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I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

theguardian.com

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Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#201

Post by kanelbullar »

jdpedrie wrote: post #94
ameister14 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. It's perfectly fine for enforcement agencies (OSHA, FDA, IRS, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to enforce policy/law on individuals/companies who have been found in violation, but to originally target individuals with the force of government lawmaking is a dramatic overreach of power, IMO. I don't agree. It's been done before, many times, and t…

"To the benefit of the people" and "does violence to the rule of law" are not mutually exclusive, at least in the short term.

And yet, "does violence to the rule of law" seems quite dubious in both the case referred to in the original article, and in the above-cited context.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#202

Post by s73v3r_ »

dragonwriter wrote: post #191
s73v3r_ wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They are benefitting because they are having their labor subsidized by taxpayers because they don't pay enough. Again, pretending the reason people are upset is because they're selling food, and not because Wal-Mart is requiring you and I to subsidize their labor costs, is incredibly dishonest.

> They are benefitting because they are having their labor subsidized by taxpayers because they don't pay enough. That's not a labor subsidy, and if it was the simple fix would be to make employed people categorically ineligible for federal benefits—we don't do that, because we know it's not a wage subsidy, and all the hyperventilating about it being a wage subsidy is (at least on the part of public officials and oth…

It is a labor subsidy, because Wal-Mart is not having to pay their workers a living wage because they can simply tell their workers to sign up for public assistance. I don't care about the nit-picky "Is it a direct labor subsidy or is it a wage subsidy" arguments; Wal-Mart benefits because they can pay lower wages and tell their employees to get public assistance. That's the story in its entirety. Wal-Mart is big enough, they can pay a living wage; they don't need my help.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#203

Post by chrisseaton »

war1025 wrote: post #134
chrisseaton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After unionising, why would Amazon listen to any of the union's demands? Would the union call a strike? Presumably there will be other employees waiting to take their place as these jobs do not require a lot of training and workers can be replaced quickly. I would guess that Amazon would simply not even speak to any union representatives - there's no advantage to them in doing so.

The whole point of a union is to protect the rights of people who are doing things that don't take a lot of skill.

I know that’s the point - I can’t understand how they hope to achieve it as they have no leverage.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#204

Post by dragonwriter »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #202
dragonwriter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are benefitting because they are having their labor subsidized by taxpayers because they don't pay enough. That's not a labor subsidy, and if it was the simple fix would be to make employed people categorically ineligible for federal benefits—we don't do that, because we know it's not a wage subsidy, and all the hyperventilating about it being a wage subsidy is (at least on the part of public officials and oth…

It is a labor subsidy, because Wal-Mart is not having to pay their workers a living wage because they can simply tell their workers to sign up for public assistance. I don't care about the nit-picky "Is it a direct labor subsidy or is it a wage subsidy" arguments; Wal-Mart benefits because they can pay lower wages and tell their employees to get public assistance. That's the story in its entirety. Wal-Mart is big eno…

> It is a labor subsidy,

No, it's not, it's an anti-subsidy, because money is taken away from workers for getting paid by an employer, increasing the amount an employer needs to pay.

> because Wal-Mart is not having to pay their workers a living wage

WalMart wouldn't have to pay a living wage without it, either. Public assistance programs (aside from work requirements and the cost of lost benefits from failure to comply) actually increase market clearing wages, they don't decrease them.

> because they can simply tell their workers to sign up for public assistance

The people involved can sign up for public assistance with or without working for WalMart; further, they lose benefits due to mean testing based on outside income, which means WalMart has to give them >$1 of take home pay to get labor they would be willing to trade for $1 of net income increase.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#205

Post by [deleted] »

swarnie_ wrote: post #40
LitFan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this downvoted? The only way to make this change is for people to boycott the service.

I'm not even sure why people work there. The warehouses are universally known to be shitty places but people sign up anyway. Surely if its terrible and no one will work there they will have to improve or pay more? Or am i misunderstanding basic economics?

[deleted]

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#206

Post by war1025 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #203
war1025 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of a union is to protect the rights of people who are doing things that don't take a lot of skill.

