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Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

theintercept.com

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Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#241

Post by kennywinker »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #171
grapeskin wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scariest thing isn't that Amazon is a company worth nearly trillions and using that money to oppress workers to maintain their lead. It's that tech workers are happily applying to get a decent paycheck and crushing people under them, just to protect the company's billions. Then they'll post online about how happy they are to have been smart enough to save up to buy a lakefront home and retire at 45, and say peopl…

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…

A really great way to be able to quit your job and take a coding bootcamp is to make enough money that you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and can survive for a few months while you retrain. Poverty restricts your options and keeps you in survival mode.

But the overall point is that unions rely on solidarity, and any coder adding filters to an amazon chat app or whatever dystopian crap amazon is pulling next is displaying a massive lack of solidarity with their fellow humans

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#242

Post by throwaway2048 »

thelucky41 wrote: post #160
KennyBlanken wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if Amazon is trying to set up a distribution center in your state, county, or town: fight it. At the very least insist on language that prohibits any sort of corporate welfare. No tax breaks, no free infrastructure. Bezos is the richest man in the world; he can afford to run a new sewer or water main to his big fancy warehouses, instead of making a county's worth of low-income blue-collar folks pay for it. He can…

If the next town over does not follow this strategy, you will quickly find yourself in a diminished community with less public services and available jobs.

"better things aren't possible" isn't the cutting rebuttal people think it is.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#243

Post by jokethrowaway »

grapeskin wrote: post #168
someelephant wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems odd to blame other workers here even if they do make a lot of money. The only way workers will be helped is other jobs provide better value to the worker or companies are regulated to provide better conditions. Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests.

Tech workers can skip FAANG’s 300k salaries and still do fine with 180k at a more ethical company. Those people are responsible. The people slaving for 50 cents over minimum wage and still being unable to pay rent don’t have much of a choice.

Those people taking 300k salaries and building amazon.com are also contributing to creating value for the customers of amazon.com.

Is the value created for the customers of amazon.com less or more significant for society at large than people who can't get a better job than minimum wage, voluntarily working for minimum wage?

There is no moral right or wrong. I personally hate amazon and I would never work for them (even if I'm impressed by what Bezos achieved) but I don't judge people working for amazon. I judge way more people working for the IRS, that's a proper criminal enterprise.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#244

Post by tsimionescu »

olalonde wrote: post #229
uncomputation wrote: post #49

> 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.

Well, if your arguments are coming from "economics science", feel free to make them. It's usually very entertaining to see what crazy things economists convince themselves to believe, while also thinking they are doing science.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#245

Post by attilaperez »

olalonde wrote: post #229
uncomputation wrote: post #49

> 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.

Economics is not a science, it's an art. Believe me.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#246

Post by brtkdotse »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #243
grapeskin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech workers can skip FAANG’s 300k salaries and still do fine with 180k at a more ethical company. Those people are responsible. The people slaving for 50 cents over minimum wage and still being unable to pay rent don’t have much of a choice.

Those people taking 300k salaries and building amazon.com are also contributing to creating value for the customers of amazon.com. Is the value created for the customers of amazon.com less or more significant for society at large than people who can't get a better job than minimum wage, voluntarily working for minimum wage? There is no moral right or wrong. I personally hate amazon and I would never work for them (ev…

Whenever I hear the phrase “creating value” I think of this comic strip:

https://mobile.twitter.com/benioff/status/549339156854214656

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#248

Post by hef19898 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #171
grapeskin wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scariest thing isn't that Amazon is a company worth nearly trillions and using that money to oppress workers to maintain their lead. It's that tech workers are happily applying to get a decent paycheck and crushing people under them, just to protect the company's billions. Then they'll post online about how happy they are to have been smart enough to save up to buy a lakefront home and retire at 45, and say peopl…

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…

Everything at Amazon is a road between software engineers and warehouse workers, because everything SEs at Amazon (with the exception of AWS) are doing is serving its eCommerce business. And that eCommerce business is riding on the back of warehouse workers.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#249

Post by CryptoPunk »

uncomputation wrote: post #49

> 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 defend this because the union system, where the government mandates companies engage in exclusive bargaining with unions, is illiberal, unfair and economically destructive. What's fair is the right to quit. Nothing beyond that. No one is entitled to a job that some other party furnishes, and to effectively force that company, via labor regulations, mandated negotiation advantages for unions, etc, to provide them a job with the terms they want.

With government mandates against them, Amazon is fighting with both hands tied behind its back, and it's only a matter of time before social activists will succeed in putting the company's US based sites under the control of unions, as we saw happen to the Big Three automakers.

In comparison to what Amazon is up against, which is blatant violations of its contract liberty by the state and its apparatus of violence (the courts, police and prisons that compel compliance with state injunctions), these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.

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