We can't. Labor and capital need each other, but they are forever at odds. Good wages and working conditions can only be won through negotiating from strength. Modern America favors capital. Elections have consequences.
Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
441–450 of 721 posts
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest. I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad. I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee no…
> Amazon is incredibly anti-employee They prefer calling it 'customer-centric' > Amazon, Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company
Apple complains Amazon's US site is selling fake products
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, what is your model for the dramatic examples of India and China, which were faced with relative stagnation and incredibly dire, largely-intractable poverty for decades after WWII; followed by liberalizing (incrementally) their markets and explosive growth+massive declines in extreme poverty thereafter? I don't know a ton about the economic history of these two countries, but prima facie this seems t…
India's explosive growth [1] followed electrification, not lead it. [2] It's 'intractable poverty' following WWII was only 'intractable' because of colonial exploitation - the British Empire squeezed it for cheap resources, labour, and wealth (By forcing Indian markets open to imports, and by banning some forms of local production - Gandhi's salt march was an example of resistance to that.) At the same time, the empi…
> It's 'intractable poverty' following WWII was only 'intractable' because of colonial exploitation - the British Empire squeezed it for cheap resources, labour, and wealth (By forcing Indian markets open to imports, and by banning some forms of local production - Gandhi's salt march was an example of resistance to that.) At the same time, the empire did not actually invest in the same kind of infrastructure that Europe enjoyed for close to a century.
You are extremely confused about the history here. The British left India in 1947; WW2 ended in 1945. India and South Korea had a similar GDP/capita in 1950; they were on opposite ends of the spectrum 50 years later after 50 years of a wide GDP growth gap (during none of which time did British India exist).
I believe more than most people in the path-dependency of politics, especially with respect to things like colonialism. A lot of the sclerotic, Soviet-influenced, bureaucratic strangling of the Indian economy during this period is at least partially attributed to (reasonable) democratic political backlash against the abusiveness of the British economic system, in the form of eg labor laws that have been harming the economy for half a century.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's a norm, does it make it OK? All traditions were new once.
Absolutely agree with your point. I don't think the practice in any industry (trucking, healthcare or distribution centers) is okay but I'm simply pointing out its not a unique problem.
Fair - The article seems more about discrimination, workers rights and intimidation more than the uniqueness of the problems.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
This implies a world with unlimited energy and natural resources?
I didn't mean to imply doubling forever. Also, yes I assumed that the robot would have to be employed at least initially to earn a wage, so that it could buy materials and components off alibaba.
How much do you think raw materials are going to cost in a world with free labor? What's to stop rich people from just buying up all the resources? With free labor they can use as much resources as they get their hands on.
There are structural problems in our society that cannot be solved with new technology.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#446My 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 problem with Marxism is that in many of the places where it's been implemented in earnest, it's killed millions of people. Think of Russia under Stalin, China under Mao, and Cambodia under Pol Pot. People try to rehabilitate Marxism every so often, but the problem of the murderous regime pops up again and again, for a simple reason: when the state arrogates to itself enough power to remake society according to so…
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Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
>accept abusive employment My friends and I tried to "end game" the conservative mindset and I hadn't thought of this option. Our exercise was: if hard conservatives achieved their goal of, say, eliminating food stamps, what would happen? Presumably private churches etc couldn't pick up all the slack so the only thing we could think of was skyrocketing crime. What, are people going to just starve to death when they c…
Why is getting a job not an option?
Do you think the only people on food stamps are the unemployed?
But,
Felony conviction, kids that need watching, physical disability, mental disability, age, lack of language skills, lack of any working skills, lack of available jobs for education level, lack of jobs at all, explicit or implicit racism, off the top of my head.
If you think "laziness" belongs on the list, pm me and I'll send you a digital copy of "Evicted."
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#448Bezos realistically has about 30 to 40 years to enjoy his position in the world and then will go the way of everyone else. If one believes in karma, in a future life he may yet get to experience the fruits of the world he helped to create.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to offend you or your work, but IMO Amazon makes the worst software out of all the big tech companies. I think that this is related to their ability to attract and retain talent due to their poor work culture.
What software specifically? The AWS cloud is still the leader in most products.
AWS is the leader in the cloud because of its 6-7 year head start on the competition, not because their product is better than their competitors. There was even a company built on top of AWS that made money by creating a reasonable UX on top of that product.[0]
walmart.com is better designed that amazon.com. I don't know when that happened but you can take a look at two product pages for the same book and be the judge. [1][2]
That's just the tip of the iceberg. I could rant about Amazon's software for days, but in the end software doesn't necessarily mean they are a bad company. If I order something from amazon I expect to get it quickly and in the case something goes wrong I can talk with someone who will be more than agreeable. That is why they are successful, not because of their software prowess.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp...
[2]: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow/20530246
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#450Is this worth it? Is this worth having the ability to pick between 10,000 different toasters via internet and have them delivered to your doorstep in 2 days? Sometimes I look at society as a complete organ, with a hypothetical ability to make cohesive decisions for itself. And I think, it is making extremely self-destructive choices. All for the sake of satisfying the urge to buy more, at lower prices, with more conv…
We can have both. Amazon isn't going to implode if they pay some extra pennies for reasonable working conditions.
Why would Amazon pay one more penny than they have to? To win a nice guys award? To get a warm, squishy feeling inside?
There is precisely one solution to this problem, and it is us electing leaders who change the rules in favor of the working masses, and enforce those rules mercilessly against exploitative employers.