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What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#51

Post by ryanianian »

ianferrel wrote: post #31
garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

I worked some hard-labor jobs when I was in college, too. I think a major difference you're overlooking is that in your late teens and early 20s, you can do pretty hard labor without much effect. I'm only in my mid 30s now and when I do a hard day's physical labor, I feel it a lot more. Someone in their 40s or 50s or 60s is going to have a much harder time doing that kind of stuff every day.

Right - hard labor is hard.

It doesn't paint the full picture to say this is a problem with Amazon or UPS or whatever...

The problem really seems to be lack of additional opportunity for people who are unable or unwilling (or not in good enough health) to perform hard labor.

The same kind of applies to other low-skilled minimum-wage jobs like food-service. There's not much opportunity, so you find mid-career people doing jobs that only require (and pay) at levels that are appropriate for highschool or college kids.

(Not criticizing your comment here just providing my own conclusion to your point)

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#52

Post by crankylinuxuser »

AlexandrB wrote: post #11

It frequently seems to be the case that when tech companies interact with unskilled labor, the unskilled labor gets a worse deal than they would before the tech economy. See Uber, Amazon, Blue Apron, and many others. In me this inspires a high-level of cynicism. Now when I hear a startup wanting to "change the world" I'm always curious whose underpaid labor is going to subsidize that change. Underneath all the Silico…

Ive posted this before, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE

This isn't about technology. Sure, it's being used to make something "look" new. But in the end, its trying to undermine governmental regulations to make an extra buck. Ignore these regulations cause we're a "tech company", and you profit.

There will be a reckoning again, regarding these "sharing" and "tech" companies. And after the courts' dust clears, those companies will sink.

Edit: Ok Downvoters, I'd love to hear why I'm wrong. I'm all for building new and innovative things. But much of "tech" is just shoving the costs of society on the poorest in favor of "innovation".

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#53

Post by whatshisface »

dv_dt wrote: post #48
garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

> But it's better than no job at all. I think questioning this idea is the whole point of the article. It's a job, but does the job pay enough to improve the lot of the individual worker? Maybe that isn't fully obvious to the worker because they're worried about no job at all, but if the city of the business and residence of the workers isn't collectively benefiting, then maybe that's a hint that low-skill jobs don't…

If they're more willing to pay better wages, why wouldn't the employees go and work there instead?

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#54

Post by lotsofpulp »

garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

The reason it doesn't command much pay is not because it doesn't require much skill. It's because either there are more people willing to do that job that doesn't require much skill, or there are fewer jobs available to those that don't have skills (in a given area).

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#55

Post by krapp »

garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

The thing with fulfillment center work is, you tend to do one specific job all the time. If you stow, pick, move carts around, move stuff from a cart onto a conveyor belt, you do that all day, every day, until you're told to do something else.

Even though many jobs might not be "grueling," at least in warehouses where the inventory tends to be lightweight, the repetition and requirement to meet rate will ensure that even relatively simple tasks can wear people out. Having to stand in one place for an entire shift, in the Kiva-enabled warehouses, can be more physically demanding on your lower back, knees and feet than the jobs that let you move around.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#56

Post by groby_b »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #26
mhneu wrote: post #14

These Amazon jobs are most useful to think about by comparison. Four decades ago, analogous jobs (manual labor, no college degree) were in the car industry: at Ford and GM. Those jobs were good middle-class jobs with good salaries. On those jobs, one could raise a family with a 40 hour work week, and do very well working 50-60 hours a week. Today, the similar jobs are in Amazon warehouses. What is different? A big on…

I think the biggest ones are cheaper transportation to and from areas of the world with lower production costs and drastic increases in automation, both which lower the demand for human labor in the USA (and other developed countries). You can regulate all you want, but it would be better to focus on getting as much of the population ahead of the curve as possible as opposed to leaving them behind. At the end of the…

> At the end of the day, we just don't need secretaries, travel agents,

We keep telling ourselves that, but it's a story. (Presumably so we can feel good about income inequality)

A good secretary, or a good travel agent, are amazing. I'd pay good money to have either one available, and so would many other people.

All we've done is put that work on people who already have another job, the people who used to be customers of that secretary/travel agent. In the process introducing a middle man who makes money off redistributing work. Yes, that middle man is slightly more efficient - but it can only be more efficient because the hard parts of the work are outsourced to you.

The difficult part of booking travel isn't making a flight reservation, it's finding just the right thing. A travel agent was a tremendous help there - you're now doing that yourself. Expedia, Orbitz, etc. are completely useless in that department.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#57

Post by wand3r »

mhneu wrote: post #14

These Amazon jobs are most useful to think about by comparison. Four decades ago, analogous jobs (manual labor, no college degree) were in the car industry: at Ford and GM. Those jobs were good middle-class jobs with good salaries. On those jobs, one could raise a family with a 40 hour work week, and do very well working 50-60 hours a week. Today, the similar jobs are in Amazon warehouses. What is different? A big on…

> Jeff Bezos is a multi-billionaire and his workers are living in near-poverty.

I think a living wage is important and ideally Amazon could pay a decent wage plus benefits. That said, I absolutely hate the argument you made and it makes me cringe every time I hear it. It's apples and oranges. There is a world of difference between building an entire company that is one of the largest in the entire world and sorting boxes in a warehouse. We can argue that people should be paid more for humane reasons and that the multiple for CEO compensation vs. workers should be lowered, but Bezos' wealth is based on something completely different than this. I think a case for basic income is getting stronger because the more companies are asked to pay for human labor the more likely they are to do away with it and have it completely automated. What then?

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#58

Post by nlawalker »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #54
garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

The reason it doesn't command much pay is not because it doesn't require much skill. It's because either there are more people willing to do that job that doesn't require much skill, or there are fewer jobs available to those that don't have skills (in a given area).

>> there are more people willing to do that job that doesn't require much skill

There are more people able to do that job that doesn't require much skill. Additionally, for any given job (especially high-skill jobs), it also much more likely for able and unwilling people to become willing than it is for willing and unable people to become able.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#59

Post by codemac »

garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

I think they aren't stating well what makes the work grueling. It's not about the weight of the items, it's about the systems amazon uses to grade/rate the workers.

I've worked plenty of menial jobs, and the ones that just killed me inside were the ones that had extremely strict rules that eliminated my agency as a human. Unloading bricks for landscaping work? Hard labor, but mentally fantastic and I was only judged on how hard the other workers thought I was working, which as a human is easy to pick up on socially. Working on a food assembly line where I was judged on my placement & speed of a repetitive physical action? Almost debilitating stress and exhaustion.

Combining menial work with piles of stress is what creates physically & psychologically draining work that a night of sleep wont recover you from.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#60

Post by lowbloodsugar »

I think its time that instead of reporting "what percentage of a made up number of people have jobs", and instead report "salary percentiles". 5% unemployment isn't that great if 50% of the people have a $24k/year job, and if that number is 5% of only 40% of the population because everyone else gave up.
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