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1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

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Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#301

Post by martinpw »

wil421 wrote: post #133
ethbr0 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is Amazon because they didn't let size dull their edge. Unfortunately, that cuts both ways. There are a lot of ways to be exploitive, to your and your customers' benefits, when you're a $113 B revenue/quarter company, that simply aren't available when you're a startup. Hell, Walmart pioneered the "How'd you like to sell in our stores?" + "You need to reduce prices, or it'd be a shame if we, your biggest custom…

Don’t forget that Amazon still needs almost $200 billion more in revenue to beat Walmart. They have $550 billion in revenue and don’t have something like AWS. Amazon has only recently pioneered last mile logistics. It still isnt that great. I’m in a large metro area and 25-50% of my packages do not meet the prime delivery dates. I’d argue Walmart is still the king of logistics, for now.

Amazon revenue for last 4 quarters is: ~$440bn (96 + 126 + 108 + 113) so only just over $100bn away. At current growth rates, it seems like they may get there next year?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#302

Post by shadowgovt »

drorco wrote: post #203
shakezula wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So aside from “just stop buying from Amazon” what can we do ? The "just stop buying amazon" arguments never made sense to me in the first place, because most people who use it are the ones budget-stretched in the first place. A lot of rural communities have no other viable options for some items as well. It will take massive government action and that's it. There's no other way we can fix this problem. Wages are su…

There's also the other option similar to what happened after the New York Elevator Operator Strike in 1945 -- the total elimination of a profession. https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/100-years-ago-we-fear... "It wasn't until the middle of the twentieth century that the tipping point came along for the driverless elevator as the result of a strike by the elevator operators' union in New York City in 1945. The str…

To be clear, from Amazon's point of view, all of their human employees are tamping for future robots right now.

They're always pushing for automation as fast as they possibly can.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#303

Post by judge2020 »

ekianjo wrote: post #248
underseacables wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fair point. I see them as suppressing wages because they open warehouses in small towns, pay $15/hr and then work the person to death so they become dependent on that job. Amazon can totally dominate an area’s workforce and use that to drive wages and benefits down.

> then work the person to death so they become dependent on that job. Any evidence for this? Especially in COVID times when there's massive unemployment checks programs, if that were remotely true nobody would be working for Amazon right now.

Most Amazon warehouse employees will attest to how much you're tracked in terms of performance numbers and how taking micro breaks[0] is discouraged or punished. And $15/hr is still generally more than most employment, with the state average maximum individual unemployment being $2042 a month [1] and Amazon paying minimum $2600 a month (in terms of full-time), which might make or break the bank for many Amazon employees.

0: https://ehs.stanford.edu/subtopic/microbreaks

1: https://savingtoinvest.com/maximum-weekly-unemployment-benef...

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#304

Post by [deleted] »

narrator wrote: post #35

In the spirit of the FSF's "Right to Read"[1] dystopia story, I present "Fully Automated Amazon Communism" : 1. Everyone works at Amazon 2. Amazon has vertically integrated into every conceivable industry. 3. Everyone gets paid in Amazon gift cards. 4. Amazon automatically delivers to your home everything you need to live your life without you having to ask. It knows what to order based on an AI model of everything y…

[deleted]

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#306

Post by james4k »

andreilys wrote: post #292
shakezula wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So aside from “just stop buying from Amazon” what can we do ? The "just stop buying amazon" arguments never made sense to me in the first place, because most people who use it are the ones budget-stretched in the first place. A lot of rural communities have no other viable options for some items as well. It will take massive government action and that's it. There's no other way we can fix this problem. Wages are su…

Wages are suppressed because it's _legal enough_ to suppress them I'm not an Amazon defender by any means, but doesn't Amazon pay the best in terms of comparable work which is why the warehouse jobs are so competitive to get? Or is that just Amazon PR to stave off regulations

It is mostly PR.

Among all Amazon workers, the median pay is $28,446 a year ($13.68 an hour), a figure the company revealed this year for the first time because of a new regulatory requirement. That’s a worldwide figure that includes full and part-time workers. Glassdoor, an employment site, says average pay at U.S. fulfillment centers has been $13 an hour, according to nearly 900 people who submitted their data to the site.

