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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#811

Post by pnutjam »

lliamander wrote: post #660
NullInvictus wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ri…

It's possible that the owner is being exploited too, but the franchise corporation, or financial interests. That doesn't make it ok for them to exploit others.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#812

Post by eanzenberg »

60secz wrote: post #659
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?

* 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…

There is no faster way to stagnate an industry and destroy innovation than by workers unionizing. Enjoy more outsourcing of jobs than before.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#813

Post by luckylion »

toasterlovin wrote: post #671
hysan wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the example replies to this I’ve seen so far are where the power imbalance between business owner and worker is huge. So I’ll give my anecdote which is from the other side. I grew up watching, and often helping, my parents as they ran their own business. We were at best lower middle class. The economic gap between us and those we hired was far smaller than any of the examples given here. My parents treated the wo…

> People don’t default to cheating the system. Some people don't. I think you may be underestimating the degree to which A) your parents were good judges of people, and B) having ownership close to the metal can make things work well.

And being a small business. Things run very differently when there are ten people and you know everyone vs when there are ten thousand people and you only vaguely know what 1/10th of the departments actually do.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#814

Post by ignoramous »

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…

> ...discipline executives

Reminds of the classic and very public Amazon exec feud, Kivin Varghese v Munira Rahemtulla: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600716

Re: Bye, Amazon

#815

Post by cmurf »

It's way past time for an Amazon boycott. This blog post makes the case without saying the word. But even here on HN there's a long history of complaints about fraud on Amazon: fake reviews, fake products, and little to no action by Amazon. And they show they have the power to take corrective action when something happens they don't actually like, while standing idly by when they don't care. The actions, and lack thereof, are what matter.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#816

Post by pathseeker »

wpietri wrote: post #689
pathseeker wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Manager-labor hostility was too baked in on the management side Don't forget that it's baked in on the labor side as well. NUMMI was not a 'fix' of a GM plant. It was a new venture started where a previous GM plant had closed.

A new venture that rehired a lot of the same workers. If you listen to the TAL piece, you'll hear how they changed. It wasn't an overnight transformation, but ultimately the workers changed where GM managers couldn't.

The plant was open until GM went bankrupt. What do you mean the managers couldn't change?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#817

Post by birdlover »

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…

I view this as an "8 hour workday" deal.

It would be like it is now, if it hadn't been workers organizing and speaking out.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#818

Post by cactus2093 »

paulintrognon wrote: post #162
ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes huge balls to do something like this. > The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth > Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle. A good number of engineers refuse to even interview with FAANGs and other nasty companies on principle and they don't get any public praise.

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.

Erm... yeah it is a different thing, it takes a much stronger conviction to refuse the interviews in the first place. To follow your morals when you haven't first spent years looking the other way while saving up likely millions of dollars that allow you the option to never work again.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#819

Post by dilandau »

I am surprised to see a high-profile software engineer take this step. It seems from the post that his motivation was mostly in protest to the company's efforts to shut-down any form of worker organization.

It's these strange ways that COVID is changing our economy that make me very bearish long-term on the economy. Businesses around here can reopen legally but many are choosing to stay closed. The customers aren't back yet and they can't pay their regular staff. If they reopen, the staff can also no longer collect the massive unemployment benefits.

It's a fucking shitstorm and it's hitting the highly-paid as well, I guess.

Good luck to OP.

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