Bye, Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Bye, Amazon

#731

Post by klyrs » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

0xy wrote: post #697

dessant wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're paid at the level they will accept for the job they provide. Amazon couldn't hire 100,000 people in a month if they were underpaying anyone. Also, why should they have means to influence the future of the company? They're hired voluntarily to do one job, not to lead the company.

Hiring 100k people a month is only half the picture. Their turnover rate is absurd, and folks wouldn't be quitting in droves if they were paying adequately to compensate for the working conditions.

Why should they have means to influence the future of the company? That's been repeatedly proven in court and enshrined in law.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#732

Post by twomoretime » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

tyre wrote: post #662

toasterlovin wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>why would the workers organize and risk their careers without just cause

Warehouse stocking is not a career. Most of these people are hourly workers with little to lose. You can't apply the same standards to white, blue, and no collar workers because the nature of both the work, the people, and the culture are totally different.

If that statement shocks or offends you, I encourage you to take a temporary job at a place like Walmart or visit an oil rig and experience the differences yourself.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#733

Post by natosaichek » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #520

oppositelock wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm this, having first hand experience with it. We hired many low-skill workers at a big tech company that you've heard of about ten years ago. These workers received a couple of weeks of training, and then were set to do a rather simple, menial, repetitive job. These workers didn't sell products, but did very low level tech work, but the entire operation was mired in drama. For example, we had a strict no…

Those stories sound nothing like the stories you hear about highly compensated employees at tech companies. You never hear stories of them ignoring strict company policies, engaging in drug abuse on the job, or displaying behaviour that makes other employees fear for their own safety.

No you don't understand. Cocaine is totally different from crack.

But I couldn't think of a 'danger' equivalent off the top of my head. What are some examples?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#734

Post by khawkins » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

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…

Dragging the company into a slew of political activism creates a toxic work environment. When people take up the mantle of speaking for all of the employees when they, in fact, don't, they end up silencing and intimidating people who disagree with them because they want to get along with their coworkers.

If you think climate change is a ticking time-bomb and needs drastic action, great, go to a climate rally in your free time and protest for more environmental laws. Some of your coworkers disagree with you, they just don't say anything because they want a good working relationship with you.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#735

Post by pathseeker » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

specialp wrote: post #701

xenocyon wrote: post #688

My personal snapping point as a consumer occurred several years ago, over something that's definitely not anecdotal: When Amazon employees are frisked at the end of their shift (which is a practice that applies to at least some warehouses), they are not paid for the time they spend waiting in line to be frisked. This is not an anecdote; indeed Amazon fought and won a court case insisting that it has the right to not…

Yes for me too. The fact that Amazon is so cheap that they want employees to sit around for 20-30 minutes after their shift unpaid to get searched to make sure they aren't stealing blew me away. It is one thing if Amazon wants to do this and pay their employees, but to not pay is wrong. And they felt so strongly about this they appealed a case all the way to the Supreme Court... That was the snapping point for me too…

Where do you draw the line? Should people be compensated for their commute? It's an interesting debate that has emerged in airports as well: https://www.talbottlawfirm.com/does-an-employer-have-to-pay-...

Re: Bye, Amazon

#736

Post by twomoretime » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

kbash9 wrote: post #729

> What about AWS? · Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. As a former employee of AWS, I can vouch for this. AWS and Amazon.com should be looked at two totally di…

I feel like the only people who are surprised by the difference are those who have only ever held white collar jobs.

They're totally different cultures. Weren't talking about two different classes of people. And unfortunately you can't expect the same standards and rules to be appropriate for both groups.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#737

Post by pbourke » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #153

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

> 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.

As far as I know, Tim Bray is the first person of his level (VP/DE) to walk away from Amazon for ethical reasons, and talk about it publicly.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#738

Post by youeseh » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

People who need to job to make ends meet usually have a lot more to lose. This very quickly creates an environment where there are real imbalances. The perception of these real imbalances can be even greater if there's a breakdown in trust / communication.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#739

Post by Vrondi » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #525

generalpass wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse is when you evaluate hiring. It isn't unusual for a high-turnover entry-level type employer to have 15% or less of candidates who agree to fill a position still employed with the company 6 months later. The pure drag of having to deal with this, especially when it comes to all of the paperwork required, by law, to be completed with every single new hire makes this alone a huge expense. The vast majority of…

Wait, so the complaint is that not enough people are getting stuck in your low-paid dead-end job? They're finding a better job and leaving? Is it less expensive constantly hiring and training new people than it would be to pay enough to retain employees you already have?

No, they are usually not finding a better job. They usually got too high, slept too long, had a family incident, or just "didn't feel like it". They usually go to another very similarly low-paid job. At this level of the employment market (Wal-Mart stockers, gas stations, big fast food chain kitchens), employers and employees both see each other as disposable and interchangeable. It is a two-way street.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#740

Post by twomoretime » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

ajhurliman wrote: post #620

stupidcar wrote: post #20

> 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…

When I switched from mechanical engineering to software engineering people would ask me how the switch went, and I would tell them it was like I became a new class of citizen. The pay was better, I didn't get drug tested anymore, management was friendly, the rules were lax. This made a lot of people uncomfortable (software engineers didn't want to acknowledge the privilege they've been living with and non-software fo…

>software engineers didn't want to acknowledge the privilege they've been living with

Maybe people would be less hostile to the idea if you didn't dismiss the fruits of their labor with accusations of "privilege." It's kind of insulting to be told that you effectively didn't earn part or all of your success because of your race and/or gender.