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Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#191

Post by jasode »

cirno wrote: post #156

> “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions,” a spokesperson said, “but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.” What a strange statement. "We support their right to criticize their working conditions, only actually we don't at all"

>What a strange statement. "We support their right to criticize their working conditions, only actually we don't at all"

Without seeing the actual policy, my guess is that "criticizing" is something employees can do internally within the company. However, you can't post public tweets about it.

In other words, "don't air dirty laundry".

This type of distinction is very common in typical employee policies. Likewise, it's common for a CEO for VP to say to the employees "I have an open door policy so if you see something wrong, tell me." -- but common sense should tell you that the CEO does not mean for the employee to post an "open letter to the CEO" on Twitter or NYTimes for the public read as well.

I know of no well-known company that encourages employees to publicly criticize their workplace.

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#192

Post by mason55 »

mav3rick wrote: post #179
epicureanideal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to worry, they'll simply say they have a "talent shortage" and ask the government to help supply them with workers whose situations are so desperate they won't think about the company's business practices. (Note, this is not actually a jab at Amazon in particular.)

I know this is an attack on H1bs. Many H1Bs have multiple offers from FAANGS at market rate. Whatever woe you have in your life, please stop blaming immigrants for it.

Just because many H1B's have good job offers doesn't ALSO mean there is rampant H1B abuse happening. Both things can be true and the blame for the latter should be placed on the companies abusing the H1B process and the US government for not doing something about it.

I'm all for open borders and immigration. The H1B problem right now is the worst of both worlds though. You have selectively restrictive immigration which means that if you're lucky enough to get an H1B you'll go through a lot to stay. More open borders would help the situation as people would have more labor mobility. Cracking down on H1B abuse would also help the situation and the only entity that can crack down is the Government because it's a tragedy-of-the-commons problem.

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#193

Post by _bxg1 »

A few months ago I was in the job market and got a call from a recruiter at Amazon. I flatly told them that I wasn't interested in working for Amazon on ethical grounds.

At the time it was purely out of principle, but apparently it was a good decision for my self-interest as well.

I wonder how long they can keep this stuff up before they start seriously damaging their desirability as a workplace, the way Facebook has?

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#194

Post by a1369209993 »

burrows wrote: post #130
skywhopper wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a very unrealistic view of how employment works.

My view is that free men should contract without (fear of) government coercion. What is your view?

My view is that free people should contract without (fear of) government or corporate[0] coercion.

0: or religeous, or familial, or any other source.

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#195

Post by danaris »

WalterBright wrote: post #154
rkachowski wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you think they deserved it? or are you trying to point out some axiom of employment that exists objectively and independent of exploitative working conditions?

Few people want to associate with others who trash talk them.

Let's look at this from a very slightly different perspective:

Few people who are doing things that will, with a high degree of certainty, result in harm to others for their own profit want others to be publicly pointing those things out.

Painting this as "trash-talking Amazon", however the fired workers' words are phrased, is hugely disingenuous. We're not talking about someone going out there and saying, "Man, Amazon is just such a loser! They're so ugly, their mama dropped them when they were born and wouldn't pick them up!"

Amazon is putting their workers' lives and health in danger, knowingly and deliberately, for their own profit. Anyone who is truthfully bringing the details of this to the public is a whistleblower, and needs to be considered as such and granted the full protection of the law.

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#196

Post by alexandercrohde »

jasode wrote: post #191
cirno wrote: post #156

> “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions,” a spokesperson said, “but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.” What a strange statement. "We support their right to criticize their working conditions, only actually we don't at all"

>What a strange statement. "We support their right to criticize their working conditions, only actually we don't at all" Without seeing the actual policy, my guess is that "criticizing" is something employees can do internally within the company. However, you can't post public tweets about it. In other words, "don't air dirty laundry" . This type of distinction is very common in typical employee policies. Likewise, i…

Uh great... yeah just walk right into the CEO's office and tell them what's wrong... 0% chance of that coming back to affect your career....

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#197

Post by jeromegv »

ozim wrote: post #183
cirno wrote: post #156

> “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions,” a spokesperson said, “but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.” What a strange statement. "We support their right to criticize their working conditions, only actually we don't at all"

I don't see anything wrong about that... Because that is if you don't agree with company policy or whatever company is doing, you should not work there. They should lose all employees and go bust. In practice I understand one would like to disagree and things should change to better. But life is not that simple, so if you can afford quitting please do so (if you are wealthy enough even in their face saying what they…

We can always count on someone on Hackernews to defend billion dollar companies in the face of workers abuse "they could always quit!". They clearly don't care if you criticize internally, there is a need to expose those bad practices in the press.

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#198

Post by SaxonRobber »

qppo wrote: post #138
mcherm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would immediately implement a special role for the head of HR: official decider of all firing decisions. No one will blame the head of HR because they'll know that they were only carrying out someone else's decision, while no one would blame the original decider because no one knows who it was.

Why would you want to create a workplace without personal responsibility for decision making? All I'm saying is to make that personal responsibility public. It's pretty telling to me that I'm being downvoted for saying that I think people should own up to their decisions in the workplace that impact other people and are questionable ethically. Removing any kind of moral liability for those decisions is how we wind up…

The corporate structure institutionalizes immorality, it cannot be avoided. By law shareholder profits come first, everything else is secondary to that goal.

Re: Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions

#199

Post by diob »

segmondy wrote: post #139

Don't bite the hand that feeds you. If you must talk against your employer in public, better go anonymous, if you have the courage to reveal your real identity, great! but be ready to bear the consequences. It's unfortunate, but most companies will do the same.

I agree that we have to go anonymous, but unfortunately anonymous comments do not bear the same weight.

There must be some middle ground. I'm guessing unions would help protect such speech.

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