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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

#351

Post by Retric »

staticassertion wrote: post #327
Retric wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warehouse workers are not highly skilled. But, even if you’re talking just say programmers they still employ less than 1% of us.

I am referring to programmers, and specifically a subset of programmers that can pass a difficult interview - most developers are absolutely terrible, probably > 50%, so cut that number in half at least. It's a relatively small number.

You can cut 90% of programmers that would not pass an interview for whatever reason and there are still easily 10 times more people that qualify than work for Amazon. More so if you consider whatever fraction they need to onboard each year. Absolutely worst case is just slightly increase pay or open a few more offices across the US.

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

#352

Post by systemvoltage »

jgacook wrote: post #186
systemvoltage wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time following your comment and logic. Can you expand in plain words what you mean, preferably with an example and concrete details? Specifically: > It's much easier to point out that taking a certain set of actions will lead to a certain set of outcomes This statement is too vague. What specific actions and what specific outcomes? > since those are abstract concepts that require critical thinking and m…

In the parent comment I'm referring to the commenter states that if you talk negatively about your employers employment practices (perform action X) you should expect to be fired (receive outcome Y). I get irritated by this kind of comment because by being a description of a chain of events with no verdict as to whether outcome Y is fair or proportional to action X, it is an absolution of responsibility for the obser…

Thanks for clarifying. I agree with you.

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

#353

Post by staticassertion »

Retric wrote: post #351
staticassertion wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am referring to programmers, and specifically a subset of programmers that can pass a difficult interview - most developers are absolutely terrible, probably > 50%, so cut that number in half at least. It's a relatively small number.

You can cut 90% of programmers that would not pass an interview for whatever reason and there are still easily 10 times more people that qualify than work for Amazon. More so if you consider whatever fraction they need to onboard each year. Absolutely worst case is just slightly increase pay or open a few more offices across the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph...

612k engineers. Let's assume that Amazon aims to hire the top 20% (I would expect software engineering skills to follow a power curve), so roughly 100k qualified workers.

That's pretty small if you're looking to employ 2-5k of them. That's a lot of competition given that there are likely at least 50 companies making Amazon-type offers.

I'm not saying they can't hire people if 10% of that pool decides they won't work there, but I'd imagine they would want to extend their pool to maybe top 30% at some point.

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

#355

Post by 8note »

burrows wrote: post #231
katmannthree wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument has shifted from "if people want something they should negotiate for it instead of involving the government" to "even though the vast majority of people can't actually participate in meaningful negotiations the government still shouldn't intervene?" You're essentially arguing that only the few people at the top should be able to do well. Just because anyone can rise to the top of their class and do w…

“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.

They should also unionize, so that they have proper leverage for the negotiation

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

#356

Post by Retric »

staticassertion wrote: post #353
Retric wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can cut 90% of programmers that would not pass an interview for whatever reason and there are still easily 10 times more people that qualify than work for Amazon. More so if you consider whatever fraction they need to onboard each year. Absolutely worst case is just slightly increase pay or open a few more offices across the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph... 612k engineers. Let's assume that Amazon aims to hire the top 20% (I would expect software engineering skills to follow a power curve), so roughly 100k qualified workers. That's pretty small if you're looking to employ 2-5k of them. That's a lot of competition given that there are likely at least 50 companies making Amazon-type offers. I'm not saying the…

That’s more or less the numbers I was thinking.

Amazon does a wide range of software development from robotics, backend AWS, internal software, and front end web development. So, most developers have relevant skills even if some positions are much harder to fill. That said their dev teams have many non programmers like systems administrators and testers etc so I suspect it’s closer to 2k US developers than 5k. As it looks like many of their openings are in Canada, Ireland, India, etc.

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

#357

Post by [deleted] »

burrows wrote: post #324
katmannthree wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recall that your initial assertion was that "The employee should negotiate “fireable offenses” into his contract." I'm not claiming that this particular "freedom" to openly criticize your employer deserves government intervention, but I really don't see any of your proposed solutions as generally viable. Negotiating that into a contract is not something a significant number of people can do. >1. Work for a company th…

> Negotiating that into a contract is not something a significant number of people can do. Most people will have to make major concessions to negotiate a clause like this into their contract. I am fine with this. Do I think a hypothetical works where all employers guaranteed this power to laborers is an improvement over the current one? Maybe, but I am morally imposed to creating this world thru government interventi…

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by 8note »

burrows wrote: post #289
katmannthree wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“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…

For the roof though, at least in the US, the property it's on is based on men taking it with guns from the natives. Everything since then where you're keeping people off "your" property is a continuation of that coercion.

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

#359

Post by YokoZar »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #282
YokoZar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

This large, friendly notice from the government spells it out explicitly: https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EO_Posters/Employee...

> Under the NLRA, it is illegal for your employer to:

> Fire, demote, or transfer you, or reduce your hours or change your shift, or otherwise take adverse action against you, or threaten to take any of these actions, because you join or support a union, or because you engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection, or because you choose not to engage in any such activity.

You can get a basic overview of this topic by googling things like NLRA, NLRB, and protected concerted activity, including very recent examples of how these concepts have applied. They're much broader protections than you think, and Amazon has very clearly broken them. That's why their spokesman is giving out contradictory statements like saying that they allow employees to discuss eachother's working conditions, then firing them for exactly that.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that "the company has a policy" or "at-will employment" means "you have no legal rights".

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

#360

Post by YokoZar »

fmajid wrote: post #274
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 National Labor Relations Act of 1935 protects employees rights, and Google had to settle with the NLRB on precisely this issue. There is one little difference, I am not a lawyer so I don't know if it is crucial for Amazon or not: in this case the fired employees were protesting other employees' working conditions, not their own .

The NLRA protects workers seeking "mutual aid and protection". This is very clearly covered.

https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EO_Posters/Employee...

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