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I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

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Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#81

Post by the8472 »

locallost wrote: post #57
the8472 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the article has multiple arguments. One is reporting on extremely unusual things (working next to corpses), which hopefully don't happen in amazon facilities more regularly than in any other facility but due to amazon's size even a low probability of such a thing happening on any particular day means it's eventually going to happen in one of their facilities. Another is that the undercover reporters come from an…

But I commented on one argument, which is that it's basically a fluke. But for some reason I keep seeing streams of reports of many different flukes. Are they all unrelated? So if that AMA reddit thread describes working conditions where people don't want to drink water because they don't have time to pee, is it unrelated to reports of warehouse workers defecating thrash cans or drivers peeing in bottles? One common…

I don't know, the point is that we would need statistics to judge better than with the anecdotes we have now.

Amazon might be an especially egregious case of soulcrushing manual labor and exploitation of poor people who don't have many options. Or they might be a far less headline-worthy case of having an incident rate no worse than industry-average but with above-minimum wage pay (as TFA claims) and the reports we're seeing are mostly due to their size amplifying any tiny signal.

Anyway, your initial post about the mere existence of incidents at X being proof that working conditions at X are appalling. Which is incorrect because it doesn't tell us anything about whether the incident rate is above the base rate outside X or not. Of course one can still find those incidents appalling, but if X is nothing special compared to its environment then we would have to improve things everywhere and can't uniquely blame X.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#82

Post by goldcd »

seraphsf wrote: post #22
conorh wrote: post #10

I had read a few of these negative articles about Amazon fulfillment centers and then a guy we know working the counter at our local pizza place got a job at one of them. That made me change my mind and doubt the reporting after talking with him. The pay was much better better, the benefits if he transitioned to full time were much better, and he was really excited about a program Amazon has to cover tuition after (I…

Reminds me of the classic Nicholas Kristof article, “Two Cheers for Sweatshops”. ( http://archive.is/W6ABE ) The gist of which is, a job can be ‘not good’ from the perspective of the privileged but still ‘much better than the alternatives’ from the perspective of the people who take that job. If the employer of a “sweatshop job” is not coercing or lying to its employees, then I have a hard time faulting the employer…

Indeed.

As I can't find a reference, you can treat this as anecdotal - but there was a radio story about 2 fifteen year old siblings who'd both 'taken up sweatshop work'. One was stitching trainers, one was doing embroidery - for very low wages.

Initial 'outrage at child-labour' was confused slightly when they both said they were very happy, as they'd previously been working on their parents farm - and their sweatshop labour had allowed them to contribute towards a tractor for their village (replacing the labour of a whole load of children) - and for the first time they had some personal savings.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#83

Post by panpanna »

the8472 wrote: post #29
locallost wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish this was the only report about Amazon's poor working conditions. But it's not true, is it?

No, the article has multiple arguments. One is reporting on extremely unusual things (working next to corpses), which hopefully don't happen in amazon facilities more regularly than in any other facility but due to amazon's size even a low probability of such a thing happening on any particular day means it's eventually going to happen in one of their facilities. Another is that the undercover reporters come from an…

The problem with this argument is that with a large enough company anything can be considered an anomaly and hence tolerable.

"Jeff Bezoes killed his secretary and buried the body in his backyard? I bet one CEO somewhere in Iceland also had done it."

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#85

Post by goldcd »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50
vore wrote: post #7

The author seems to very much worry that negative press is going to be the cause of him losing his job due to automation: >Just about every job in my sortation center could probably be done by a robot. In fact, it amazes me that Amazon hasn’t simply automated the entire facility. [...] If I had to guess, I’d say that Amazon continues to employ lots of human beings because, by putting money into the pockets of working…

> It's as plain as day that Amazon isn't keeping manual labor around out of the goodness of their hearts. There is no bottom line calculation other than the cost of manual labor vs the cost of automation, and no amount of deflection about the working conditions of warehouse work (whether better than Home Depot or not) is going to keep your job once the scale tips in the other direction. Be that as it may, agitating f…

I think I disagree.

If job roles are arranged like a pyramid (wide base of lower paid jobs, with lower number of higher paid jobs above) - the largest benefit is always going to be automating away the high number of low paid jobs.

Amazon might roll out some pick-and-pack droids - but are unlikely to replace Jeff with an AI farm of CEO-leadership.

If you say look at say what Uber or AirBNB have done, it's replacing the very bottom interface layer connecting what you want with who provides it. People are still driving people and cleaning rooms for their arrival.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#86

Post by [deleted] »

bhl wrote: post #31

Note that the publishing title of the article is “Tourist Journalism Versus the Working Class”, which should be an indication of the author’s bias. The story initially begins with comparing the personal, working experience of the author with what he has seen depicted in the media. I thought it was compelling, even if the author worked in a “sortation warehouse” instead of the “fulfillment center” frequently covered,…

[deleted]

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#87

Post by voldacar »

blueboo wrote: post #38
seraphsf wrote: post #12

I love this article. It’s so hard to find moderate voices, especially when algorithmic curation tends to surface outrage first. As the author puts it: “I don’t object to journalists writing about the trials and tribulations of Amazon employees. I only wish they would do so fairly. Just because a journalist has found an Amazon employee somewhere who got sprayed with bear repellant, that doesn’t mean Amazon employees s…

[flagged]

Please explain how this article was:

1. vile

2. right-wing

3. strawman-bestrewn

4. ass-covering

5. spreading FUD

thanks

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#88

Post by alkibiades »

floatboth wrote: post #37
bhl wrote: post #31

Note that the publishing title of the article is “Tourist Journalism Versus the Working Class”, which should be an indication of the author’s bias. The story initially begins with comparing the personal, working experience of the author with what he has seen depicted in the media. I thought it was compelling, even if the author worked in a “sortation warehouse” instead of the “fulfillment center” frequently covered,…

> a defense of corporations and capitalism, with a bit of nationalistic pride sprinkled in About what you should expect from that awful publication.

the more people like you attack Quilette, the more people like me want to read it

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#89

Post by ashleshbiradar »

voldacar wrote: post #87
blueboo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please explain how this article was: 1. vile 2. right-wing 3. strawman-bestrewn 4. ass-covering 5. spreading FUD thanks

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/ welcome

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#90

Post by the8472 »

panpanna wrote: post #83
the8472 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the article has multiple arguments. One is reporting on extremely unusual things (working next to corpses), which hopefully don't happen in amazon facilities more regularly than in any other facility but due to amazon's size even a low probability of such a thing happening on any particular day means it's eventually going to happen in one of their facilities. Another is that the undercover reporters come from an…

The problem with this argument is that with a large enough company anything can be considered an anomaly and hence tolerable. "Jeff Bezoes killed his secretary and buried the body in his backyard? I bet one CEO somewhere in Iceland also had done it."

You seem to conflate two different cases of tolerable here. Of course murder is usually not tolerated by society, so the individual case would hopefully still lead to a murder conviction. But you wouldn't blame amazon for fostering murderers unless you could show that its ranks commit more murders than the general population, i.e. amazon has a rate of murder that has not been found intolerable.
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