Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
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
#562Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 "Evi…
All of those things make getting/holding a job harder. None of them make it impossible. I never claimed life is fair, but does unfairness really justify criminality? Also, as the underlying discussion is "why might honest people need to steal food?", it's not very reasonable to include felony convictions as the first item on your list.
I'm not arguing morality, I'm arguing reality. Just like a stock broker would be a fool to expect rationality in the markets, so too would a government be foolish to expect everyone to fall in line when the screws start to turn.
If you grow up a black kid on a street in Atlanta, and you watch your friends get snatched up by the cops for smoking pot, or shot in drive-bys or harassed for standing on corners, and you don't get to go to school cause they don't do bus service in your neighborhood, would you care about "fair?" You care about eating. You're a human. You need to eat.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#563Earlier quoted context omitted.
To the degree that workers are not your slaves or property, yes. They should be free to decide who to work for, and employers cannot treat people as their property. But as long as there's informed consent, most things are pretty fair.
So you are against things like paid time off, 40-hour work week, weekends off, workplace safety/health standards, ect.?
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#564Earlier quoted context omitted.
To the degree that workers are not your slaves or property, yes. They should be free to decide who to work for, and employers cannot treat people as their property. But as long as there's informed consent, most things are pretty fair.
So you are against things like paid time off, 40-hour work week, weekends off, workplace safety/health standards, ect.?
All our current system of labour and union law has accomplished is the offshoring of suffering. We've not gotten rid of the existence of, nor our reliance on abhorrent working conditions. We've just moved them elsewhere, in the process wasting tremendous amounts of energy (not to mention the associated destruction of the environment) shipping things to and from more lenient jurisdictions.
I propose that if the working conditions we rely on were present under our noses, we would do more to try to actually mediate our dependence their production.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#565Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem with Marxism is that in many of the places where it's been implemented in earnest, it's killed millions of people. That’s the problem with Leninism. The (biggest; there are others but this prevents even useful discussion of those) problem with Marxism is that people (even those who oppose Leninism and disbelieve everything else associated with it) accept Leninism’s propaganda that it is Marxism, rather…
All Lenin did was decide that the dictatorship of the proletariat should be headed by an actual dictator. It's kind of an inevitable conclusion, given where he was starting from and some of the realities of people working in groups. You are, of course, free to say that the murderous regimes that have popped up again and again are not the true Marxism. But then you have to explain why the false Marxism has appeared so…
That's only a small piece of vanguardism, which while it is a big change isn't the only significant change (and is, in fact, an adaptation to the fundamental change, which is abandoning the prerequisite of the development of a broad working class identity under developed capitalism.)
> You are, of course, free to say that the murderous regimes that have popped up again and again are not the true Marxism.
Well, I mean its self-evident true, and I didn't need your permission, but thanks.
> But then you have to explain why the false Marxism has appeared so often
I don't see why I should, since I am not advocating Marxism and, even if I was, the reason a system designed to be workable and leverage existing dissatisfaction in undeveloped, precapitalist conditions keeps doing so is neither nonobvious nor germane to discussing the merits of a different system in the developed world. Leninism has done horrible things in the environments which it was carefully crafted to thrive in, but even with the assist given by it's opponents fear mongering equivalence-drawing that painted all opposition to capitalism as equivalent to Leninism, it's done stunningly poorly at gaining any traction in places that don't have he conditions for which it was adapted from Marxism.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#566Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
Costco has a different target market than Amazon. They target relatively well off people who can afford the upfront cost of a membership and have the capital to buy goods in bulk. That customer base places a relatively high value on customer service.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#567Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you are against things like paid time off, 40-hour work week, weekends off, workplace safety/health standards, ect.?
all things that exist without the government and which vary wildly amongst professions. i work far more than 40 hours and don't take most weekends - as I am entitled to.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#568Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The effect of mobility is offset by there being more workers than owners. It's actually the opposite. The more workers there are the more likely some of them will defect for whatever capital offers.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#569We 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.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#570Earlier 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…
At the risk of rehashing other comments here, software devs at Amazon are profit centers - when they work the company gains exponentially more value than it pays them. A good engineer retained can often deliver 2X to 10X the value of a new hire. The company treats them them accordingly. Warehouse employees are cost centers. They're replaceable pseudo-robots that are filling in the gaps until the engineers mentioned a…