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Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

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Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#111

Post by endtime »

gnopgnip wrote: post #71
sethammons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A company doesn't become adversarial with its workforce because of unions; a company is forced to treat its workforce more as an equal because of unions. I'm not convinced. My brother's work has a warehouse. The warehouse unionized (a large push by two folks who are no longer there). Most of the warehouse workers are now making _less_ than they were before due to union dues. There are guys that my brother would lov…

>Most of the warehouse workers are now making _less_ than they were before due to union dues. If most of the workers are making less now, why would they vote to unionize? Before the union formed did workers get vacation and sick time, or were their unaddressed safety issues, or was management treating employees unfairly? In the US it is a lot of work to convince people to form a union even when the benefits are clear…

> If most of the workers are making less now, why would they vote to unionize?

You seem to be confusing the direction of time...

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#112

Post by br3n7 »

i_made_a_booboo wrote: post #87
krapp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself as an Amazon fulfillment center employee... I haven't directly witnessed any of the horror stories people tell about working there, but knowing the culture as I do, I would not be surprised at all that such things happen. Someone complained on the VOA board where I work about having been docked for time off task when they had to clean up after their own nosebleed, but that's anecdotal. You…

>In an unregulated market, there are no bad actors, only inefficient ones. The history of planet earth is full of bad actors in all kinds of markets, regulated or not. The animal kingdom is full of examples of deception. Seeking personal gain at the expense of others is a very deep feature of life.

Capitalism is "[s]eeking personal gain at the expense of others(...)"

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#113

Post by br3n7 »

andrestan wrote: post #12
crooked-v wrote: post #3

Bonuses for warehouse workers, presumably throughput-based, seem like a way to optimize for maximum output at the expense of worker health. It's good that those are going away.

Why? Are the workers completely and totally incapable of deciding for themselves what the proper tradeoff between increased income and whatever decreased health comes from working harder?? What is your calculus that helped you arrive at it being the case that the now former monetary incentives' value was outweighed by the decrease in worker health that you have perceived?

Yes

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#114

Post by manigandham »

stephengillie wrote: post #99
manigandham wrote: post #78

This is a direct attack on competitors, designed to enlist the help of the federal government to raise payroll and put pressure on arch nemesis Walmart and any other company that has lots of retail other jobs that are not conducive to automation. Remember that Amazon thinks 5 years ahead, and they waited for the perfect PR and political threshold to announce these changes and capitalize on the news.

Back in my day, Walmart was the great evil retailer, threatening to put everyone out of business. Many towns had their retail core destroyed by having a Walmart open, defeat all the small businesses, then close. Are we supposed to penalize Amazon for foresight?

I didn't say anything about penalizing them. The point is that it's a shrewd business move planned out years ago. It wasn't done out of purely good intentions and may not have the desired effect, and many people seem to miss that.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#115

Post by int_19h »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #15
DasIch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you abandon the idea of unions, you should keep in mind that the situation in regards to unions in the US is fucked up in a rather unique way. So a much less radical approach of simply copying what other countries do, should work just fine much more reliably.

The relationship between labor and management/capital has historically been adversarial in the United States. We can’t just adopt the laws from countries with good labor relations like Germany or Denmark and expect the culture to follow.

The relationship between labor and management/capital has historically been adversarial in all countries, in many cases much more so than US. I mean, US didn't have an attempted socialist revolution, for one - several European countries did.

And yet they developed a working system involving unions out of it all. There's no reason why we can't, too.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#116

Post by br3n7 »

1stcity3rdcoast wrote: post #63
ComputerGuru wrote: post #51

I’ve always thought the answer to the union “problem” was easy: multiple unions. Mandate that no more than, say, 30% of the workforce may be part of a single union, then let them fight it out. Monopolies suck both when it comes to corporations and the workforce. In my experience corruption sinks in on both sides when people can get away with putting in place policies to protect the status quo. When there are multiple…

Aside from the philosophical objections to this model, think about the practical issues that arise, specifically regarding overhead. Unions are notorious for having well-paid administrative staff and leadership, and that does not scale with three or four separate unions. You end up with a net drain even if you were able to eke out some slight pay advantage.

You are holding unions to a standard that corporations can't achieve.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#117

Post by int_19h »

manigandham wrote: post #78

This is a direct attack on competitors, designed to enlist the help of the federal government to raise payroll and put pressure on arch nemesis Walmart and any other company that has lots of retail other jobs that are not conducive to automation. Remember that Amazon thinks 5 years ahead, and they waited for the perfect PR and political threshold to announce these changes and capitalize on the news.

Good for them. This sort of thing is exactly what's supposed to be good about a free market (when it works!) - competition.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#118

Post by br3n7 »

whatever1 wrote: post #97

Are we really comparing the tangible leap from $7.5 -> $15/hour that will help people get out of the government sponsored poverty, to the potential gains that some workers who already make more than $15/ hour would make in the future (if AMZN does not become GE)?

The expected bonus never comes.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#119

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

ekianjo wrote: post #65
empath75 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are guys that my brother would love to promote Manager complains about unions. I’m absolutely stunned.

if unions were not actively trying to sabotage their own companies most of the time, maybe the sentiment would be different. There are several cases when unions actively push to destroy companies just to get short term benefits.

Are contractors, consultants, etc also trying to "sabotage companies" by negotiating for the best possible contracts for themselves?

When businesses do it, we say "it's just business." Not when workers do, though.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

#120

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

manigandham wrote: post #114
stephengillie wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in my day, Walmart was the great evil retailer, threatening to put everyone out of business. Many towns had their retail core destroyed by having a Walmart open, defeat all the small businesses, then close. Are we supposed to penalize Amazon for foresight?

I didn't say anything about penalizing them. The point is that it's a shrewd business move planned out years ago. It wasn't done out of purely good intentions and may not have the desired effect, and many people seem to miss that.

Who cares?

If it benefits more people then what difference does it make as to why it was done?

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