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Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

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Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#141

Post by SubiculumCode »

noonespecial wrote: post #87
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever movi…

With truly advanced multi-purpose robots (like in sci-fi), it would take just one donation of a robot to a charity to start a 'robot self-replication for poverty movement', where one robot build another with its own labor, doubling, and doubling again, until every down and out has their own pool of robotic laborers.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#142

Post by louisswiss »

philbarr wrote: post #91
jrochkind1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait, you're sure there are many industries, white and blue collar, where workers routinely pee in bottles as a job requirement? Really? In the U.S.? You're pretty sure about this, eh? Many industries? I'd be curious to hear an example of one industry where "white collar" workers routinely pee in bottles as a job requirement, official or unofficial.

My dev team are all forced to use the same bottle to save time. The one who tops it off and has to go off to empty it is docked pay.

My dev team each have their own bottle. It's the most expensive bottle on the market and is provided/cleaned/maintained for free as an employee benefit.

It is an IOT bottle, connected directly to the employee's primary work station/laptop. Cleaning/emptying of the bottle is automatic and triggered by employee engagement (eg LOC written/pushes to Github). It can also be triggered manually by the team lead.

Employees who wish to take the bottle home/on vacation with them may do so (same trigger rules apply).

Since implementing our new bottle infrastructure, we've been able to acquire several new key hires from companies where employee benefits aren't taken so seriously.

Furthermore, assigning the emptying of the bottles to our management team has helped balance the company and improve morale significantly (now that we've switched from a unilateral to bilateral flow of excrement).

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#143

Post by chiefalchemist »

java_script wrote: post #96
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

The future of work is shitty jobs like this, but a la Uber you "get your side-hustle on" AKA have no rights or security as an employee ever anywhere. e: Which, speaking of Marxism, this situation will keep you permanently alienated from your coworkers and will forever prevent community bonds from forming with them.

The sad irony of Uber et al is that it's only a matter of time before those drivers are replaced by AI.

The point being, those drivers are doing more for the (short term) future of that company than any other entity. In the long term? For those drivers? The long term is not being an Uber driver.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#144

Post by Consultant32452 »

hueving wrote: post #62
Consultant32452 wrote: post #40

What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?

That's whataboutism. There are people in terrible conditions all over the world that US citizens can do little about. When it happens in the country where we can vote on laws and candidates, we can do something about it. So it's important to focus on those cases and set an example.

Sounds like your answer is nationalism. We could just as easily be talking about laws and candidates who want to improve our trade agreements such that workers in China, Mexico, etc. get better working conditions.

I don't particularly like the conditions at Amazon either, but I see it as the obvious result of globalism. When 70% of the world lives on less than $10 per day, what we call decent conditions is really a fantasy. We're not likely to get away with our relative standard of living forever. Eventually we'll average out.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#145

Post by conanbatt »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

I think this misunderstands economics. The day robots are in the market the value of what they produce will drop to nothing, much like most things done in high scale by machines today.

The value of things are proportional to the human labor expended to make them, if robots do free shipping and all of that, their cost will tend to drop to the cost of making the robots.

The public narrative that robots should be taxes is as logical as saying we should tax computer, or hammers. Its not economics. A more compelling argument is that the shift of work in the future will be even more detrimental than what we know, which might be true, but it has also been true in the past.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#146

Post by jld »

Pezmc wrote: post #18

If everything is based on performance metrics alone, surely there's a feedback loop here? Employee A starts peeing in a bottle, so their performance numbers go up, then at the end of the week they have better performance numbers and everyone else's targets are increased to be more inline with employee A. So more people start using bottles and taking shortcuts and the problem just increases over time!

That's capitalism for you.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#147

Post by lr4444lr »

aylmao wrote: post #121
noonespecial wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever movi…

> But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. Is it though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't stock only generates value if it increases in price (or the company decides it wants to pay dividends), and not directly from the productivity of robots? To put it a bit more clearly, your stock only makes you money if Amazon keeps growing…

To put it a bit more clearly, your stock only makes you money if Amazon keeps growing

No, I think you have it incorrect. As long as revenue > costs and internal expenditures, you make money by dividends. That's the whole reason we buy stocks. Price growth is ultimately just a projection of the belief in higher future dividends.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#148

Post by conanbatt »

java_script wrote: post #96
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

The future of work is shitty jobs like this, but a la Uber you "get your side-hustle on" AKA have no rights or security as an employee ever anywhere. e: Which, speaking of Marxism, this situation will keep you permanently alienated from your coworkers and will forever prevent community bonds from forming with them.

What do you think these people were doing being being drivers for uber?

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#149

Post by dspillett »

Demoneeri wrote: post #19

I don't understand how managers at amazon can believe this is okay and that it won't blow off in their face.

> I don't understand how managers at amazon can believe this is okay

They probably don't. They have stringent targets for their team to meet in order to get their bonus (or not get promoted over, or not get moved to a worse area, or...). The pressure is passed down the chain.

> and that it won't blow off in their face.

Maybe they expect to have moved on before that happens? Or simply feel that have no choice because of that downwards pressure and not being able to afford to risk losing the job (a morally corrupt job pays the mortgage better than no job at all does).

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#150

Post by ihm »

noonespecial wrote: post #87
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever movi…

Around 80% of stock is owned by the top 10% wealthiest individuals[1]. More recent work[2] puts the percentage even higher. You might own some of the robots but most people don't.

[1]: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/ExtendedAbstr...

[2]: http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-ric...

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