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Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

jacobinmag.com

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Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#231

Post by thethethethe »

sergefaguet wrote: post #114
beckman466 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare workers ask to not be treated like shit! /s You do know Amazon has been caught union busting right? I'm not so sure what your definition of democracy is when workers can't voice their concerns.

Interesting. I must have missed the point when unions became about voicing concerns. Last I recall, creating unions is an attempt at monopolizing labor to extort the employer. When this tactic is applied to any other factor of production it is called a “cartel” and engaged in “market manipulation.” How surprising that employers who pay above-market wages do not wish to be extorted further. All the modern propaganda s…

> Last I recall, creating unions is an attempt at monopolizing labor to extort the employer. When this tactic is applied to any other factor of production it is called a “cartel” and engaged in “market manipulation.”

This seems like an argument in bad faith but I'll bite.

You are ignoring the pre-existing power imbalance between employer and employee, where the employer holds authoritarian control of production and the lives of employees. Cartels and market manipulation are mechanisms used by those with existing autocratic power to grow and strengthen their control over production and people, while unions try to balance this power by giving workers a seat at the table. I think it's pretty obvious that they are not the same thing

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#232

Post by paulddraper »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #24
aga98mtl wrote: post #13

The article seems to contain nothing that would qualify for the words "Company Town". It appears to boil down "look amazon is big, surely it means that it must be evil!".

It’s on Jacobin, so this is to be expected. Not exactly a neutral publication.

> Jacobin

Oh, I'm surprised that is allowed on HN.

Like one step above tabloids.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#233

Post by josephcsible »

katbyte wrote: post #169
josephcsible wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree that adverse selection is a problem, but the government's rule doesn't really fix it. All that happened is that people with known health problems will look harder for full-time jobs, and healthier people will take the part-time jobs that pay slightly more per hour.

? If healthcare/benefits is provided by the government from taxes outside of your job then it doesn’t matter if you have a full/part time job?

> If healthcare/benefits is provided by the government from taxes outside of your job

But that's not the case today in the US. My point is that the government mandating that full-time jobs provide benefits (which is the case today in the US) doesn't fix the adverse selection problem. All it does is lead to a bunch of jobs right under the cutoff for full-time.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#234

Post by setr »

claytoneast wrote: post #209
wincy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine working at an Amazon center injured himself because he walks 5+ miles per shift. He also weighs like 350 pounds. He’s lost like 50 pounds already so hopefully he’ll get to a weight where he’s not injuring himself before he ends up having to quit. Amazon isn’t obligated to provide my morbidly obese friend with a job, and he knows that, and he’s doing his best to keep on without destroying his body.

I'm not sure how anyone could walk 5+ miles a shift @350lbs and not injure themself, unless they were that big from training for Strongman or the like. Humans are not meant to have that much fat.

According to my iPhone tracking, I apparently walk several miles a day just from a habit of walking when on calls (largely circling around the parking lot like a vulture, for no apparent reason and probably confusing bystanders and co-workers continuously). Not for any particular reason; I’m just fidgety.

Well into obese (but less than 300) and it’s really not an issue at all — walking is a very light activity (and far easier than standing). Also notably, this habit has not lead to any weight-loss, or perhaps I eat to make up for it.

Ask me to run however and I’m dying in short order.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#235

Post by dalbasal »

prince781 wrote: post #227
dalbasal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't. The idea wasn't abstract in the 1830s. It meant the difference between having a loom in your house and working at a mill. We could debate the importance of this, but we'd be starting by talking about an actual thing that is happening in the world. You could talk to a mill worker about it and it described their life. You can't think of relevant ways of describing alienation, because the thing you are tryin…

Alienation isn't a historical event. It's a term that describes how a human being, in the present, relates to the things he creates. The concept is simple: Most people today are put in the unusual position (anthropologically speaking) of creating things they do not themselves sell. From this flows a lot of consequences for social conflict, politics, mental health, etc, something we should try to understand.

Alienation is/was a term coined at a particular time. It was easy to understand at that time, because it was related to changes in the world that were happening. You didn't have to be a marxist to use it in a sentence.

