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Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

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Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#131

Post by bhupy »

twomoretime wrote: post #119
greendude29 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Amazon is doing pretty well due to the quarantine (as they deserve to given the services they provide). Them having to reduce their share of the profits from these extraordinary times is not particularly noble, but rather just average. The United States hasn't even passed the first stage of Corona yet (in SF, daily number of deaths is still rising). It is too early to mandate come backs. Here in SF, multipl…

>The United States hasn't even passed the first stage of Corona yet (in SF, daily number of deaths is still rising). It is too early to mandate come backs. Considering multiple states are larger than many European countries, I don't think it's appropriate to treat the US as a monolithic entity with respect to virus containment. Even if all of the states reacted identically, time and space dictate that different regio…

Right, you might as well say "The European Union hasn't even passed the first stage of Corona yet", and it would be equally non-actionable.

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#132

Post by morningcovfefe »

replyguy912 wrote: post #2

This seems reasonable and beyond what other major employers are offering, but as is the fashion I'm sure Amazon will be convicted in the court of public interwebs shortly...

I tend to agree.. It's not on employers to support their employees - it's on governments to support their citizens. Amazon will get lambasted in the press, but this isn't an issue to be fixed employer by employer but rather by the government, which needs to provide safety nets like universal healthcare or living wage

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#133

Post by jshevek »

bl0b wrote: post #84
jshevek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By starve do you mean "go hungry", or "eat less", or "starve to death"? Edit: I find "starve" to be a hyperbolic and emotionally manipulative choice of words, but I don't want to assume the worst. Maybe you have good reason to use this term?

Not having enough money to survive isn't a made up thing. However you want to define it, people need to make ends meet including right now.

>Not having enough money to survive isn't a made up thing.

No one has suggested that anything here is a 'made up thing', are you creating strawmen?

>However you want to define it, people need to make ends meet including right now.

I'm interested in understanding what the GP's point was. I don't get to definitely choose arbitrary definitions and interpretations for them. The dictionary and accepted usage offers a range of interpretations.

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#135

Post by droidist2 »

dabbledash wrote: post #110
viklove wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deaths is not a metric that can determine which stage of this pandemic we are in. Immunity is the figure you're looking for, which will not increase under a shelter-in-place order. Deaths are down, but will immediately shoot back up if the shelter-in-place is lifted. The only goal posts you should care about are herd immunity or vaccination. Nothing else matters when discussing how much longer this pandemic will last…

I think people are hoping for a third option: driving the infection rate low enough that it can be contained going forward with testing and contact tracing. Whether it’s realistic to think that can be achieved in an acceptable timeframe, I don’t know.

What about the option of slowing the spread or flattening the curve so it doesn't overwhelm the healthcare system?

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#136

Post by seneca »

chadlavi wrote: post #115
looping__lui wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like you can actually vote? Like there are more than two parties with the same take on social security? So you are telling me that the system in the US is like how the majority of people want it or that people have no say in the system?

oh I'm certainly not saying that the system in the US is good by any means, what I'm saying is that it currently is the way I describe it. People (normal people, anyway) generally have a lot less say in that system than you seem to think. I don't get to vote on whether or not a major employer offers better pay for physical labor. I don't get to vote on whether or not for-profit schools exist. I don't get to vote on w…

> I don't get to vote on whether or not a major employer offers better pay for physical labor.

Found a company, and pay more for physical labor. Not only will that directly cause it, you will influence the market. Only buy products from companies that pay what you believe are fair wages, if you're unwilling to found a company yourself.

> I don't get to vote on whether or not for-profit schools exist.

No, but you can found a non-profit school, or donate to them (I do!).

> I don't get to vote on whether or not employers will (consciously or not) discriminate against job applicants who look poor or don't speak eloquently as a result of low-quality education.

Again, you can hire whoever you want (within legal confines) at your own company.

You are not helpless. What you aren't able to do in the US is just force other people to do what you want. Put in the work, create something and show that the approach you believe in is viable, or even superior. Be the change you want to see.

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#137

Post by bhupy »

jonknee wrote: post #99
crazygringo wrote: post #95

> Amazon said earlier this month it had hired an additional 100,000 employees Not the main point of the article, but can I just say that's huge . That's... the same size as Google's entire full-time workforce. Granted they're low-skill warehouse positions, not highly paid engineering jobs, but still. The ability of a company to hire one hundred thousand people in a month is absolutely insane.

Even crazier, they have already announced an additional 75,000 openings. Just nuts.

As of 2019, Amazon employed 798,000 employees, so we're looking at almost 1 million people, earning $15/hour at a minimum, with 401(k), health, vision, and dental benefits. Absolutely nuts.

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#138

Post by dabbledash »

droidist2 wrote: post #135
dabbledash wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are hoping for a third option: driving the infection rate low enough that it can be contained going forward with testing and contact tracing. Whether it’s realistic to think that can be achieved in an acceptable timeframe, I don’t know.

What about the option of slowing the spread or flattening the curve so it doesn't overwhelm the healthcare system?

My understanding is the end game for that is still a vaccine or herd immunity. It just slows the process down enough that you don’t have more people dying because of a lack of equipment.

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#139

Post by jshevek »

bhupy wrote: post #83
renewiltord wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone reading through this thread, I have some feedback for you. This is partly to test the commonly held view that feedback is desired instead of blindly voting and partly to help you. I piped it through `base64` so that you can ignore it if you don't feel like it: WW91ciBjb21tZW50cyByZWFkIGxpa2UganVzdCBvdXRyYWdlLiBUaGlzIGlzIG9mIGxvdyBpbmZv cm1hdGlvbiB2YWx1ZSB0byBtZS4gVGhpcyBpcyB3aHkgSSB3aWxsIGRvd24tdm90ZSB5b3V…

Unrelated, but base64 encoding feedback is a great idea.

I'm not convinced, as it creates the possibility of egregious violations of community standards being difficult for moderators to detect.

Less of an issue, but still worth some thought: Just like paywalled submissions must be by-passable so that we can all share in a conversation equally, base64 threatens to create subthreads that are not equally accessible. (Trivial easy if you are on a laptop, not on mobile).

Re: Amazon asks workers sheltering at home to return or request leave

#140

Post by HarryHirsch »

morningcovfefe wrote: post #132
replyguy912 wrote: post #2

This seems reasonable and beyond what other major employers are offering, but as is the fashion I'm sure Amazon will be convicted in the court of public interwebs shortly...

I tend to agree.. It's not on employers to support their employees - it's on governments to support their citizens. Amazon will get lambasted in the press, but this isn't an issue to be fixed employer by employer but rather by the government, which needs to provide safety nets like universal healthcare or living wage

In other countries employers have a duty of care towards their employees, they just can't use them up until they aren't good any longer. I note there are continuous reports about dozens of people falling sick with coronavirus at Amazon warehouses, and in the past there reports of were ambulances parked outside Amazon facilities because it's cheaper to cart someone off to the hospital with heatstroke than to provide proper air conditioning.
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