Amazon orders 20000 vans

[bacha29]

You need to put 2 and 2 together. They don't use salt in places like Phoenix where it doesn't snow. But in places like Flagstaff, they might. You said that in AZ the vans wouldn't get rusted. My point was that anywhere it snows INCLUDING AZ, you are more likely to get rust. Being in AZ doesn't mean you are safe, no matter what you think.

And since I am 63 and happily retired, I am not interested in working for anyone, including Amazon. But when some troll posts that Amazon contractors are going to be a target for unionizing efforts, in a comparison to fedex, I pointed out that there was no difference. You keep posting how terrible the deal looks to you, and claiming fedex is better because of this or that phony reason. When I see phoniness or mistakes in judgement I am going to point it out. If someone is choosing between a fedex ISP or Amazon ADP, i want them to make a decision based on more knowledge, and not decide based on fake 'propritary rights' that an Amazon ADP may or may not have. Even if not contractually allowed, an ADP might be able to 'hire' someone to manage his operation for him, and could even accept a 'fee' for it. And with needing to pay for propritary rights to get in, the value is really only the difference between current ISP contract value, and possible appreciation, possible depreciation, or just breaking even when you want out.

If you need to pay $150 k to buy into being an ISP, and 10 years later sell for $175k, you really made nothing considering you could have put that money into stocks, bonds, or even a savings account. If you pay nothing for an ADP position ($10k) and walk away with nothing 10 years later, but put your $150 into even something like real estate, you come out ahead. Proprietary rights you need to buy are not worth much. You seem like you are still in the mindset of 1003, or 2001, when fedex was giving away areas, and you didn't need to pay. Those days are gone, for all but the rarest cases, and you could LOSE all the proprietary rights with the next iteration of fedex ground.

And leasing directly from Amazon, at a wholesale vehicle value, that you can walk away from if you leave, in my opinion is MUCH better than being stuck with vehicles that you almost invariably will owe more on than the vehicle is worth should you want to walk away, or if you lose your contract, or if fedex changes how ground operates again.

Less risk, less investment for a potential $300k+ income is better than putting out potentially hundreds of thousands of your savings for a fedex ISP position where you operate 40 routes.

IF I was choosing now, or even if fedex was still 'giving away' routes, I would choose Amazon. Fedex has proven to be a deceitful partner. Sounds like you prefer a known bad partner to a potential good partner. I prefer the opposite.

GT is right Dmac. You have no idea as to the specific details of the lease or the terms of the delivery contract. Matters such as how will those trucks be dispatched and to where they will go or if you'll get fuel supplement. What if there's not enough packages to go around and if so who will be left short changed? You talk about all the economies of operation but right now they're simply generalizations with no specific terms but what is for certain is that they are designed to drive down settlements.

It's all in the specific details and terms set forth in the unilaterally drafted contract AMZN will set down in front of you and like similar contracts it will favor them and you're only going to get just so much money based on what they think your costs of operation should be . Rest assured it too will be based on optimum operating economies.

And by the way those ADP driver employees will operate under the FLSA and well as Taft Hartley which affords them the opportunity to seek collective bargaining rights. Rest assured if the IBT sees packages leaving their members hands and going over to ADP employees working for peanuts they will do everything they can to become a disrupter in Bezos little game.

 

[dmac1]

GT is right Dmac. You have no idea as to the specific details of the lease or the terms of the delivery contract. Matters such as how will those trucks be dispatched and to where they will go or if you'll get fuel supplement. What if there's not enough packages to go around and if so who will be left short changed? You talk about all the economies of operation but right now they're simply generalizations with no specific terms but what is for certain is that they are designed to drive down settlements.

It's all in the specific details and terms set forth in the unilaterally drafted contract AMZN will set down in front of you and like similar contracts it will favor them and you're only going to get just so much money based on what they think your costs of operation should be . Rest assured it too will be based on optimum operating economies.

