U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#161

Post by sib » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

cesarb wrote: post #89

toasterlovin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have an opinion on this case, but this may be a useful analogy (and may not; I’m not a lawyer): employees are required to commute to work, but they are not compensated for their commute. There are plenty of jobs, in construction for example, where the job site changes on a regular basis. Some job sites require longer commutes than others. Compensation still doesn’t include commute time.

> employees are required to commute to work, but they are not compensated for their commute. Where I live (another country), employers are required to compensate workers for their commute (vale-transporte).

Wow. That is the strangest thing that I've read ion a while.

Are employers allowed to take the location of prospective employees' residences into account when deciding to hire or not?

If I lived across the country, would the employer have to pay for daily plane tickets?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#162

Post by gbronner » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

dwohnitmok wrote: post #32

rtkwe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In its 2014 ruling in the case, the Supreme Court decided that under a 1947 law that amended the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, companies do not have to pay employees for the time they spend undergoing security checks. It's a supreme court decision that is allowing Amazon to do this [0]. TL;DR the decision is solely on if the "activities are an intrinsic element of the employee’s primary job duties and one that…

As usual, when involving a Supreme Court case, I'd recommend reading the case directly as they are usually eminently readable. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf It was a unanimous decision here, because the Portal-to-Portal Act (the 1947 law referenced) has pretty consistently been interpreted both by regulatory bodies and courts in the intervening 70+ years to explicitly exclude such activi…

Looks like there were several precedents and regulatory opinions here covering this exact issue, and the 9th Circuit disagreed with them. SC reversed the 9th circuit to maintain consistency.

Want change? Get Congress to change the law, because the law, as written now, permits this.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#163

Post by gbronner » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #51

trenning wrote: post #24

Is it not crazy that is has to come down to a Supreme Court case for Jeff Bezos and Amazon to treat their employees fairly? This isn't a company that's on a sink or swim margin where this will collapse the company. Not when they're fine stocking all the break rooms in corporate offices with starbucks and AWS people get shelves full snacks all day. But give an hourly employee a little more money to accommodate their s…

I disagree with this decision, but Amazon are fairly well known for being one of the few big tech startups that don't have fully stocked snack supplies on every floor, and expecting staff to pay for those out of their own pocket. In all the Amazon offices I've gone to the only thing being given out for free is borderline acceptable coffee, hot water, tea bags, and milk.

Same with banks. Jeff worked in finance first. Personally, I'd rather have more money than more snacks.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#164

Post by joejerryronnie » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #152

joejerryronnie wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted here (maybe a misunderstanding of what you’re trying to say?) My takeaway from your comment is that we should first look to our own hypocrisy, i.e. we’re quick to post a comment about Amazon’s unfair labor practices, but we’re just a little quicker to click on that free 2-day prime shipping button.

I thought I was getting my product from a regulated and audited public company. If I wanted to take law into my own hands I might as well go to the local gangsters and smugglers.

At least you can purchase from your local gangsters and smugglers with a clear conscience ;-)

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#165

Post by gbronner » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

chabes wrote: post #62

notyourwork wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snacks and coffee are laughable costs compared to salaries.

This isn’t about salaries, or about Amazon not being able to afford to do the right thing. Amazon has a surplus of money.. enough to buy other large corporations, like Whole Foods. And Jeff Bezos has so much money, he literally doesn’t know what to do with it. Amazon will pay billions in legal costs before ever considering costs that actually benefit the workers.

True story: Friend saw Jeff Bezos waiting in line for 20 minutes for a pizza. He could have paid for an uber copter to drop one on him, or offered 10k to each of the people in front of him.

He didn't. He has principles, and the principle is that you work for money and then use it to buy things that you care about.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#166

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

gbronner wrote: post #165

chabes wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t about salaries, or about Amazon not being able to afford to do the right thing. Amazon has a surplus of money.. enough to buy other large corporations, like Whole Foods. And Jeff Bezos has so much money, he literally doesn’t know what to do with it. Amazon will pay billions in legal costs before ever considering costs that actually benefit the workers.

