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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

#281

Post by tracker1 »

tracker1 wrote: post #280

If you plan to speak out publicly regarding your employer, I would suggest you try to stay anonymous. 1. get a burner phone 2. get a cheap laptop and put linux on it 3. setup a non-domestic vpn on the device 4. don't use this equipment with any accounts tied to use 5. use the burner phone via vpn in order to establish social media accounts. 6. use these social media accounts over vpn to make your statements...

While the above isn't ALL you can do, and may still have flaws, I'd consider it the baseline for actually remaining anonymous...

In addition, you may want to stow the prepaid phone and laptop in a place that you don't own, such as a public locker, etc... and/or use it only away from home.

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

#282

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

YokoZar wrote: post #161
cperciva wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they weren't discussing their working conditions. They were discussing other people's working conditions.

Other people who work at the same company. You are attempting to split hairs that the law doesn't have. Firing designers for complaining about their unsanitary working conditions is illegal. Firing warehouse workers for complaining about their unsanitary working conditions is illegal. Firing designers and warehouse workers for attempting to organize together is illegal. Firing designers for talking about someone else…

> You are attempting to split hairs that the law doesn't have.

You are a lawyer and are making this claim as someone who is educated in labor law? Or you have a citation to share with us, or something of that nature? Perhaps the chapter and verse of the law that makes this move illegal? Or a case where it was found that workers have the right to publicly comment on other workers' working conditions as long as they work at the same company?

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

#283

Post by mtnGoat »

__abc wrote: post #217
bavell wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel like its a myth... no one i know works in a place where anyone can walk into the CEOs office, be brutally honest and not have some time of blowback in one way or another(or really any level). All those who tried have not faired well.

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

#284

Post by dnissley »

totalZero wrote: post #206
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"

It doesn't seem politically smart to me for Amazon to so blatantly open itself up to state and federal investigation, at a time when the president of the United States hates their leadership's guts and the Democratic Party is on a massive pro-workers kick. Amazon has spent billions trying to replace the human component of its distribution. It would utterly fall apart if warehouse workers stop working. What's wrong wi…

What's wrong with letting them share in the wealth, giving them masks and gloves, and reducing the throughput a little bit so that people don't have to work in close proximity to each other?

They're addressing all of your points, aren't they?

- $2 raise during this time

- masks and temp checking

- prioritizing essential items for fulfillment and delaying non-essential shipments

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

#285

Post by ignoramous »

lnsru wrote: post #226
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....

Did exactly this! Just it wasn’t CEO, only a Vice President. I mentioned bugs and lack of testing in a polite way, also offered how test system could be designed to automate testing. There was a committee created to do inspection of my code and to analyze, why I do so many bugs. I’ll never tell anybody, how to operate better after this “incident”. The months were hell and I am pretty sure, I’ll be fired during next d…

> Did exactly this!

Reminds me of this news.yc thread, "We may get fired and I don't know what to do" [0], which had a follow-up from the OP with full backstory ~7 years later, "I stood up to my boss, then he got promoted" [1].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309766

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903

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

#286

Post by supernova87a »

0x262d wrote: post #257
supernova87a wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the attitude you should be watching out for. Not the one loudly and obnoxiously shouting offensive and obviously antisocial opinions. Recognizing that one is easy. No, the opinion to watch out for is the one who fervently believes that it is the arbiter of what is socially acceptable to say, and is the interpreter of the rules by which it's enforced. Dare to raise a topic of discussion t…

The comment you’re replying to didn’t actually say that; you’re straw manning their position of course; they just said there are positions that include judgments of the inherent worth of one’s coworkers that are unacceptable, implying what those are should be socially determined. And I’m sorry but every single “scientific” racist dresses it up in these blowhard high-minded-sounding fake victim terms so it really make…

I equally strongly reject people who cloak racism in "science" that is full of holes. Just as strongly as I object when someone justifies silencing others based on personal offense. You proceed down that path and there's no limit to that reasoning.

