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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#321

> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has. Once you have enough money to cover food/housing/healthcare/transportation it seems stupid to spend a lot of your time helping an organization that you don't like, even if they are paying you well. What is impressive here is that he make his decision public. Plenty of people have moral issues with their company and just say that they…

Many companies predicate things on you keeping your mouth shut, such as your severance.

How would that apply in a voluntary protest resignation scenario like this?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#323
post #306

> Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength. Legislation or unionization. Any other routes?

>unionization I am confused why there weren't wholesale strikes in the grocery, retail, warehouse, gig workforces during the shutdowns. Workers had complete power to force change.

How many of those employees have alternate work they can take if fired or have enough money saved up to make ends meet if they don't get a paycheck for a while? Many people live paycheck to paycheck and theres a huge batch of people newly unemployed to compete with for jobs. I don't think that's a lot of power. Without a union, theres also challenges in organizing such an event.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#324

> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…

I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g., food service, warehouse, retail sales).

For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This was meant to be illustrative, not an exact ratio.

This makes companies take extreme policy measures for the few instances of this that impact everyone, because the financial impact is so disproportionate.

Now, the argument can (and is) made that pay is a factor. "If you pay me more I won't act like this". But depending on the business (e.g., a local pizza place) there is no affording that.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle. On the contrary, bucketloads of people do this all the time. The world would be a better place if more people did.

Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has. Once you have enough money to cover food/housing/healthcare/transportation it seems stupid to spend a lot of your time helping an organization that you don't like, even if they are paying you well. What is impressive here is that he make his decision public. Plenty of people have moral issues with their company and just say that they…

> Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has.

he's 90 and works in finance managing money for other millionaires.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what "sexist" and "racist" means unless you have evidence that sex and race are the cause of their overrepresentation. If not, this is just race/gender baiting and it detracts from the broader issue of worker treatment.

No, that's not really the case. It doesn't matter if something is done on the basis of race or sex. If the end result hurts those groups disproportionately it's racist/sexist. I guess this just may be a difference in definitions, but I think when most people are talking about racism/sexism on a macro level, they are using this definition. You're right, the broader issue is worker's rights, but it's definitely worth p…

You're basically identifying the difference between institutionalized racism and individual racists.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#327
post #6

> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a woman, or both. Right? Including this bit is interesting. So he is accusing Amazon of being both sexist and racist in addition to treating workers poorly.

The way they treated Chris Smalls in the news was clearly a veiled attempt to label him as the "Stupid black man".

Re: Bye, Amazon

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to refuse interviews, and another thing to quit a job you love and invested 5 years of your life and that paysvery well.

The latter it's much easier: the stocks are vested after 5 years, the unspent disposable income is saved somewhere and now and you are ready to leave. Also the turnover of engineers in Amazon is among the highest in the industry and only a few stay beyond 5 years. In comparison, refusing to work for some FAANG takes 10 times more courage for someone out of college and without saving.

Tim himself acknowledged in his message that he’s leaving over a million dollars in unvested RSUs on the table by leaving.
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