And by the way those ADP driver employees will operate under the FLSA and well as Taft Hartley which affords them the opportunity to seek collective bargaining rights. Rest assured if the IBT sees packages leaving their members hands and going over to ADP employees working for peanuts they will do everything they can to become a disrupter in Bezos little game.

You have no clue either. Yet you are saying fedex is better because of 'proprietary rights' and drivers being able to unionize. Those are weak arguments. For some reason you obviously have some grudge against Amazon. Maybe they turned you down for a job????

 

[Brownsocks]

20,000 beat all to hell van's going nose first into driveways because their drivers are dumbasses.
20,000 drivers worth of soaking wet packages on rainy days because they dont know what a rain bag even is.
I hope they put 100,000 Van's on road because they make us look good.

 

[dmac1]

I have seen now numerous times people saying you’ll be able to just walk away from these leases. That is very hard for me to believe and I doubt that is going to happen. I can almost guarantee there will be terminology of having to fulfill 12 month commitment or something. If that does happen to be the case there would still be significant potential of loss on a 10-40 van commitment. Who knows what they will do though

I assume the terms will be somewhat the same as industry standards where truckers lease the vehicle form the shipper they haul for. Yes, if you walk away without a valid reason, you might be liable for a portion of the lease payment. But if they(Amazon) terminates the agreement, you would be out of the lease unless they had some very good proof that you violated the agreement. With fedex, you can be out tomorrow, and be stuck for absolutely no fault of your own, or fault of your drivers. Most truckers or trucking firms do NOT have to commit to a 12 month term if they don't like the way the work is going. Fedex is so out of the ordinary in the contract they had. I think Bezos is modelling after what are normally long haul contracts from what I've seen. None of those have 'proprietary rights' either that for some reason bacha thinks are the cat's meow.

If fedex changes business models, like maybe going to an employee workforce, maybe because of future court rulings, they have the right to just eliminate you from the payroll, with EXTREMELY limited compensation to you. I personally would NEVER pay anyone to buy the right to service a contract that can be voided so easily. With Amazon, you have much less at risk compared to buying a fedex ISP 'business', which is pretty much all I am claiming.

 

[dmac1]

20,000 beat all to hell van's going nose first into driveways because their drivers are dumbasses.
20,000 drivers worth of soaking wet packages on rainy days because they dont know what a rain bag even is.
I hope they put 100,000 Van's on road because they make us look good.

Ground drivers are the BEST-

best trained, at least two weeks,
best educated, should speak english
best motivated- that high pay and benefit package is unmatched in the industry.

Why Amazon would be any worse, I don't know, and don't know if they COULD be any worse. If pay is comparable or even a tiny bit higher at Amazon compared to ground, ground ISPs are going to lose a LOT of drivers- about 20,000 maybe.

 

[rod]

You couldn't kill an old Econoline if you tried. That straight 6 engine would run forever. I never saw any trans. problems either. E4 was a great transmission. Tupac is mistaken on that. It wouldn't serve a full route today but 35 years ago it served us well. Out FO routes still use that type van today.

300 ci six cylinder Ford Econoline--couldn't kill it. They did tend to kill your back though not being able to stand up in them. I remember thinking I had died and went to heaven the first time I drove one of the new Econoline Bubbletops. A couple of the guys ordered their new Ford pickups with the 300 six just so they could raid the mechanics parts cabinet for points and plugs. Cheap MF'ers. Back then every truck in the building (6 cubes, 4 cubes and the Econolines) all had that 300 six Ford motor in them.

 

[Oldfart]

300 ci six cylinder Ford Econoline--couldn't kill it. They did tend to kill your back though not being able to stand up in them. I remember thinking I had died and went to heaven the first time I drove one of the new Econoline Bubbletops. A couple of the guys ordered their new Ford pickups with the 300 six just so they could raid the mechanics parts cabinet for points and plugs. Cheap MF'ers. Back then every truck in the building (6 cubes, 4 cubes and the Econolines) all had that 300 six Ford motor in them.

