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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

#481

Post by Sharlin »

rosser wrote: post #393
kajumix wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from some of the comments here, software engineers working in Amazon must either be stupid or irrational to continue working there, given the market for software engineers. Amazon is a highly successful company with significant anticipate growth still to come. All that success doesn't come without talent. So maybe not stupid, maybe just irrational? Tech companies in general, and Amazon in particular, are high…

How professional technologists are treated by their giant tech employer is utterly orthogonal to how lower-skilled, hourly warehouse workers are treated by the same company. Why do technologists reliably chime in with completely irrelevant details of a technologist's experience of working for a tech company, in response to articles talking about how poorly those companies treat their non-technologist staff? What does…

People are really, really good at assuming that their experience of just about anything is a representative sample. And because their experiences are subjectively pretty important to them (naturally) they must be objectively important and relevant in the grand scheme of things as well.

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

#482

Post by stillsut »

If you work in a latino painting or landscaping crew, tough guy stuff like this is expected and socially enforced. Or say Alaskan fishermen. It's one of tradeoffs you make for an uber-bule-collar job. But these jobs also have benefits that others don't have: when you leave the job site, you don't have to think about the job (like teachers do) and your skills and experience don't lose relevance (like IT) and you don't have to suffer fools (like service staff). But yeah - the notable tradeoff for these jobs is you get valued (and devalued) by your physical productivity and reliability.

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

#483

Post by BatFastard »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #54
kelukelugames wrote: post #7

Earlier 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…

I don't know about that joke anymore. Being an Amazon customer used to be great, but the deliveries are bordering on ridiculously horrible now. I order something on Prime, then it doesn't show up when I expect it to, I get no notification of any delays, and then when I log in to see what's going on they have changed the original expected date so I can't even see what I was originally promised unless I took a screen s…

I have had absolutely no problems with package delivery.

The one thing I returned was a breeze.

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

#484

Post by GSimon »

pg_bot wrote: post #449
manigandham wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 judg…

Those product pages aren't really self evident as to which is better, I actually prefer Amazon's also, it seems to have more details about the item in addition of course to the 1000s of reviews.

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

#485

Post by vm »

nordsieck wrote: post #470
rectang wrote: post #441

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.

> Modern America favors capital The universe favors capital because capital is more mobile than labor.

This is changing in the software world.

Software gives "labor" more scalability and leverage than ever before.

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

#486

Post by wombatpm »

Spooky23 wrote: post #217
menacingly wrote: post #196

I tend to personally view things from the owner's point of view. I also know that once the popular narrative has bitten down on the story of a successful company running slave factories, they won't let go. Whether these are exaggerated or isolated cases doesn't matter, there will be story after story until Amazon makes some show of changing practices. However, I know there's another side. At some point, a company the…

A big part of this problem is that the warehouse operations people de-risk the impact and accountability for these problems to the bodyshops that fulfill these roles. Companies like Amazon love temporary workforces because they have big capital investments in fulfillment centers that they cannot walk away from, and an employee workforce would attract union mobilization. IMO, the way to attack this is to increase the…

There already is. They pay more on an hourly basis for temporary workers. The body shop gets their cut first. Body shop charges $17/hr, pays $13/hr

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

#487

Post by rectang »

nordsieck wrote: post #470
rectang wrote: post #441

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.

> Modern America favors capital The universe favors capital because capital is more mobile than labor.

That sounds like a king justifying the divine right of kings... The effect of mobility is offset by there being more workers than owners. These outcomes are not inevitable.

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

#488

Post by sgtmas2006 »

pg_bot wrote: post #449
manigandham wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 judg…

While this isn't a direct problem with Amazon vs Walmart site design, I'm more likely to use Amazon due to the amount of reviews.

Walmart can do one thing right, while Amazon has the majority of it right for me. It's going to take a lot to sway me away from Amazon.

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

#489

Post by rectang »

vm wrote: post #485
nordsieck wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Modern America favors capital The universe favors capital because capital is more mobile than labor.

This is changing in the software world. Software gives "labor" more scalability and leverage than ever before.

This is one of the reasons I feel good about contributing to open source. It boosts the prospects of at least some workers, while at the same time offering great value for employers, for industry, and for society at large.

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

#490

Post by dv_dt »

sol_remmy wrote: post #284
dv_dt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But their pricing hasn't been best-possible for a while now. I've been more and more frequently finding better prices through other venues.

That's because big box retailers are shipping at a loss: i ordered something from Home Depot that was $10 and got free shipping, 3-4 days too. For the same cost as the in-store item. No way is that profitable for them They're all okay losing money in the short temp to capture online consumers

Are small sellers on ebay selling at a loss too?
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