All they need is to agree to use "onion", "praise" and so. So much bad press for something that can be worked around so easily
Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
221–230 of 476 posts
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have a senator or representative this would be a great time to ask what the fuck is the NLRB doing when there's this much anti union activity going on? And if they don't respond some more direct action might be necessary.
> If you have a senator or representative Most of us don't, but I've been looking at the lobbying numbers and they don't seem that expensive. I think with crowd funding and smart targeting of the money it might not be that difficult to buy change.
Are you suggesting we should crowd fund to get the money for politicians elected by the people to actually for the people?
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#223When I was in grad school my advisor was in China for a few months. Any emails where air quality was discussed seemed to end up black-holed. Similar messages using pig latin versions of the same phrases seemed to make it through just fine.
You clearly don’t understand when they use “gcd” to mean Chinese Communist Party
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#224I must get aws job offers from recruiters every couple of months and they just can't seem to understand why I would turn them down.
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#225All they need is to agree to use "onion", "praise" and so. So much bad press for something that can be worked around so easily
China managed to censor 8x8 as a reference to Tienanman so I don’t think it’s enough
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't say that coders as an industry are destroying the road behind us, since there isn't really a road between "warehouse worker" and "software engineer", unless someone has the knack for coding (in which case there's a very clear and well-paved road within the company between those roles) I think the best solution is to empower workers via unions or whatever else. It should be impossible for workers to get gro…
> I wouldn't say that coders as an industry are destroying the road behind us I agree, in fact I would argue the total opposite. Has any industry/skill group in history put so much effort in to getting more people involved than the software industry has?
I’m not sure it supports the point you’re rebutting, but my immediate thought was the military. The draft, shooting deserters, press-gangs, etc.
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the conditions are that bad, are they really worth the extra dollar per hour? Seems like the fruit packing warehouse is a better choice for most people. Worse employment conditions will always come with a pay premium under competition.
Some people don't really have a choice; that extra dollar each hour might mean housing or food security. And, say, a parent in a household might think that's the trade off they have to make: they're horrifyingly miserable, but their spouse and kids get to be better off. But that's a trade off no one should have to make: it's messed up that we as a society allow this state of affairs to exist in the first place. And y…
> And yet here I am, not canceling my Prime membership, because I suck.
I genuinely don’t understand. You have already argued that despite shitty conditions at Amazon, some people are desperate enough for money that the alternative (making less with better working conditions) is even worse. So if enough people cancelled their Amazon subscriptions that they had to scale back operations, wouldn’t those people be worse off than they are now?
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only takes a few seconds to find a keyword in someones comment history: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Why would they search specifically for "cancel culture"? It seems pretty obvious that the individual didn't search but instead took the time to try and find anything they could to make OP look bad.
I agree it's super weird, doesn't feel in the spirit of HN to me.
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#229> The major goal of the program, Amazon’s head of worldwide consumer business, Dave Clark, said, was to reduce employee attrition by fostering happiness among workers — and also productivity. Shout-Outs would be part of a gamified rewards system in which employees are awarded virtual stars and badges for activities that “add direct business value,” documents state. At the meeting, Clark remarked that “some people are…
> I cannot imagine anyone here seriously defending this unless you’re just looking to be a contrarian.
HN has a large libertarian base who are against regulated unions. They are seen as bad government interference in the free enterprise system. I don't want to start an argument but there's a lot of economics science that supports that belief.
Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Massive salaries for programmers won’t last forever. Most people here on HN are self-taught; it’s a skill a large number of motivated people can pick up. Eventually, large corporations will feel comfortable lowering wages once they have a secure grip on the market, and the tools programmers today made will be used against the next generation. It’s no different from millennials resenting boomers for burning economic b…
High salaries for tech workers are not a new phenomenon. So if programming were truly a skill a large number of people could just “pick up”, it would have happened already.
Yep. Programming is really hard.
The idea that anyone can "learn to code" is a work of fiction. Nobody says that anyone can learn to do surgery, become a fighter pilot or become a barrister. I couldn't do those jobs. And lots of people couldn't do my job.
Telling people that effort is the only thing stopping them getting a 6 figure software engineering salary does real harm. Its notable that most people who say this aren't themselves programmers.
Its even true amongst programmers. I've struggled to learn modern deep learning. And lots of people here on HN struggle with "leetcode problems" - which is the exact sort of work I can't get enough of.
We aren't made the same. Software has been a highly in-demand skill for the last 2 decades, and I bet it'll stay that way for at least the rest of my life. Well, at least until AI gets good enough.