I'm curious to know these workers' next best employment option, the one they're forgoing to work at an Amazon warehouse.
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
#582Is 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…
Other countries have proper labor and employment laws. This wouldn't be allowed in the bulk of the rest of the west.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#583Earlier 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.
Informed consent to piss in bottles to meet impossible quotas, or die from starvation. Good choice.
If their next best option to working at an Amazon warehouse is starvation, then it's a pretty good thing for them that Amazon has a warehouse there. That said, I strongly suspect they have better "next best" options.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#584Is 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…
It's not only worker's rights (which is bad enough). It's many things, for example the environment. For instance, the amount of fuel burned, and carbon emitted, to deliver an item in 2 days instead of 3 is 40% higher (sorry I don't have a citation right now). We're boiling our planet alive for the slightest of conveniences! It's bonkers! Like we're filling the oceans with trash for using completely superfluous plastic packaging that improves our lives in the most negligible of ways. All of this to sell ever increasing (because current market capitalism demands constant "growth") piles of crap.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
White collar jobs are somewhat different than. We have choice, we have power. The best bet for amazon warehouse employees, and delivery drivers, would be to unionise. This would lead to either 1) More investment in robotics, taking away menial jobs 2) Better conditions for shelf-stackers. Both are good -- as a society we should not be making people work when the work could be done by robots.
More automation -> less jobs -> more pressure to keep working at the awful, but paying job you have. I think best solution is universal basic income, but that of course is far from being accepted in USA. But it gives power to people, it make them not being so afraid to lose a job, so employers have to act accordingly.
> I think best solution is universal basic income
I have said before here that I cannot imagine universal basic income working in the USA unless American culture changes drastically to favour heavy state subsidy of arts, culture and community centers. In the Nordic countries where a substantial portion of many communities are on the dole, the state generously provides concerts and theatres and social facilities so that those people have something wholesome to do, they don’t just all sit home and drink (some do, of course; you can’t win every time). What would small-town Americans do with their time if they weren’t working?
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor and capital are on the same side, they are both producers of wealth. You are barking at the wrong tree.
I look forward to capital peeing in a bottle in solidarity with labor. :) Naturally capital and labor collaborate and both produce wealth. That doesn't mean their interests are 100% aligned.
> I look forward to capital peeing in a bottle in solidarity with labor. :)
It does. Capital evaporates in risky endeavors all the time. It rusts by itself as well.
Sure interests arent perfectly aligned, but fighting capital is like fighting your brother for inheritance. Meanwhile, landowners see all that from afar, evict people into the streets, and those same people go pay taxes to get their food.
Capital is not the opressive.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really know anything about the situation in Argentina but I don't think Unions are an unequivocal good no matter what form they take. Unions in many cases have leadership that don't have the interest of the workers at heart. What I really mean is that workers organizing together and using collective bargaining is a proven way to increase worker conditions and pay.
leadership that don't have the interest of the workers at heart workers organizing together and using collective bargaining So what you're saying is we need decentralized unions on the blockchain?
Uber for Unions :)
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#588Is 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…
And for some reason one can only buy two sizes of socks. For shoe sizes 6-12 (regular) and 12-16 (large). A sock that fits 6 through 12 shoes sizes? Capitalism failure.
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Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor and capital are on the same side, they are both producers of wealth. You are barking at the wrong tree.
> Labor and capital are on the same side, they are both producers of wealth. Neither labor nor capital independently produce wealth, generally, it's produced by the application of labor to capital; the suppliers of labor and capital are on opposing sides of the fight to capture the wealth the two are used together to create. “Capitalism” was named for the side it specifically favors in that fight, by people who found…
> the suppliers of labor and capital are on opposing sides of the fight to capture the wealth the two are used together to create.
Opposing sides or collaborators? Like the sun and the soil working together..
Think of those that provide no labor and no capital yet capture great value. Those are the truly destructive.
Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
Informed consent to piss in bottles to meet impossible quotas, or die from starvation. Good choice.
If their next best option to working at an Amazon warehouse is starvation, then it's a pretty good thing for them that Amazon has a warehouse there. That said, I strongly suspect they have better "next best" options.
An Amazon warehouse being there is the reason they don't have many other options.