers say has left them scrambling to piece together gigs and took a chunk out of their paychecks, as Gizmodo reported.
An hour after tweeting, Johnson received an email from Shipt telling her that she had been “deactivated” and was not “eligible to reapply” for her job, according to an email reviewed by Motherboard. The letter provided no explanation for her removal from the app. (On gig economy apps like Uber and the like, “deactivation” is the same thing as getting fired.)
We don't know why Shipt deactivated Johnson's account, but the company has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent. In particular, on its official national Facebook group, known as the Shipt Shopper Lounge, which has more than 100,000 members, Shipt moderators selected by the company frequently censor and remove posts, turn off comments sections, and ban workers who speak out about their working conditions, according to screenshots, interviews, and other documentation provided to Motherboard. The same is true on local Facebook groups, which Shipt also monitors closely, according to workers.
Motherboard spoke to seven current Shipt workers, each of whom described a culture of retaliation, fear, and censorship online. They told Motherboard that posts asking for advice on getting higher tips and how to avoid liabilities on the job never get approved by moderators.
Shipt workers told Motherboard that customers who order from Target often seem surprised when independent contractors in plain clothes driving their personal cars show up at their homes with massive deliveries from Target. Because Shipt classifies its workers as contractors, not employees, workers pay for all of their expenses—including gas, wear and tear on their cars, and accidents—out of pocket. They say the tips on large orders from Target, sometimes with hundreds of items, can be meager.
Workers say Shipt customers often live in gated and upscale communities and that the app encourages workers to tack on gifts like thank you cards, hot cocoa, flowers, and balloons onto orders (paid for out of their own pocket) and to offer to walk customer’s dogs and take out their trash, as a courtesy. Shipt calls this kind of service “Bringing the Magic,” which can improve workers’ ratings from customers that factor into the algorithm that determines who gets offered the most lucrative orders.
Hell, they terminated people for pointing out that their new logo was a green pile of Shipt:
Last year, Shipt flooded its markets with new workers and began rolling out an algorithmic pay model in certain cities, like Seattle, that many workers say has left them scrambling to piece together gigs and took a chunk out of their paychecks, as Gizmodo reported.
An hour after tweeting, Johnson received an email from Shipt telling her that she had been “deactivated” and was not “eligible to reapply” for her job, according to an email reviewed by Motherboard. The letter provided no explanation for her removal from the app. (On gig economy apps like Uber and the like, “deactivation” is the same thing as getting fired.)
We don't know why Shipt deactivated Johnson's account, but the company has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent. In particular, on its official national Facebook group, known as the Shipt Shopper Lounge, which has more than 100,000 members, Shipt moderators selected by the company frequently censor and remove posts, turn off comments sections, and ban workers who speak out about their working conditions, according to screenshots, interviews, and other documentation provided to Motherboard. The same is true on local Facebook groups, which Shipt also monitors closely, according to workers.
Motherboard spoke to seven current Shipt workers, each of whom described a culture of retaliation, fear, and censorship online. They told Motherboard that posts asking for advice on getting higher tips and how to avoid liabilities on the job never get approved by moderators.
Shipt workers told Motherboard that customers who order from Target often seem surprised when independent contractors in plain clothes driving their personal cars show up at their homes with massive deliveries from Target. Because Shipt classifies its workers as contractors, not employees, workers pay for all of their expenses—including gas, wear and tear on their cars, and accidents—out of pocket. They say the tips on large orders from Target, sometimes with hundreds of items, can be meager.
Workers say Shipt customers often live in gated and upscale communities and that the app encourages workers to tack on gifts like thank you cards, hot cocoa, flowers, and balloons onto orders (paid for out of their own pocket) and to offer to walk customer’s dogs and take out their trash, as a courtesy. Shipt calls this kind of service “Bringing the Magic,” which can improve workers’ ratings from customers that factor into the algorithm that determines who gets offered the most lucrative orders.
