High-Flying Drones and Basement Wages: Alarming Trends in Package Delivery

[Omaha Steve]

http://labornotes.org/2014/09/high-flying-drones-and-basement-wages-alarming-trends-package-delivery

September 24, 2014 / Alexandra Bradbury

Their employer is the U.S. Postal Service, but a few unlucky Bay Area letter carriers were hired only to find out their job is actually delivering groceries for online retailer Amazon at 4 a.m.

It’s an experimental program being staffed with City Carrier Assistants—the lowest tier of union letter carriers, permatemps who make $15-17 an hour. To find their way in the dark they’re issued miner-style headlamps.

“Some carriers hear about the program and they quit,” says longtime letter carrier Angela Bibb-Merritt. “They were under the impression they were going to be carrying mail and working in the daytime.” She worries people could be attacked and robbed, carrying groceries around at such a lonely hour.

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Postal clerks’ work is being outsourced to low-paid Staples employees, but Staples isn't the half of it. Such companies as Amazon, Google, Walmart, and rideshare company Uber are undercutting unionized delivery jobs at every turn. Photo: Jim West, jimwestphoto.com. - See more at: http://labornotes.org/2014/09/high-flying-drones-and-basement-wages-alarming-trends-package-delivery#sthash.htxZ5vc0.dpuf


You’ll hear no such worries in the breathless tech press, abuzz about experiments in package delivery. The grocery setup is unusual in that it relies on postal workers (though the lowest-paid ones). But most of these schemes are ways to circumvent the Postal Service and UPS.

- See more at: http://labornotes.org/2014/09/high-flying-drones-and-basement-wages-alarming-trends-package-delivery#sthash.htxZ5vc0.dpuf

FULL story at link.

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