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Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

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Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#51

Post by vangelis »

standardUser wrote: post #36

This is a great example of how labor laws in the US are weak (deal with this sudden, dramatic change to your schedule or you're fired). It is also an example of how employers take great advantage of those weak labor laws. It is not, however, an example of how big corporations are evil. There's plenty of examples of that out there, this just isn't one. But for some reason is is surprisingly common for people to blame…

Regulations are written in blood. This seems like blaming OSHA for poor safety when an incident they hadn't yet considered happens.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#52

Post by gigatexal »

If there was ever a case for a humanoid robot it would be for packing packages in a warehouse. Same for agriculture harvesting: the back breaking nature of picking strawberries could be done by a robot with hands that have the same dexterity and nuance as a human.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#55

Post by bryanlarsen »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #31
sthnblllII wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not an accident. Offshoring and immigration have killed the ability of labor to walk when given terrible choices like this.

Not agreeing or disagreeing with this take, but it's not an uncommon one and shouldn't be so downvoted. Bernie Sanders himself was singing a similar tune for most of the last 20 years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/16/years-ber...

Popular bad ideas should be down-voted much more liberally than unpopular bad ideas.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#56

Post by khalilravanna »

From the article it sounds like the spirit behind this decision is to better serve the customer by hitting fast delivery times more. Is this really such an important thing for people? I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed.

I’d be interested to see the percentage of people complaining about slow delivery times vs the percentage of people who choose the “slow” shipping option on amazon.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#57

Post by EpicEng »

exmadscientist wrote: post #13

Serious question: if these jobs are so awful, and they do sound awful, why are people taking them? I can think of several possible answers, but I haven't the faintest clue which ones are (most) right.

The vast majority of people need to work whatever job pays best. Gotta step out of that overpaid web dev bubble.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#58

Post by AlexandrB »

standardUser wrote: post #36

This is a great example of how labor laws in the US are weak (deal with this sudden, dramatic change to your schedule or you're fired). It is also an example of how employers take great advantage of those weak labor laws. It is not, however, an example of how big corporations are evil. There's plenty of examples of that out there, this just isn't one. But for some reason is is surprisingly common for people to blame…

A lot of times employers help write or weaken those labor laws (see proposition 22 in California). I'm not sure they can shrug their shoulders and say: "Aw shucks guys, we're just following the rules!".

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#59

Post by kwhitefoot »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #11

American culture is optimized for consumers. When you're a consumer, it's a great thing: customer service, return policies, payment methods, and the entire process of buying stuff is leaps and bounds above somewhere like the European Union. When you're a worker, though, no one particularly cares about you. If a CEO can squeeze more profit out of his workforce by forcing them to work odd hours at the drop of a hat, he…

> customer service, return policies, payment methods, and the entire process of buying stuff is leaps and bounds above somewhere like the European Union.

Nonsense. Buying stuff is just as easy here as in the US and my experience of return policies is that they are more generous here. Plus you have a much longer legally enforced warranties. What payment methods do you have in the US that we don't? Apart from cheques that is.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#60

Post by pavel_lishin »

khalilravanna wrote: post #56

From the article it sounds like the spirit behind this decision is to better serve the customer by hitting fast delivery times more. Is this really such an important thing for people? I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed. I’d be interested to see the percentage of people complaining about slow delivery times vs the percentage of people w…

> Is this really such an important thing for people? I for one would rather wait an extra day if it meant there weren’t countless workers having their schedules destroyed.

I'd wager that most of Amazon's customers aren't aware that there's even a trolley problem to solve here.

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