Hell, they terminated people for pointing out that their new logo was a green pile of Shipt:
Last year, Shipt flooded its markets with new workers and began rolling out an algorithmic pay model in certain cities, like Seattle, that many workers say has left them scrambling to piece together gigs and took a chunk out of their paychecks, as Gizmodo reported.
An hour after tweeting, Johnson received an email from Shipt telling her that she had been “deactivated” and was not “eligible to reapply” for her job, according to an email reviewed by Motherboard. The letter provided no explanation for her removal from the app. (On gig economy apps like Uber and the like, “deactivation” is the same thing as getting fired.)
We don't know why Shipt deactivated Johnson's account, but the company has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent. In particular, on its official national Facebook group, known as the Shipt Shopper Lounge, which has more than 100,000 members, Shipt moderators selected by the company frequently censor and remove posts, turn off comments sections, and ban workers who speak out about their working conditions, according to screenshots, interviews, and other documentation provided to Motherboard. The same is true on local Facebook groups, which Shipt also monitors closely, according to workers.
Motherboard spoke to seven current Shipt workers, each of whom described a culture of retaliation, fear, and censorship online. They told Motherboard that posts asking for advice on getting higher tips and how to avoid liabilities on the job never get approved by moderators.
Shipt workers told Motherboard that customers who order from Target often seem surprised when independent contractors in plain clothes driving their personal cars show up at their homes with massive deliveries from Target. Because Shipt classifies its workers as contractors, not employees, workers pay for all of their expenses—including gas, wear and tear on their cars, and accidents—out of pocket. They say the tips on large orders from Target, sometimes with hundreds of items, can be meager.
Workers say Shipt customers often live in gated and upscale communities and that the app encourages workers to tack on gifts like thank you cards, hot cocoa, flowers, and balloons onto orders (paid for out of their own pocket) and to offer to walk customer’s dogs and take out their trash, as a courtesy. Shipt calls this kind of service “Bringing the Magic,” which can improve workers’ ratings from customers that factor into the algorithm that determines who gets offered the most lucrative orders.
Hell, they terminated people for pointing out that their new logo was a green pile of Shipt:
Last year, Shipt flooded its markets with new workers and began rolling out an algorithmic pay model in certain cities, like Seattle, that many workers say has left them scrambling to piece together gigs and took a chunk out of their paychecks, as Gizmodo reported.
An hour after tweeting, Johnson received an email from Shipt telling her that she had been “deactivated” and was not “eligible to reapply” for her job, according to an email reviewed by Motherboard. The letter provided no explanation for her removal from the app. (On gig economy apps like Uber and the like, “deactivation” is the same thing as getting fired.)
We don't know why Shipt deactivated Johnson's account, but the company has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent. In particular, on its official national Facebook group, known as the Shipt Shopper Lounge, which has more than 100,000 members, Shipt moderators selected by the company frequently censor and remove posts, turn off comments sections, and ban workers who speak out about their working conditions, according to screenshots, interviews, and other documentation provided to Motherboard. The same is true on local Facebook groups, which Shipt also monitors closely, according to workers.
Motherboard spoke to seven current Shipt workers, each of whom described a culture of retaliation, fear, and censorship online. They told Motherboard that posts asking for advice on getting higher tips and how to avoid liabilities on the job never get approved by moderators.
Shipt workers told Motherboard that customers who order from Target often seem surprised when independent contractors in plain clothes driving their personal cars show up at their homes with massive deliveries from Target. Because Shipt classifies its workers as contractors, not employees, workers pay for all of their expenses—including gas, wear and tear on their cars, and accidents—out of pocket. They say the tips on large orders from Target, sometimes with hundreds of items, can be meager.
Workers say Shipt customers often live in gated and upscale communities and that the app encourages workers to tack on gifts like thank you cards, hot cocoa, flowers, and balloons onto orders (paid for out of their own pocket) and to offer to walk customer’s dogs and take out their trash, as a courtesy. Shipt calls this kind of service “Bringing the Magic,” which can improve workers’ ratings from customers that factor into the algorithm that determines who gets offered the most lucrative orders.