Yep Tupac is full of it. They retired the Econoline at our station in the mid 80's and went to the Dodge cargo van. POS. Then they tried the baby Gruman that the front ends fell out of. Then the transmission eating Aeromate.

 

[MAKAVELI]

Yep Tupac is full of it. They retired the Econoline at our station in the mid 80's and went to the Dodge cargo van. POS. Then they tried the baby Gruman that the front ends fell out of. Then the transmission eating Aeromate.

FedEx was using that old Econoline well into the 2000's. You're full of .

 

[vantexan]

Yep Tupac is full of it. They retired the Econoline at our station in the mid 80's and went to the Dodge cargo van. POS. Then they tried the baby Gruman that the front ends fell out of. Then the transmission eating Aeromate.

There you go talking about way back in the 80's and complaining again. Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Oldfart]

FedEx was using that old Econoline well into the 2000's. You're full of .

Do you work at MY STATION? If you will get a literate person to read you my post, I clearly said Fedex quit using the econoline at MY station in the mid 80's. I have no idea what went on in the land of Tupac. Need to lay quit hitting the pipe.

 

[bacha29]

You have no clue either. Yet you are saying fedex is better because of 'proprietary rights' and drivers being able to unionize. Those are weak arguments. For some reason you obviously have some grudge against Amazon. Maybe they turned you down for a job????

I never once said that the FXG contract was better than AMZN. What I'm getting at is that it would appear to be a case of AMZN taking an old contract (RPS) cleaning it up a bit in the hope that it would pass IRS scrutiny. This initiative is being undertaken in the aftermath of Bezos constant belly aching about shipping costs and think s that he's found a way do get the job done even cheaper than the heavily discounted rates the Big 3 are already giving him.It should therefore create a high level of suspicion as to whether or not they would get enough money out of him to cover all of the contractual obligations a AMZN contractor will be getting himself into. Unfortunately there will be some starry eyed " entrepreneur" will assume that they will.
Sure it might be ok provided that you're fortunate enough to land in an area advantageous enough that it affords you the opportunity to be able to operate within the narrow cost parameters AMZN has established but not everyone is going land there. It therefore brings up the question of who will get the good area and who's going to get the not so good area and what settlement adjustment they're willing to make in order to keep somebody in those less attractive work areas.

 

[59 Dano]

Bingo! FedEx is tight with a nickel if it has anything to do with necessities.

You mean you were paid generously??

 

[Cactus]

You mean you were paid generously??

Weak. Just like you. FedEx’s Employee Of The Weak.

 

[59 Dano]

Weak. Just like you. FedEx’s Employee Of The Weak.

I'm your employee?

 

[Cactus]

I'm your employee?

Sorry, (well, not really) that one sailed straight over your head.

 

[RPSman]

Econolines have transmission problems, less room, no shelves, and no bulkhead. I'll take a new Sprinter over that POS any day.

They need to go way back, and have the Grumman Olson Kurbmaster P400 manufactured again. I got one brand new in 1994. Changed oil and transmission fluid regularly, did a lot of preventative maintenance. I took it to 302,000 miles; it only came in on a wrecker 4 times, fuel pump, smog pump, timing gear & when Billy Bubba dropped a frozen 1000 lb hay bale in front of it. It was an actual step van, had shelves, bulkhead door, and double swing out rear doors. Was built on a Ford E-350 chassis with a 4.9 six cylinder & a C6 transmission. The P & D ( the real RPS boys-not these CSP & ISP wimps) contractor that I sold it to took it to 387,000 miles before he had to replace the engine.

 

[RPSman]

I have seen now numerous times people saying you’ll be able to just walk away from these leases. That is very hard for me to believe and I doubt that is going to happen. I can almost guarantee there will be terminology of having to fulfill 12 month commitment or something. If that does happen to be the case there would still be significant potential of loss on a 10-40 van commitment. Who knows what they will do though

Ask the RGA (Roadway Global Air) contractors who got stuck with trucks when RGA was shut down. Knew one in St.Louis, thank God they were mostly box trucks, Bush had a ton of trucks to sell.

