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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

#211

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by kube-system »

YokoZar wrote: post #114
kube-system wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All US states recognize at-will employment. This does not mean that people can be fired for any reason, there are numerous laws that define reasons that are prohibited. But yes, shit talking your employer is generally not one of those reasons.

Discussing your working conditions with other workers or with the press is legally protected concerted activity by the NLRB. Firing workers for that is explicitly illegal. You _cannot_ sign away these rights in an employee agreement or policy you agree to. Amazon having a "policy" against speaking out about unsafe working conditions is not a legal (or moral) defense of their behavior.

You're 100% right.

Let me further clarify my statement: While shit talking your employer, you must be very careful not to step outside the bounds of what is legally protected. And with attention comes scrutiny.

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

#213

Post by bavell »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #196
jasode wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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....

With a good CEO, your career might actually get a bump if you give them honest and helpful feedback.

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

#214

Post by a1369209993 »

alehul wrote: post #157
YokoZar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such policies are facially illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees workers the right to engaged in protected concerted activity, such as discussing their working conditions with eachother, the press, and the public. The tweets that got these two fired were explicitly about working conditions. Google had a similar policy and, after losing NLRA cases, had to issue a notice to all employees sayi…

IANAL, but all I know of the National Labor Relations Act pertains to unions and collective bargaining. These were UX designers, far detached from warehouses, speaking on warehouse conditions. While warehouse workers could file suit under the National Labor Relations Act if fired for speaking publicly of their own working conditions, I'm not sure that Amazon's UX team would qualify (but again, IANAL). To draw an anal…

> Would a DoorDash engineer be safe speaking out against the working conditions of DoorDash drivers?

They should be, but you might be right that the National Labor Relations Act (or other applicable law) isn't doing its job.

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

#215

Post by filoleg »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #126
ghshephard wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to engage in ageism, but speaking from the benefit of having the benefit of being younger, and older, I can say that when I was younger, I was blissfully unaware of the huge list of things that would result in a person's employment ending, that I thought was absolutely reasonable for one to do. And maybe it was reasonable for one to do. But it also ended one's employment. I think the GP was mostly just trying to…

Its very far from a "law of nature"

Let's not be pedantic here. If something reliably happens, without any explicit ruleset like a law triggering it to happen that way, I feel it is fair to call it a "law of nature", as it occurs "naturally".

If you talk smack about someone, expect them to talk smack back about you.

If you talk smack about your employer, the employer will talk smack back about you (a lot of times, in the form of ending their involvement with you).

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

#216

Post by paulcole »

sfkdjf9j3j wrote: post #74
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read the comment as having a smug and/or gloating tone, just as a piece of useful advice. It is true, even if in an ideal world it shouldn't.

The way it includes unnecessary and imprecise technobabble, and states something obvious as if the author assumes the people who were fired are too stupid to have considered it makes it patronizing and unhelpful. Do you really think people are going to read that comment and come away with useful advice?

> smug and gloating tone

> unnecessary and imprecise technobabble

> the author assumes ... people ... are too stupid

> patronizing and unhelpful

Put it all together and you're basically describing the Hacker News Brand Voice.

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

#217

Post by __abc »

bavell wrote: post #213
alexandercrohde wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

With a good CEO, your career might actually get a bump if you give them honest and helpful feedback.

In my experience those CEO's are extremely rare ... don't know how common my experience has been.

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

#218

Post by tren-hard »

_bxg1 wrote: post #193

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…

I quit Amazon last year on ethical grounds. I stayed for 3years. After year 1 I was miserable but stayed because tech interviews are something awful (what a crazy sentence to even write).

The thing is, as long as you're on dat kooliad diet it's easy to look past all of Amazon's transgressions and unlawful, unethical, behavior because it's happening somewhere else so it's easy to rationalize why Amazon would act the way they did. Most employees that I worked with cared about one thing, the money, and the stock is hitting ATHs in a global pandemic.

So how long can they keep it up? Pretty damn long and I don't expect anything to change unfortunately.

PS, Remember, it isn't a faceless corporation, it's full of HN readers

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

#219

Post by ra1n85 »

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.

Most don't have "multiple offers from FAANGS" and they are operating from an extremely poor bargaining position.

And how did you read that comment and come away with immigrants are to blame?

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

#220

Post by vkou »

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"

The statement is deliberately vague, so that anyone who wants to speak up will think twice about it.

Other major tech firms have done the exact same thing when employees have raised concerns.

They make it clear that they won't retaliate against you if you don't do the wrong things, but they won't actually enumerate what those wrong things are. It's like an extended round of the Chairman's Game. [1] [2]

[1] The game forbids its players from explaining the rules, and new players are often informed that "the only rule you may be told is this one". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game)

[2] The game is named in honor of a famous politician who was very well known for coming up with a lot of rules for his subjects to follow, without bothering to explain to them what the rules were.

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