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How Amazon Crushes Unions

nytimes.com

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Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#3
> Amazon managers openly warned recruits that if they liked things comfortable, this would be a difficult, perhaps impossible, job. For customer service representatives, it was difficult to keep up, according to media accounts and labor organizers. Overtime was mandatory. Supervisors sent emails with subject headings like “YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.”

Umm, yikes.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#5
Not to excuse Amazon or anything, but absolutely every company in America does this. Most of them don't bother with subterfuge though and just go with threats or firings. And one of our main political parties is vehemently anti-union and keeps winning elections.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#6
I hate Amazon and stories like this make me hate it even more. I stopped ordering anything from them and, if anything, this has actually improved my consumer experience.

Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days. Not shopping at either has definitely raised the average life span and quality of goods in my household.

Now I only wish I could find a way to move all our infrastructure off AWS...

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#7
post #6

I hate Amazon and stories like this make me hate it even more. I stopped ordering anything from them and, if anything, this has actually improved my consumer experience. Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days. Not shopping at either has definitely raised the average life span and quality of goods in my househ…

I've made the same changes in recent months and agree that it's improved my consumer experience significantly. I didn't realize just how much time and energy I was spending sorting through cheap Chinese made junk and counterfeit garbage on Amazon trying to find quality products.

In terms of cloud providers: the major three (Azure, GCloud, AWS) seem to be cut from the same cloth... maybe IBM or Oracle cloud are better options (I don't have any experience with either, but both companies obviously have skeleton filled closets)?

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#8
post #5

Not to excuse Amazon or anything, but absolutely every company in America does this. Most of them don't bother with subterfuge though and just go with threats or firings. And one of our main political parties is vehemently anti-union and keeps winning elections.

Yeah, it may be par for the course for your average American company, but it's exceptional for tech companies - then again, most tech companies don't have as many high-supply-low-demand jobs as Amazon (or they "outsource" them, like Uber).

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#9
Stuff like this always comes to mind when the media celebrates the richest people in the world. This often comes at the expense of low level employees who do dangerous and underpaid work so a few guys can become very rich. And the worse they treat these employees the more the rich guys get celebrated.

That’s why the slogan “run the government like a business” doesn’t work. It would mean to ignore the weakest in society (maybe lay them off?) for the benefit of a few at the top.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#10
post #7
post #6

I hate Amazon and stories like this make me hate it even more. I stopped ordering anything from them and, if anything, this has actually improved my consumer experience. Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days. Not shopping at either has definitely raised the average life span and quality of goods in my househ…

I've made the same changes in recent months and agree that it's improved my consumer experience significantly. I didn't realize just how much time and energy I was spending sorting through cheap Chinese made junk and counterfeit garbage on Amazon trying to find quality products. In terms of cloud providers: the major three (Azure, GCloud, AWS) seem to be cut from the same cloth... maybe IBM or Oracle cloud are better…

IBM’s cloud platform is laughably bad. Avoid at all costs!
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