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Bye, Amazon

tbray.org

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#661

Post by zaphod4prez »

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?

Well Amazon has a history of mistreating workers. So, why do we think they are likely mistreating workers? It's because they have a long & well-document track record of doing so.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse...

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazo...

https://time.com/5629233/amazon-warehouse-employee-treatment...

And the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon

Re: Bye, Amazon

#662

Post by tyre »

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?

Why would the workers organize and risk their careers without just cause?

He mentions petitions with thousands of signatures. Are all of those people just…I mean, what?

If they were lying, then Amazon could easily come out and say, "They're asking for regular breaks every four hours and we literally give them that. They ask for PPE and every employee is given X, Y, Z. They want us to reduce our carbon footprint by 10%, here is an independent audit showing 12% reduction." (etc.)

In situations of extreme power imbalance, it's not unreasonable to default trust the person not in power who is taking far greater risk.

Sometimes you'll be wrong! But the burden of proof is on people in power.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#663

Post by abofh »

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?

It's also possible that bezos likes to snuggle and is amazing at it. But I have yet to read a story telling me that

Re: Bye, Amazon

#664

Post by [deleted] »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #196
jillesvangurp wrote: post #122

It's a wake up call, or at least an attempt at that, for the likes of Amazon that if they are looking to have reputable people, like Tim Bray, associate themselves and their name with you, there are certain standards that have to be met. Amazon, MS, Google, Apple, etc. rank among the most wealthy companies in the world and they've each had to deal with internal pressures where their employees voiced concerns about ce…

> It's a wake up call, or at least an attempt at that, for the likes of Amazon that if they are looking to have reputable people, like Tim Bray, associate themselves and their name with you, there are certain standards that have to be met. Prominent VCs are calling for people to get back to work every day on Twitter. The rest of the world is waking up to these people, but we have a long way to go before Silicon Valle…

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#666

Post by alex_young »

I really wish there was a stand-alone cloud provider to work with.

AWS is a part of this unethical beast, GCP is a side project of a huge advertising company, Azure is under the wing of a major monopolist.

I guess there is Linode, but their services are more of a traditional VPS than a cloud host.

It's kind of crazy that most of the net income of Amazon comes from this business, but we've accepted that a stand alone cloud business won't work for some reason.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#667

Post by cek »

tbray.org has been /.'d (is that still a thing?).

Either that, or the strongly worded anti-defamation language found in Amazon's employment agreement has come into play, forcing it to be shutdown.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#668

Post by pietrovismara »

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?

Just compare the incentives for both parts to be dishonest and you have your answer. What would workers gain from being dishonest except the risk of being fired or retaliated upon?

And why, if organizers are lying, can't Amazon just disprove them by showing to the public their perfect working conditions?

Finally, isn't it a natural instinct to side with the weaker element in a fight?

Does Amazon really need your support, or are the workers one paycheck away from homelessness in need of it?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#669

Post by dessant »

o10449366 wrote: post #635
grawprog wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as a corporation, every poorly run warehouse reflects on Amazon. It doesn't matter if some of them are good, Amazon is allowing the sweat shop level ones to exist and continue to be run that way. This implies they're ok with this or at the very least don't give a shit about how their warehouses are run or whether their employees are treated properly.

Which warehouses are "sweat shop" level?

I think all of them, given that workers are severely underpaid compared to the value they provide, and have no means to influence the future of the company, other than to speak up and be fired.

Though it's possible that the parent was referring to Amazon warehouses where workers had to pee in a bottle to keep their productivity points above the cutoff level.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#670

Post by SamWhited »

o10449366 wrote: post #635
grawprog wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as a corporation, every poorly run warehouse reflects on Amazon. It doesn't matter if some of them are good, Amazon is allowing the sweat shop level ones to exist and continue to be run that way. This implies they're ok with this or at the very least don't give a shit about how their warehouses are run or whether their employees are treated properly.

Which warehouses are "sweat shop" level?

The ones that have been in the news for years for being sweat shop level. The ones that 60 Minutes did an exposition on, and that activists have been trying to draw attention to. I don't understand what you want by asking this question, an address?
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