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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#651

Post by uselesstech »

jhwang5 wrote: post #638
myle wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely anecdotal.

By definition, so are the incidents that are reported by NYTimes. Amazon has hundreds of fulfillment centers around the world, and it's possible that the sufferings of some workers are exceptions, not the norm.

If that were the case, you would think that Amazon would address the issues raised my employees instead of firing them.

By firing them, they discourage others from coming forward so it’s not really possible to get a good picture of the situation.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#652

Post by alexashka »

'Poor people are being treated poorly, I'm rich and can get a job by walking across the street. Capitalism is bad blah blah blah.'

Quality content.

People born with a silver spoon in their mouth are so predictably 'shocked' by how the rest of the world functions. People are mistreated? People are fired? There is injustice in the world? Oh my, I'm going to blog about it!

Have you heard of Buddha? You're in that stage of discovering old age, sickness and death by wandering outside your golden palace walls out into the streets.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#653

Post by toasterlovin »

pwinnski wrote: post #647
hourislate wrote: post #615

Completely anecdotal. It's possible some Amazon Warehouses are run better than others. A friend who recently got a job (5 weeks ago) at one of Amazons warehouses (NJ/NYC area) has only praise for the way things are run. They take his temperature 3 times a day, provide a mask, constantly monitor social distancing, clean washrooms every hour, enforce social distancing in any break rooms, work areas, etc. He says it's n…

Bray didn't quit over the conditions in the warehouses, he quit over Amazon's brazen and dishonest firings of organizers. It's possible that if every Amazon warehouse were run as well, those organizers would not have arisen, but it's Amazon nastiness toward them that's most alarming.

Have you considered the possibility that Amazon actually treats their workers okay and that it's the organizers are dishonest? Why does the presumption of evil only go in one direction?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#654

Post by toasterlovin »

uselesstech wrote: post #651
jhwang5 wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition, so are the incidents that are reported by NYTimes. Amazon has hundreds of fulfillment centers around the world, and it's possible that the sufferings of some workers are exceptions, not the norm.

If that were the case, you would think that Amazon would address the issues raised my employees instead of firing them. By firing them, they discourage others from coming forward so it’s not really possible to get a good picture of the situation.

Perhaps there's more to the story and we on the outside are in a really poor position to actually know what's going on?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#655

Post by amai »

throwawayfortb wrote: post #552

Tim is a really nice and likable person. That said, I'm really disappointed in his one sided take here. Amazon did not fire these people without cause. They fired them because they violated company policies. These employees were using company time and resources to push personal political agendas that have no place at work. They were rightfully fired, and a huge number of Amazon employees are thankful they are gone. T…

You created an account 2 hours ago just to write this single comment on HN?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#656

Post by fastball »

jeromegv wrote: post #378
enitihas wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off course, you don't have to provide any standard to criticize whatever you deem fit. The point of my comment is not to ask you to provide a benchmark, but more to point out the flaw in your arguments to future readers. I admit I could have done this in a better way. But my point is without a relative benchmark, one can criticize anything and everything, even though the criticism encodes very less information. To br…

This is one of the largest company in the world, it is normal that they get criticized more than smaller companies. They have more resources and abilities to make changes than most companies. And I disagree, we can criticize a company regardless if we provide the example of a better company or not. When it comes to workers abuse in the middle of a pandemic, "everyone else is bad" is not a good answer, i'm sorry. That…

Does AMZN in fact have more resources to make changes?

I would generally argue that your ability to change your org is somewhat limited by your profit margins. It is hard to pay warehouse workers more, for instance, if your margins are razor thin. While AMZN's profit margin is not quite the 0 it used to be, it is certainly not stellar by any means. And it is certainly not as good as many, many other companies.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#657

Post by generalpass »

jasondclinton wrote: post #487
generalpass wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a shocker that the upper middle-class users of HN immediately vote down a perspective on the world that they have never been exposed to. It must all be a lie, right? And even more shocking is the cowards can't even leave a comment. This is pervasive now and makes for terrible communities.

I downvoted your GP and I will tell you why: it wasn't the observations of the way that businesses are run. It was this: "there is a reason they are working entry-level positions". This is Just World Hypothesis or "people are miserable because they deserve it". I flatly reject any hypothesis that the world we are living in is fair. You can consider any number of anthropological examples of societies that are not orga…

> I downvoted your GP and I will tell you why: it wasn't the observations of the way that businesses are run. It was this: "there is a reason they are working entry-level positions". This is Just World Hypothesis or "people are miserable because they deserve it". I flatly reject any hypothesis that the world we are living in is fair. You can consider any number of anthropological examples of societies that are not organized like capitalism in the West to see that the portion of the population that are "freeloaders" is not as high as the number of people who are stuck in "low skill" jobs. Just to take an example, the Amish do not experience this high level of stratification and wage slavery misery. They have their own problems, for sure, but humans are not en masse lazy. Most of us want to contribute to society and our system is exploitative.