Hell, they terminated people for pointing out that their new logo was a green pile of Shipt:
In short, fuck this Shipt company.
Man, what? Fuck working for free.
Oh no. They don't want you to work for free.
They want you to pay to work.
It's a core Shipt philosophy.
Wow, the red and khaki army have become some serious shitlords since I was a level 2 with them.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
It's like they took a brainstorming session of "how could we make out service stand out? No wrong answers" and then just went with it, despite the reality of needing to pay people to do work.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
It sounds like someone looked at various Uber/Lyft drivers having bottles of water and snacks in their cars and said 'how can we apply this to couriers?'
Which is, of course, fucking stupid. But I don't find it surprising.
Okay, the dog walking and trash carrying is a little bit surprising, but 'bring a snack or something to go the extra mile, just like Uber/Lyft!' sounds like the kind of thing some asshole would suggest after getting it a few times and trying to brainstorm a way to stand out.
I love dogs. I would not be super enthusiastic to abruptly care for a strangers dog, even just long enough for it to shit on a lawn. That feels like a major unnecessary risk to even suggest it. That the legal team didn't shit all over it is actually a bit surprising. What 'feel good' stories they might acquire based on good experiences could be wiped out (and then some!) if some poor driver has a dog get loose and hit by a car or something.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I'm now wondering if I should even be giving Target my in-person business
Depending on what's available in your area, I use Meijer, which is union, and Costco, which isn't union but has a reputation of treating their employees decently. I'm a little fuzzy on how good Aldi is. They seem to give their employees good benefits but also have a very high pressure environment. I figure it's still better than Walmart and Target.
It sounds like someone looked at various Uber/Lyft drivers having bottles of water and snacks in their cars and said 'how can we apply this to couriers?'
Which is, of course, fucking stupid. But I don't find it surprising.
Okay, the dog walking and trash carrying is a little bit surprising, but 'bring a snack or something to go the extra mile, just like Uber/Lyft!' sounds like the kind of thing some asshole would suggest after getting it a few times and trying to brainstorm a way to stand out.
I love dogs. I would not be super enthusiastic to abruptly care for a strangers dog, even just long enough for it to shit on a lawn. That feels like a major unnecessary risk to even suggest it. That the legal team didn't shit all over it is actually a bit surprising. What 'feel good' stories they might acquire based on good experiences could be wiped out (and then some!) if some poor driver has a dog get loose and hit by a car or something.
Also what kind of dog owners are enthused about a rando delivery driver walking their dogs?! I get that they're suggesting this service to rich assholes who probably have the dogs as status symbols they don't give a shit about, but damn.
It sounds like someone looked at various Uber/Lyft drivers having bottles of water and snacks in their cars and said 'how can we apply this to couriers?'
Which is, of course, fucking stupid. But I don't find it surprising.
Okay, the dog walking and trash carrying is a little bit surprising, but 'bring a snack or something to go the extra mile, just like Uber/Lyft!' sounds like the kind of thing some asshole would suggest after getting it a few times and trying to brainstorm a way to stand out.
I love dogs. I would not be super enthusiastic to abruptly care for a strangers dog, even just long enough for it to shit on a lawn. That feels like a major unnecessary risk to even suggest it. That the legal team didn't shit all over it is actually a bit surprising. What 'feel good' stories they might acquire based on good experiences could be wiped out (and then some!) if some poor driver has a dog get loose and hit by a car or something.
That, and letting a stranger walk my dog sounds like a good way to get my dog stolen.
I'm now wondering if I should even be giving Target my in-person business
Depending on what's available in your area, I use Meijer, which is union, and Costco, which isn't union but has a reputation of treating their employees decently. I'm a little fuzzy on how good Aldi is. They seem to give their employees good benefits but also have a very high pressure environment. I figure it's still better than Walmart and Target.
Meijer was definitely not unionized in Michigan, at least circa 2008. It was by far the shittiest place I ever worked, and I spent nearly a decade in various retail chains.