Today it is still used, because it's part of abstract theory, to which other abstract theory relates, in ways that are entirely meaningless outside of this theory. What's the non-alienated version of an amazon worker, a door-to-door salesman?

>> From this flows a lot of consequences for social conflict, politics, mental health, etc.

Whether or not this was ever true, it was at least a legible statement 200 years ago. Today, it's a completely meaningless, mumbling piety.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#236

Post by dehrmann »

hellomyguys wrote: post #217
dehrmann wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5+ miles per shift This really isn't that much. The average Disneyland visitor probably walks 5 miles per day. A nurse might walk 4 miles in a shift. I'd expect most people who aren't overweight would be able go adapt to 5 miles per day pretty quickly, and 10 is fairly doable.

> This really isn't that much. The average Disneyland visitor probably walks 5 miles per day. What a bizarre comparison. Most people are pretty tired after visiting Disneyland. You also don’t do that 300 times a year.

They're completely untrained in it, though. You gain endurance pretty quickly, and the fact that most people can go from couch potato to 5 miles in a day and just feel pretty tired shows that distance isn't a big deal--we're just lazy.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#237

Post by walshemj »

dehrmann wrote: post #213
wincy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine working at an Amazon center injured himself because he walks 5+ miles per shift. He also weighs like 350 pounds. He’s lost like 50 pounds already so hopefully he’ll get to a weight where he’s not injuring himself before he ends up having to quit. Amazon isn’t obligated to provide my morbidly obese friend with a job, and he knows that, and he’s doing his best to keep on without destroying his body.

> 5+ miles per shift This really isn't that much. The average Disneyland visitor probably walks 5 miles per day. A nurse might walk 4 miles in a shift. I'd expect most people who aren't overweight would be able go adapt to 5 miles per day pretty quickly, and 10 is fairly doable.

Seems a little low I just checked my phone and last time in commuted to our office in London I walked 2.5 miles.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#238

Post by xyzzyz »

Sharlin wrote: post #163
xyzzyz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was enormous difference. For one thing, workers in company towns were free to quit and move somewhere else, while medieval peasants could not.

In theory, anyway. Being legally permitted to do something is a really low bar to clear. Even now, in the era of cheap transportation and free real-time information to base your decisions on, for the majority of working-class families the idea of packing up and trying again somewhere else is less than feasible. In the 1800s? Not a fscking chance, even if your employee was gracious enough to pay you with hard currency…

In 1800s, people packed up on oxen wagons, and crossed the continent on undeveloped trails. If you look at the actual statistics, in early 1900, people used to move around the country more, not less than today.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#239

Post by robocat »

hughrr wrote: post #207
sjg007 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually sounds like a great way to lose weight if you can handle it. We need to walk more. I’ve thought about moving to NYC just to walk more.

We do need to walk more but it's a crappy way to lose weight. You have to put a huge number of miles in to lose a significant amount. Tracking your eating and eating less calories is the only winner really. Put it this way: Don't eat a 250 cal chocolate bar or take a 60 minute walk? Same impact. Incidentally I have walked 103 miles in the last 24 days...

> but it's a crappy way to lose weight

Maybe a crappy way if you are obese.

But AFAIK over years walking will strongly help maintain a good weight and keep you healthy. It certainly does help reduce weight and improve fitness compared to just potatoing. You can do more, but as a minimum starting point it is pretty bloody good.

One observation: people are generally not obese in central London and part of the reason is the few km walking per day to get to and from work via the tube.

Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

#240

Post by aga98mtl »

sumeno wrote: post #202
aga98mtl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I was hoping Amazon was actually making housing for its workers. I think high density housing within walking distance of your job is the realistic solution for lowering co2 emissions.

What happens if you want to switch jobs? Tying basic necessities like housing to your employer is a disaster that traps people in jobs. It's part of the reason healthcare in the US is so screwed up.

The housing could be normal rentals not conditional on keeping the job. I would guess that most Amazon facilities are located in urban areas. It would not be isolated mining town like in 1900s
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