And I hold both sides equally to that logic. What I warn people against is the insidious slippery slope of people (from either side) who gain (or assert) power to police what people say, and gradually turn the knob from (for example): fighting racist policies to the much fuzzier and dangerous I-am-offended sensibility that targets anyone who wants to talk about something reasonably as racist/sexist/xenophobic. The parent comment strikes me as that vein.

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

#287

Post by filoleg »

aabeshou wrote: post #65
rochester46 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote is straight up incorrect. Amazon doesn't restrict, and actually encourages employees to talk about their work conditions, as long as said employee makes sure to say "these opinions are my own and do not represent Amazon's official stance" and that anything you are saying is actually true. You certainly do not need "corporate justification and approval from executives". I am curious where Reuters pulled tha…

as long as they are factual* * make sure to use corporate-approved facts

non-factual: Amazon treats their employees poorly, they just don't care about us.

factual: Amazon does this factual thing X and this factual thing Y, and it shouldn't be happening this way.

First one is just an opinion piece, regardless of its truthfulness, because it cannot be evaluated objectively (how to objectively determine whether amazon cares or not? who counts as "amazon" in this scenario? what factual event led to this statement? and on and on).

Second one is a factual statement that can be evaluated on a true/false basis. Events X and Y either happened or they didn't. If they did, the responsibility for those can be traced and evaluated. It leads to actual results, while the former is just an emotional opinion sort of statement, but that's exactly what sells the headlines.

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

#288

Post by NotSammyHagar »

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"

Why is amazon so clueless. These firings seems like bad policy, seem to be very likely illegal (they have so much money it won't matter though to pay fines). And it's terrible PR. And for people that pay attention (including hacker news people) it makes them look terrible.

Four bad outcomes. All they do is "remove a troublemaker" from their standpoint. Why not just address the issues? They look like they want to bring back the days of company towns and central control. This doesn't make me want to work there, it's a strong dis-incentive for that.

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

#289

Post by burrows »

katmannthree wrote: post #266
burrows wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“meaningful negotiation” doesn’t mean anything to me. Either men with guns coerce the market participant or they don’t. Freemen should rationally allocate free time, family time and work time. A man isn’t guaranteed everything he wants, only the opportunity to rationally pursue his interests.

>“meaningful negotiation” doesn’t mean anything to me. You've already defined it with "The employee should negotiate “fireable offenses” into his contract." I don't know of a single employer that would be interested in hiring someone who insisted on including a list of nonfirable offenses which included making public statements which paint the company in a bad light. That specific item we're talking about is complete…

> I don't know of a single employer that would be interested in hiring someone who insisted on including a list of nonfirable offenses which included making public statements which paint the company in a bad light.

1. Work for a company that you don’t feel the need to publicly criticize.

2. Start your own company.

3. Increase your market value thru hard work to improve your negotiating position.

> There are many more forms of coercion than just "men with guns“

I don’t want to make assumptions. Please describe forms of coercion other than (threats of) physical violence.

> In this case there technically _is_ coercion by men with guns, albeit a degree or two removed. People need money to keep a roof over their head, and they need jobs to receive that money.

A man’s need for food does not override my natural property rights. He must use his mind to productively participate in commerce. If he does not, he will perish.

> My point here is that there are certain things which the invisible hand of the free market is unable to touch due to the dynamics of the market. That is, in my and many other people's opinion, where the government needs to step in and force the market to make decisions it would be otherwise unwilling to do.

From a consequentialist framework: I suspect the government’s cure will be worse than the disease.

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

#290

Post by NotSammyHagar »

lnsru wrote: post #226
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....

Did exactly this! Just it wasn’t CEO, only a Vice President. I mentioned bugs and lack of testing in a polite way, also offered how test system could be designed to automate testing. There was a committee created to do inspection of my code and to analyze, why I do so many bugs. I’ll never tell anybody, how to operate better after this “incident”. The months were hell and I am pretty sure, I’ll be fired during next d…

Not every company is like that, but probably a lot of leaders are cover their ass types. I'm the leader of engineering in my startup, I'm trying my best to encourage open ideas and criticism. Perhaps that's why I've never been a top leader in a big company (1/2 ;-)))
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