> And before you accuse me of being upper class, I grew up on food stamps, didn't complete college because I was working full-time to pay my way through it and it just didn't work out, and I worked plenty of terrible, low-skill jobs before I landed a job in tech.

There is no judgment in my statement, and from being the person who interviewed them and looked at their work histories, I can tell you that they are not what you think they are. They have a lot of problems. A lot of the people we hired not only because we needed the entry-level bodies and they were all that were applying, but also because we hoped they would turn a new leaf.

You have inserted some long rant that is hard for me to consider as having anything to do with my statements, as I made no claims about humans being lazy. Some people, say in their 30s and even 40s, born in the U.S., graduated high school, have kids, can't hold a steady job, can't show up to work on time, always take long breaks, disappear and no one can find them for hours, mess around on their cell phone all the time, never get the job done right, show up to work not more than 3 consecutive days, take too long to get the job not done right, and it's got nothing to do with religion or other countries.

If you haven't managed a business that relies on entry level employees, then I'm not clear you have the perspective, regardless of your other work experiences.

As a side note, the mention of Amish seems rather silly, given that anyone who doesn't want to be Amish can leave, and anyone who wants to be Amish can join. So everyone there is where they want to be.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#658

Post by untog »

toasterlovin wrote: post #653
pwinnski wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bray didn't quit over the conditions in the warehouses, he quit over Amazon's brazen and dishonest firings of organizers. It's possible that if every Amazon warehouse were run as well, those organizers would not have arisen, but it's Amazon nastiness toward them that's most alarming.

Have you considered the possibility that Amazon actually treats their workers okay and that it's the organizers are dishonest? Why does the presumption of evil only go in one direction?

What would the organisers have to gain from lying about bad conditions in their warehouses? It’s very obvious what Amazon gains in the reverse. The organisers are putting their livelihoods on the line, you’d have to imagine they have a good reason for doing so.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#659

Post by 60secz »

toasterlovin wrote: post #653
pwinnski wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bray didn't quit over the conditions in the warehouses, he quit over Amazon's brazen and dishonest firings of organizers. It's possible that if every Amazon warehouse were run as well, those organizers would not have arisen, but it's Amazon nastiness toward them that's most alarming.

Have you considered the possibility that Amazon actually treats their workers okay and that it's the organizers are dishonest? Why does the presumption of evil only go in one direction?

* cough *

It goes on to give tips to managers for spotting union activity. “Make it a point to regularly talk to associates in the break room. This will help protect you from accusations that you were only in the break room to spy on pro union associates,” the video says.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/how-amazon-is-fighting-back-...

On internal company email lists and chat groups on Thursday and Friday that Recode viewed, Amazon white-collar workers expressed dismay over a report from Vice News that the company’s top lawyer had referred to a recently fired warehouse worker as “not smart, or articulate” and implied that executives should use that to help squelch worker unionization efforts.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/5/21206385/amazon-fired-wa...

Re: Bye, Amazon

#660

Post by lliamander »

NullInvictus wrote: post #564
supergeek133 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have been involved in both working in services and in the management level of a restaurant business. It is still my opinion that the pay, disposability, lack of dignity, lack of future, lack of community, and disrespect are the primary drivers for bad workplace behavior. Treat people like animals, and they will act like animals. It's just exploitation, and I work my current job with fear of having to go back to tha…

> This is maybe a radical argument, but I make it in good faith; if your business can only exist by paying workers at or below poverty wages, and/or enacting dehumanizing controls, it probably shouldn't exist. If the demand for the product or service is sufficient, price should follow accordingly to make that business viable and profitable. Saying a business can't afford to pay workers a living wage and treat them right is equivalent to unintentionally saying 'the business can't exist without worker exploitation'. I do not believe that is a defensible position if you don't axiomatically accept worker exploitation.

I respect your sincere intentions here, but I do object to that proposal, and I hope that there can be a constructive dialog on the subject.

I think my primary objection is to the description of the small pizzeria as being exploitative. Sure, the workers are not payed very much, but the power differential is very small. It seems much more likely that the economic relationship is genuinely one of mutual benefit, and I have a hard time finding a moral objection to that.

My other objection is to the ramifications of such a policy on a broader society. It seems inevitable to me that in such a society, everyone would be forced to be clients of large, faceless entities, be they private corporations or governmental entities. That we could rely on either of these institutions to protect individuals from exploitation is highly dubious. To my mind, it is the very existence of intermediary institutions (like small businesses) which are the best safeguards of individual autonomy and well-being.

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