 

[RPSman]

Yep Tupac is full of it. They retired the Econoline at our station in the mid 80's and went to the Dodge cargo van. POS. Then they tried the baby Gruman that the front ends fell out of. Then the transmission eating Aeromate.

Tupac? I still say he looks like Lou Gossett, JR. When you guys mention Econolines, you are talking about the old bubbletops. The Grumman Olson Kurbmaster I had at RPS was an actual step van. What bubbletops RPS had were called 350's, and they had a single shelf on each side.

 

[RPSman]

Essentially, Amazon is 'stealing' the original HD concept, but doesn't have to provide the national coverage that HD tried to do. HD rollout was a failure and I think it is because fedex tried to cover too much too fast with too few.

"HD rollout was a failure because the people they hired to do the hiring meetings were not trained properly. I flew in a small cigar airplane from the outlands to go to the metro area meeting, as I did not like Airborne, and was wanting to get one of the first HD routes in the area. The guy doing the meeting, could not answer the questions when posed to him, I ended up answering 90% of the questions. When I told him I wanted to get a P400 step van (I had one located in CA) to run the route with, he did not have a clue what one was. I ended up moving back to the metro area, working for another courier company, and shaking my head every time I saw one of the clowns that did get hired, go by in a HD cargo van.

A year or so after that, when the volume got too big for cargo vans, some idiot in engineering came up with the Work Horses. From what one of my sources told me, they were only 100 cubic foot larger than the Kurbmasters, and did not have the same mechanical dependability."

 

[dmac1]

Essentially, Amazon is 'stealing' the original HD concept, but doesn't have to provide the national coverage that HD tried to do. HD rollout was a failure and I think it is because fedex tried to cover too much too fast with too few.

"HD rollout was a failure because the people they hired to do the hiring meetings were not trained properly. I flew in a small cigar airplane from the outlands to go to the metro area meeting, as I did not like Airborne, and was wanting to get one of the first HD routes in the area. The guy doing the meeting, could not answer the questions when posed to him, I ended up answering 90% of the questions. When I told him I wanted to get a P400 step van (I had one located in CA) to run the route with, he did not have a clue what one was. I ended up moving back to the metro area, working for another courier company, and shaking my head every time I saw one of the clowns that did get hired, go by in a HD cargo van.

A year or so after that, when the volume got too big for cargo vans, some idiot in engineering came up with the Work Horses. From what one of my sources told me, they were only 100 cubic foot larger than the Kurbmasters, and did not have the same mechanical dependability."

The cargo vans were not supposed to get 'too small' because routes weren't supposed to get so big. I was in the first wave of HD terminals, day one of HD and was promised small packages, and the ability to service only one zip code if I wanted, and work part time as long as my zip was covered. The person doing the recruitment meeting was very knowledgable and was a terminal manager for a national trucking firm before fedex talked him into leaving for HD. HD started accepting ANYTHING including packages that were way bigger than promised. And fedex quickly found that the daily van allowance was way too high to allow people to leave without at least 8-9 hours of work, and dropped the 'part-time' promise that they had used. HD was advertised as the perfect part-time job for home makers and retirees in the recruitment ad. The ability to 'set your own hours was NEVER really honest because HD allowed people to set 'appointments' as late as 8 pm, and you couldn't start late even if you had a light load and 8 pm appointment deliveries because the managers were required to 'clear' the manifest by 10 am(?).SO you had to be there but I guess could wait and start delivering later if you wanted. But they also required the original 13 drivers to cover much more than contracted, saying that we (independent contractors) needed to be 'team' players and help out until volume grow, and of course they wanted to cover the area with as few drivers as possible, which led me to driving regularly as much as 400 miles and working from 8 am until 11 pm on a regular basis for almost 2 years. Yes, I was screwed by believing the promises.