I'm now wondering if I should even be giving Target my in-person business
Depending on what's available in your area, I use Meijer, which is union, and Costco, which isn't union but has a reputation of treating their employees decently. I'm a little fuzzy on how good Aldi is. They seem to give their employees good benefits but also have a very high pressure environment. I figure it's still better than Walmart and Target.
Meijer was definitely not unionized in Michigan, at least circa 2008. It was by far the shittiest place I ever worked, and I spent nearly a decade in various retail chains.
Last year, Shipt flooded its markets with new workers and began rolling out an algorithmic pay model in certain cities, like Seattle, that many workers say has left them scrambling to piece together gigs and took a chunk out of their paychecks, as Gizmodo reported.
An hour after tweeting, Johnson received an email from Shipt telling her that she had been “deactivated” and was not “eligible to reapply” for her job, according to an email reviewed by Motherboard. The letter provided no explanation for her removal from the app. (On gig economy apps like Uber and the like, “deactivation” is the same thing as getting fired.)
We don't know why Shipt deactivated Johnson's account, but the company has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent. In particular, on its official national Facebook group, known as the Shipt Shopper Lounge, which has more than 100,000 members, Shipt moderators selected by the company frequently censor and remove posts, turn off comments sections, and ban workers who speak out about their working conditions, according to screenshots, interviews, and other documentation provided to Motherboard. The same is true on local Facebook groups, which Shipt also monitors closely, according to workers.
Motherboard spoke to seven current Shipt workers, each of whom described a culture of retaliation, fear, and censorship online. They told Motherboard that posts asking for advice on getting higher tips and how to avoid liabilities on the job never get approved by moderators.
Shipt workers told Motherboard that customers who order from Target often seem surprised when independent contractors in plain clothes driving their personal cars show up at their homes with massive deliveries from Target. Because Shipt classifies its workers as contractors, not employees, workers pay for all of their expenses—including gas, wear and tear on their cars, and accidents—out of pocket. They say the tips on large orders from Target, sometimes with hundreds of items, can be meager.
Workers say Shipt customers often live in gated and upscale communities and that the app encourages workers to tack on gifts like thank you cards, hot cocoa, flowers, and balloons onto orders (paid for out of their own pocket) and to offer to walk customer’s dogs and take out their trash, as a courtesy. Shipt calls this kind of service “Bringing the Magic,” which can improve workers’ ratings from customers that factor into the algorithm that determines who gets offered the most lucrative orders.
Hell, they terminated people for pointing out that their new logo was a green pile of Shipt:
In short, fuck this Shipt company.
Man, what? Fuck working for free.
Oh no. They don't want you to work for free.
They want you to pay to work.
It's a core Shipt philosophy.
Wow, the red and khaki army have become some serious shitlords since I was a level 2 with them.
Posts
It won't be just a couple. If you can't trust the tags, and you can't trust the transcribers to only report truly mistagged data, then you will need human review from someone you trust before cutting people from the service.
Tech companies aren’t in the business of, you know, actually doing things here.
I have 549 Rock Band Drum and 305 Pro Drum FC's
REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS
I kind of enjoy that the companies who figured out that euphemism ran so hard with using it as a quarter-assed fig leaf that, outside of techbro circles, it seems to have almost instantly become synonymous with "this company is probably doing something awful."
Also, accent, microphone type, microphone position, ambient noise, lack of ambient noise, pathological speech, and children. At least we figured out how to deal with vocal track length a while ago. Somewhat.
How? The GPS only has to be active while you're on the contract. It's there to ensure that the guy is actually driving in the direction he's supposed to, and it's a safety improvement: rather than calling the driver and asking where they are, rewiring them to take their attention off the road, you can just look.
Also, to keep track of hours driven, because truckers often drive more than allowed and kill people because they're too tired. The GPS/logging ensures they only drive the legal maximum.
Electronic logging is actually required by Federal law.
is it required to be shared with the person who is contracting the trucker though?
