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1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

businessinsider.com

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

#361

Post by ridgeguy »

WalterBright wrote: post #234
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"being a temp for future robots" While everyone was predicting that the dirty jobs would get automated, instead its a lot of midlevel jobs are getting automated, but we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash. I am willing to bet my house thay we can automate away the CEO but not the janitor, and it will be hilarious. Management is just analysis of data, we can do that. But the physical works requires de…

> we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash Because it's hard to justify the $$$ on a robot to automate a job that takes 30 seconds once a week. Modern people don't realize it, but an awful lot of household drudgery has been automated. I'm old enough to remember life before the microwave. What a marvelous time saver that is! You can even buy one from the thrift store for $10. I remember them being $1000…

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember that era, too.

My first encounter with a microwave was at far Bob's in Pasadena. Finals had just ended at Cal Tech and I walked to far Bob's to decompress. I had no knowledge of microwave ovens.

I ordered a piece of cherry pie. Waitress decided to warm it without telling me, using their then-new microwave oven.

The plate was ice cold when she passed it to me. When I bit into a piece of the pie, I burned the bejesus out of my mouth. I yelped and the waitress came running.

She showed me this magic box, which made sense as I'd just finished E&M. She comped me the pie and since it was a slow night (around 2am), we spent an hour testing different foods in the microwave. Bacon layered in paper towels was the clear winner.

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

#362

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

> One solution can be for a union, government, Amazon etc, is to put aside money for a fund that will invest in training these employees so they could one day not depend on these kind of low-leverage jobs.

Unions have negotiated with companies that outsource or automate its members' jobs to secure compensation for the workers who were affected.

However, I think this is a problem that requires a larger solution. There needs to be compensation plans for workers as they're automated away or outsourced. Perhaps it can be a buyout, or a shared ownership scheme where workers get shares in the company or the automation itself that pay dividends. Or a tax on automation or outsourcing that gets returned to workers.

We're heading towards a world where most work is done by machines, and only a handful of people will own, control and profit from them. I think a tax and a shared ownership model would help prevent a world where workers and their progeny are relegated to peasantry.

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

#363

Post by katbyte »

nunez wrote: post #259
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…

The reason why I'm personally okay with buying stuff from the Everything Store is because [1] retail is a brutal business, [2] _everyone_ in retail (except perhaps the executive leadership) is treated like shit, and [3] Amazon, for all of their failings, is still absolutely obsessed with customer satisfaction. Amazon is still one of few companies that has a completely seamless, no-BS return policy, for example. The "…

> no-BS return policy

also no fee - the fact i can buy worry free knowing if its not as described/trash/broken i can just send it back at no cost is why i use them. don't know any other online store like that

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

#364

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

eplanit wrote: post #127
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…

I have the same feelings. I'm really fine with Amazon -- but I'd be much more fine by seeing them reduced via antitrust actions, with the goal of seeing more competition. First, I'd like to separate AWS from Amazon the Bazaar. It's just too much control over _both_ the Internet (including all other e-commerce) and retail merchandise commerce. It's like they own the railroads, the ports, the trucks, and the stores --…

I understand if we hoped antitrust action on Kindle (since they fought dirty and illegal against Barnes and Noble.)

But both AMZN "bazaar" and AWS are novel concepts invented by AMZN, and they have worked really hard to make them reality on such unbelievable scales.

Nobody thought of AWS for decades, until AMZN faced the systems problem and came up with cloud computing via AWS.

I understand taking action on AMZN acquisitions since they are reducing competition illegally. But AWS is an absolutely novel idea by them, and in my opinion, we have no right to take any action there. Also there is a LOT of competition in cloud computing by AZURE and GCP

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

#365

Post by wahern »

SahAssar wrote: post #252
shawnz wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not happy about that, but what bigcorp doesn't try to bust unions? Certainly Walmart does it too, so that really seems to just be an instance of Amazon merely matching their competitors' abuses.

> but what bigcorp doesn't try to bust unions? I know it's slightly off topic, but in some areas of Europe it is considered essential for any big employer to have a healthy union. The employer encourages unionization, and there are certain benefits for them too.

Remember when there was a unionization vote at a Volkswagon plant in Tennessee, and VW was like, "please vote yes, we like working with unions and believe it'll make everybody's lives easier". But state and national politicians, not to mention outside lobbyists, created a huge campaign to oppose the vote? And then the "no" campaign succeeded.

You can't make this stuff up. But it drives home the reality that anti-union sentiment is strong in the U.S.; and deep. Most non-skilled workers in this country are very skeptical of unions, if not outright cynical. And it's always been this way, going back to the 19th century.

IIRC, there was a second vote at that same plant a little later. That time VW HQ just kept their mouth shut. And they loosened the leash on their American managers, who mostly opposed unionization. Obviously it failed again.

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

#366

Post by rejectedandsad »

tjr wrote: post #148
chubot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Barnes And Noble was also a significant computer user in the 80’s and 90’s. They put a lot of local bookstores out of business with superior inventory, prices, and generally being data driven. Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties!

I frequently shopped at Barnes & Noble ~20 years ago. But they slowly carried less and less that I was interested in, seemingly shifting from a "store for people who like books" to a "store for people to buy gifts for people who like books". At first I placed online orders with them, but once moving to online shopping at all, it was clear that Amazon had even better selection, prices, shipping, etc. But I still enjoy…

My first interaction with Amazon was as the storefront for Borders Books online (since out of business). Interesting case of EEE.

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

#367

Post by bookofsand »

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…

Unionize.

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

#368

Post by rejectedandsad »

WalterBright wrote: post #238
chubot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Barnes And Noble was also a significant computer user in the 80’s and 90’s. They put a lot of local bookstores out of business with superior inventory, prices, and generally being data driven. Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties!

> Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties! They're still in business. I browsed one last month. I was amused that one entire rack, 6 shelves, was filled with "Trump is Evil" books. Somebody at that store doesn't like Trump :-)

I want to quickly emphasize that they are data driven enough to understand that lots of people buy those books because about 51-54% of the country doesn’t and never did like him.

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

#369

Post by topkai22 »

XorNot wrote: post #353
taurath wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a fully automated amazon without a large local workforce and therefor a large local TAXBASE is going to be a huge target for regulatory enforcement.

How? If the workforce isn't local, then there's no citizens involved which US law applies too.

Reducing jobs reduces overall political support, which makes it more attractive for politicians and regulators to pass new laws or more aggressively pursue existing ones. Amazon could get hit with antitrust or some other new legal theory that develops.
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