Amazon’s pay is significantly above the $10.28 an hour that the typical retail worker makes, but it’s less than the $15.53 that a median warehouse employee is paid, according to Labor Department data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/amazons-15-m...

Article is from 2018, but is about a wage increase to $15/hr.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#307

Post by magpi3 »

underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

It is a difficult problem. There is a saying: ease is the disease. Seeking the easy path (which most of us do) generally leads to supporting institutions not for their moral worth, but for their ability to make our lives easier. And so companies focus on exactly that: making our lives easier.

Taxes might help. If you tax a company for their immoral behavior, the cost of their goods go up and consumers might make different decisions. But in a democratic society the people who create taxes are elected by voters who want their lives to be easy.

Maybe the best thing would be to throw out democracy and be ruled by philosopher kings who can make these decisions for us. I only say that half-jokingly.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#308

Post by tharkun__ »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #140
underseacables wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fair point. I see them as suppressing wages because they open warehouses in small towns, pay $15/hr and then work the person to death so they become dependent on that job. Amazon can totally dominate an area’s workforce and use that to drive wages and benefits down.

In Road to Wiggan Pier, George Orwell wrote that the worst housing available to people weren't the major corporations or business that owned numerous properties, but the petty landlords. The ones who barely could afford upkeep. We also noticed that after the Land Consolidation Act in Britain that food outputs shot up enormously so as not to waste peoples time being minor farmers who toiled a lot for little in compari…

I could get behind some of this but we have to keep some things separate.

Specialization is great. Economies of scale make certain things possible. Awesome. That doesn't mean you have to consolidate power for each of these things with just one big overlord.

I don't agree with the house maintenance for example. Many many renters have a really hard time to get their landlords big and small to fix things. Or make them nice. And you can't do stuff on your own. Want a mini split AC/heat exchanger? Gotta ask the landlord. A large corporation that doesn't want to do this or even listen to you. They'd have to install this for the entire apartment block if they do. A large expense. Now you gotta get all the 50 neighbors to petition as well to get anything moving. And the corp knows they gotta increase the rent if they do this for you but then you will complain about the rent increase later. The same can apply to individual petty landlords abviously.

As a homeowner I already can make use of the benefits of specialization by calling on someone that specializes in HVAC to help me choose whether a mini split makes sense, which models are out there, install it properly etc. Or I can do parts of this, like the research myself or even the installation if I have the expertise.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#309

Post by dlgeek »

james4k wrote: post #306
andreilys wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages are suppressed because it's _legal enough_ to suppress them I'm not an Amazon defender by any means, but doesn't Amazon pay the best in terms of comparable work which is why the warehouse jobs are so competitive to get? Or is that just Amazon PR to stave off regulations

It is mostly PR. Among all Amazon workers, the median pay is $28,446 a year ($13.68 an hour), a figure the company revealed this year for the first time because of a new regulatory requirement. That’s a worldwide figure that includes full and part-time workers. Glassdoor, an employment site, says average pay at U.S. fulfillment centers has been $13 an hour, according to nearly 900 people who submitted their data to t…

Wait, so they're taking a part time pay for a year in which someone didn't work full time and dividing it by full time hours, even though those aren't worked to calculate an hourly salary below the minimum hourly salary that's actually paid?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#310

Post by wil421 »

martinpw wrote: post #301
wil421 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget that Amazon still needs almost $200 billion more in revenue to beat Walmart. They have $550 billion in revenue and don’t have something like AWS. Amazon has only recently pioneered last mile logistics. It still isnt that great. I’m in a large metro area and 25-50% of my packages do not meet the prime delivery dates. I’d argue Walmart is still the king of logistics, for now.

Amazon revenue for last 4 quarters is: ~$440bn (96 + 126 + 108 + 113) so only just over $100bn away. At current growth rates, it seems like they may get there next year?

A pandemic year is not a normal year. Everyone ordered online by necessity and Amazon is the de facto online retailer. Brick and motor was hit harder last year.
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