That makes more sense. Companies would 100% "encourage" truckers to drive over the maximum without that.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
The thing you're missing here, as someone with no experience in the industry, is that truckers lie, just, all the time. About everything. About shit that doesn't matter. It is therefore very important that when an owner-op says "yeah I can totally move this time-sensitive load to pick up and deliver in these windows" that you actually verify that. Because for an awful lot of trucks, the result of "oh hey I had to shut down for ten hours because I'd reached my drive-time limit, I'll be there seven hours late" is "cool, guess this entire factory shuts down while we wait because the input isn't here, that'll only cost $everything a minute." Or "wonderful, everything on that truck is now out-of-temp and worthless, please compensate me two hundred thousand dollars for this spoiled fish."
(And that's the best-case scenario. The alternative is the receiver saying "well, it's not that far out-of-temp," and distributing a load of possibly-contaminated food.)
None of that is relevant to the question asked.
Are they required to do so by federal law? No.
Is it a gigantic liability issue for the person issuing the contract if they don't? Yep!
I'm not getting taken to court because you don't want me to verify that you are where you say you are and are legally able to do the work I'm contracting you for. These are by no means unreasonable asks.
The underlying question is whether, absent some federal requirement to share that data, a contract issuer requesting that data is exerting a level of control or monitoring that justifies employment rather than contracting.
I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
I don’t think requesting proof that you are in compliance with laws applicable to the contract, or physically capable of performance, is an unacceptable level of control for a contract issuer to exert at all.
I’m not stating how you conduct your business, or managing how your allot your hours to get the load where it needs to be. I’m simply verifying that it’s theoretically possible for you to do so legally, and that you did. The only elements of performance I’m monitoring or enforcing are legal mandates, they were never optional to begin with.
At least that would be my argument. No idea if that plays in court, I suppose.
There's also a pile of insurance incentives they get for more advanced tracking as it correlated with better safety. Not to mention logistical awareness for reroutes/incidents etc
Trucking has been GPS tracking since the early aughts.
Hell, they terminated people for pointing out that their new logo was a green pile of Shipt:
In short, fuck this Shipt company.
Man, what? Fuck working for free.
Oh no. They don't want you to work for free.
They want you to pay to work.
It's a core Shipt philosophy.
What in the most wily of fucks?
Wow, the red and khaki army have become some serious shitlords since I was a level 2 with them.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Wait a few years, and employees contractors will be required to offer to buy customers who lack pets a dog and then offer to walk it. As a courtesy.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
The introduction to Fink Industries is a routine go-to for illustrating what the gig economy is.
Which is, of course, fucking stupid. But I don't find it surprising.
Okay, the dog walking and trash carrying is a little bit surprising, but 'bring a snack or something to go the extra mile, just like Uber/Lyft!' sounds like the kind of thing some asshole would suggest after getting it a few times and trying to brainstorm a way to stand out.
I love dogs. I would not be super enthusiastic to abruptly care for a strangers dog, even just long enough for it to shit on a lawn. That feels like a major unnecessary risk to even suggest it. That the legal team didn't shit all over it is actually a bit surprising. What 'feel good' stories they might acquire based on good experiences could be wiped out (and then some!) if some poor driver has a dog get loose and hit by a car or something.
Depending on what's available in your area, I use Meijer, which is union, and Costco, which isn't union but has a reputation of treating their employees decently. I'm a little fuzzy on how good Aldi is. They seem to give their employees good benefits but also have a very high pressure environment. I figure it's still better than Walmart and Target.
Also what kind of dog owners are enthused about a rando delivery driver walking their dogs?! I get that they're suggesting this service to rich assholes who probably have the dogs as status symbols they don't give a shit about, but damn.
That, and letting a stranger walk my dog sounds like a good way to get my dog stolen.
Meijer was definitely not unionized in Michigan, at least circa 2008. It was by far the shittiest place I ever worked, and I spent nearly a decade in various retail chains.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
It was when I worked there in 2003.
Is this actually a Target thing? It read to me like Target was just an example the article used.