Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#311

Post by leetcrew » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #114

taurath wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is now the only store open. This will clearly accelerate the death of retail, to the point that I'm not even sure it will survive. We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive.

Which area are you in? Every large retail store is open (so far) in Southern California, with most retailers' inventory being purchased at full retail prices. I am not sure why the retailers don't switch to curbside-pickup model exclusively, instead preferring hordes of customers roaming around every single morning, but from what I hear, Instacart and store-specific delivery programs are overwhelmed.

imagine how many employees would be needed to support curb-side pickup at walmart at anything like the stores current throughput. judging by the number of people I see pushing two full carts through the checkout line, you might even need more than one employee for each simultaneous pickup transaction.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#312

Post by claudeganon » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #308

claudeganon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still awaiting peer review, but initial research suggest 24 hours of stability on cardboard, 2-3 days on plastic and metals: https://www.wired.com/story/how-long-does-the-coronavirus-la... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

I'm curious to see if packages and deliveries were seen as transmission vectors in any other infectious epidemics. If packages were a reliable transmission vector, you'd expect to see much higher infection rate of truckers, postal workers, shop clerks, etc. I haven't found evidence of this.

I know that China relied heavily on deliveries for food and essential goods in Wuhan, but also seemed to be having people doing deliveries kitted in protective gear.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/08/8129257...

Not sure how this affected transmission, but doubt the same protections will be in place for delivery workers in the US because of shortages masks, gloves, etc.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#313

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

supdatecron wrote: post #306

mxcrossb wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think it’s ridiculous for people to want these companies to store up money for a rainy day, while at the same time keeping interest rates incredibly low.

How so? How are these two concepts related?

Theoretically, you lower interest rates to encourage investment, not the hoarding of cash.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#314

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

__s wrote: post #307

mschuster91 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I’m not quite sure this is the indignity you make it or to be. It is. Eating during driving is dangerous, even more so with a multi ton delivery truck. Pissing in a bottle is disgusting and a public health risk (where to properly wash hands, for one). If delivery set prices do not cover that employees get enough time to decently work, then they have to be raised!

Their argument is that some employees will piss in bottles no matter what you pay them. Don't fall into the trap of arguing that they'd stop pissing in bottles at 100/hr

Some, yes, but most of those pissing in bottles are doing this because they have no other choice as they are not paid for the time they need to pee.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#315

Post by MertsA » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #276

mixmastamyk wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they used it that way at the end of infinity war.

Not to rewind. Rewind implies changing something in your own past, but nobody's past changed. Only the futures of different timelines, if that makes sense.

That was exactly how it was used in Doctor Strange. It's just a movie, they play fast and loose with the rules all the time.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#316

Post by tomatocracy » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #146

parhamn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after selfishly spending billions on stock buybacks I've been seeing this on twitter a lot. Is there some context you can provide for why these particular repurchases were in bad taste, given no awareness of the upcoming pandemic. I am assuming you don't view repurchases as 'selfish' generally.

It is prudent for an individual to have a rainy day fund for emergencies. It is also prudent for a corporation to have a rainy day fund for unpredictable events like an upcoming pandemic. An individual who didn't properly save can go bankrupt in a time of emergency. Likewise, a company which didn't properly save should also go bankrupt in a time of emergency. Look at Apple or Berkshire Hathaway. Both have a massive s…

Businesses typically carry insurance (including business interruption insurance) and unused credit lines for this type of risk, not cash. Governments typically then provide some form of insurance for risks which are commercially uninsurable like war. I think Covid probably falls into that category fairly comfortably.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#317

Post by tomatocracy » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #69

taurath wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is now the only store open. This will clearly accelerate the death of retail, to the point that I'm not even sure it will survive. We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive.

> We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive. We'll get a lot of rent forgiveness naturally. If a strip mall has some tenants who cannot make rent in this crisis, who are they going to get who can pay? The pragmatic approach is to keep your existing tenants, because their survival is your strip mall's survival.

If you think the mall won't survive anyway, then this calculation changes though and instead you look to recoup as much as you can in the short term. Ordinarily this is a good thing because it forces unviable businesses to cease trading and the people and resources can be redeployed into something more productive (and in many countries at an individual level the people will receive help from the government to do this without ruining their lives).

The idea here is to minimise the long term damage caused by people being forced into liquidation as a route to recoup losses and increase protection for individuals who are also temporarily affected.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#318

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

modo_mario wrote: post #272

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "wage slaves" are given the opportunity to leave and work at any other company that will hire them and yet willingly choose not to. That implies quite a non-traditional definition of slavery.

Can you explain the strikes, complaints about work pressure (having to piss in bottles, ridiculous uncontextual performance requirements), high workplace injury rate compared to competitors, etc given this abundant choice.

It's a large company with thousands of employees, and the company has stepped on a lot of toes by out-competing many, many brick and mortar retailers, so there is "consumer demand" for reports of their inherent wickedness and every malcontent gets a microphone.

I repeat the same question -- if they don't like it there so much, why not go work for Walmart? Or Target, Home Depot, BJ's, etc.?

If the way they're attracting employees is by offering better pay and benefits than competitors rather than by offering a less demanding job, it's not as if that isn't public information. Why would you choose a thing and then object to the trade offs inherent in it?

People have this desire for them to do both, but if the job was less demanding then they could attract employees with less compensation, and they'd have every reason to not pay as much. So why is it wrong for employees to prefer to get paid more in exchange for fewer breaks?

It's like people hate for anybody to have a choice. If you work for Amazon you get paid more but work inflexible hours with limited breaks. If you work for Uber you get paid less but you set your own hours and can take a break whenever you want. Yet somehow both of these are put up as examples of mistreatment. They're just the trade offs inherent in the unskilled labor market.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#319

Post by Marsymars » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #259

Marsymars wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ignoring Tech industry, most companies on earth could not withstand a 70% drop in revenue. How many tech companies have withstood a 70% drop in revenue? BlackBerry comes to mind.

The tech industry has plenty of companies with laughable revenue compared to their investment capital, I'm sure those will be fine.

Not suggesting they won't be! I'm just curious about historical cases.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#320

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #276

mixmastamyk wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they used it that way at the end of infinity war.

Not to rewind. Rewind implies changing something in your own past, but nobody's past changed. Only the futures of different timelines, if that makes sense.

They made a big deal about that for a movie, considering it is all fantasy. It’s a distinction without practical meaning for storytelling purposes. Just to avoid the scene where Marty sees his own foto fade. They could have just ignored it.