True story: Friend saw Jeff Bezos waiting in line for 20 minutes for a pizza. He could have paid for an uber copter to drop one on him, or offered 10k to each of the people in front of him. He didn't. He has principles, and the principle is that you work for money and then use it to buy things that you care about.

Er, how would any of the behaviors he didn't take that you refer to violate that principle? I mean, if he cares about getting pizza, either of those would have been consistent with it. You've got an example of a choice and a principle, but the choice is in no way illustrative of the principle any more than any alternative choice, including paying gunmen to murder everyone in line in front of him, would be.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#167

Post by ryanmercer » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #5

It seems eminently reasonable and obvious that workers should be compensated for performing the Duties of their job while at work or in premises. Clearly submitting to a security check before being allowed to leave work is an obligation they incur as an employee. They should not be able to “clock out” until after such security checks.

With that logic, my commute to work should be paid too. I'm not getting paid to drive there and they won't let me work from home.

If I'm not mistaken, airline flight attendants don't get paid until the door shuts, bet none of you that fly regularly are outraged about that.

And as someone that worked in a facility where I had to park off site, ride a bus unpaid, clear security unpaid, ride another bus unpaid then I could clock in (on time, 1 second over was late which was penalized) then had to repeat it in reverse... I was more than happy to have the job and quite fine not getting paid doing that.

Every prison guard, anyone working at UPS/USPS/FedEx sort facility, etc (not to mention people in state and federal court houses, the white house, the CIA, the FBI etc) go through this same thing every day.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#168

Post by ryanmercer » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:08 PM UTC

Brain_Thief wrote: post #112

trenning wrote: post #24

Is it not crazy that is has to come down to a Supreme Court case for Jeff Bezos and Amazon to treat their employees fairly? This isn't a company that's on a sink or swim margin where this will collapse the company. Not when they're fine stocking all the break rooms in corporate offices with starbucks and AWS people get shelves full snacks all day. But give an hourly employee a little more money to accommodate their s…

I agree with the sentiment of your post and similarly find it shocking that anyone could defend a gargantuan corporation like Amazon refusing to provide their workers with reasonable wages to support quality lives. It's worth noting that anyone who cares about this should refrain from purchasing things from the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world. The only thing these trans-human entities care about is money - that…

>find it shocking that anyone could defend a gargantuan corporation like Amazon refusing to provide their workers with reasonable wages to support quality lives.

Amazon starts at more than double federal minimum wage... it took me a decade to make 15 dollars an hour at my job...

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#169

Post by patientplatypus » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #108

patientplatypus wrote: post #82

Serious question. Kavanaugh lied during his confirmation hearing about sexually assaulting many women ( https://www.salon.com/2019/09/16/republicans-know-brett-kava... ). We have evidence that the POTUS, attorney general, and vice-POTUS are all complicit in international corruption (and they were major sponsors of Kavanaugh). At what point are Supreme Court decisions non-binding as the justices themselves are crimina…

Criminal behavior doesn't inherently disqualify you from being a judge.

Wait, really?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#170

Post by yardie » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

subsaharancoder wrote: post #133

ceejayoz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. They should get paid for that time, too. 2. The article says "the screening takes around 25 minutes to complete", which is not typical in retail.

Grossly inaccurate is the best way of describing the screening time, I've done the amazon fulfillment center tour and seen employees check in for different shifts, it does not take 25 minutes to go through the screening process. There's no way Amazon with its efficiency mantra would let this happen knowing how it eventually impacts the bottom line.

> There's no way Amazon with its efficiency mantra would let this happen knowing how it eventually impacts the bottom line.

How do workers trying to leave the warehouse affect their bottom line? They are no longer on the clock so it is no longer Amazon's problem. It is a big problem for workers who have to waste 5-15% of their free time on this obligatory work task.