I know that’s the point - I can’t understand how they hope to achieve it as they have no leverage.

I don't know that I disagree with you regarding their lack of leverage, but I think it is more due to their inability to disrupt production because of Amazon's large size and ability to reroute order fulfillment.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#207

Post by LyndsySimon »

michael_h wrote: post #177
LyndsySimon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that'll certainly solve the problem of housing and feeding those people.

It definitely won't of course, and I'm not saying it's right , but people who think that a mass people-to-automaton transition is going to go smoothly without a plan in place for the 'people' may lack perspective.

Sure it will - they’ll sleep and eat in prison.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#208

Post by larksimian »

faster wrote: post #153
will_brown wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. In general what you are talking about is a Bill of Attainder and it is unconstitutional. Notwithstanding the - not so clever - name of the Bill, it doesn’t exactly sound like anyone is being targeting so much as a legal framework is being proposed for recipients of corporate welfare to have to reimburse the government, based on cor…

The idea of employees receiving food stamps seems like a clear case of manipulating the system. But I think there is more nuance than the 20%/$14B numbers describe. Imagine a single mom who wants to be home when her kids get home from school. She's working part time, and not making enough to feed her family. Who is responsible for her shortfall? In a community where Walmart is a big employer, many people may work par…

> Who decides who pays?

In the short term elected representatives. In the long-term their voters as they re-elect them, or not, to office.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#209

Post by will_brown »

sokoloff wrote: post #193
will_brown wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Others in this thread have pointed out that "milk the SNAP" program is a very disingenuous and deceitful statement. SNAP is a wellfare program that subsidizes food purchases and both wallmart and amazon sell groceries, and somehow people like you spin the fact that supermarkets sell groceries to sound like these companies are stealing money from the government at the expense of poor people. Walmart is stealing...it’…

IMO, there are two, perhaps three issues: 1. Walmart sells things to SNAP recipients. This is something that is perfectly fine, as I downloaded the MA.csv listing of food vendors who accept SNAP and it seems like it's damn near everyone, including tiny little convenience stores. That's a level playing field, and the fact that Walmart gets money from SNAP is no more interesting than the fact that they get money from A…

1. Just because a tiny convenience store can/does accept SNAP that isn’t a level playing field. Go ask that tiny convenience store how much revenue they make from SNAP and how many employees they have on SNAP, if you want to see how unlevel the playing field is, as how large their SNAP lobbying budget is. And the whole idea you equate SNAP with AMerican express, fully demonstrates why our converstation won’t go anywhere, You draw no distinction between a private credit card company and taxpayer funded subsidies.

2. We agree there is a difference between accepting SNAP and having employees on SNAP, but in Walmart’s case they are in fact related and part of the whole picture. After all Walmart leads both categories they make more money directly from SNAP than any other business and they have more employees on SNAP than any other business.

3. Again lobbying for SNAP isn’t a problem, except it is part of the overall picture.

Not sure I can highlight, what is bad corporate behavior anymore than this: Walmart with the left had takes $14B in SNAP annually, with the right hand they push more employees onto SNAP than any other employer, and instead of taking any of the $14B in SNAP revenue and increasing wages to get employees off SNAP or through legislation having to reimburse taxpayers, Almaty is taking those funds to lobby Washington to increase the overall budget of SNAP to increase their taxpayer profits and lower the SNAP eligibility to get more employees on SNAP.

But again you equate Walmart taking SNAP to Walmart taking AmEx, you also believe Walmart should be championed for catering to an underserved segment of society. This conversation can’t really go any further in good faith.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#210

Post by fatalVoltage »

EpicEng wrote: post #115
fatalVoltage wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this dystopian though? If you can't provide for your children why have them in the first place?

How is limiting basic human freedoms dystopian? It's textbook tyranny.

While I agree it's a basic human right to have children, there should be some limitation as to who can have them - if you're obviously not in a condition to care and provide for offspring you shouldn't be allowed to. Now you might ask - okay but who decides what that standard is, and you'd be correct in asking, but that's a whole other question.
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