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Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

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Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#101

Post by edmcnulty101 »

aldebran wrote: post #91
missedthecue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were the first to $15, literally leading a nationwide wage increase for low skill labor, and now they pay closer to $18 by me. For people trying to hate Amazon at any cost, the goalposts keep shifting. If Amazon announced $20 minimum tomorrow, there is no doubt in my mind that people would still be griping. And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles a…

That’s because the higher pay comes at the cost of peeing in bottles aka losing human dignity. It feels like there’s no shortage of people out to defend Amazon either.

Does any job have dignity anymore?

I'm a white guy on a team of a all Indian developers and I spend half of my time kissing butt to fit in, just so I can get the basic information I need to do my job.

Before that I was a truck driver and peed in a bottle and that actually had more dignity then kissing butt all day.

Single moms useing only fans to keep paying these skyrocketing rents.

They literally made half the work force submit to experimental vaccines or get fired.

This is 2022 America.

There's no such thing as work place dignity in the majority of jobs anymore.

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#102

Post by pera »

luckylion wrote: post #36
qbasic_forever wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quotation marks implies they are directly quoting from the leaked memo, i.e. not a sensationalized headline.

That's not how quoting works. You can't just quote one word and then put something else behind it. There's a difference between "neutralizing unions" and "neutralizing labor's attempt to ..." It's like the difference between "we need to kill him" and "we need to kill his attempt to pass a law that would..."

> There's a difference between "neutralizing unions" and "neutralizing labor's attempt to ..."

The term neutralize as used here (i.e. "to counteract the activity or effect of : make ineffective", Merriam-Webster dictionary) actually make both sentences nearly identical.

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#103

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

missedthecue wrote: post #14
dave_sullivan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will spend money on literally anything else except wage increases.

They were the first to $15, literally leading a nationwide wage increase for low skill labor, and now they pay closer to $18 by me. For people trying to hate Amazon at any cost, the goalposts keep shifting. If Amazon announced $20 minimum tomorrow, there is no doubt in my mind that people would still be griping. And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles a…

> They were the first to $15[...] now they pay closer to $18 by me

This is bullshit.

I'm sure there's some Hollywood accounting justification for this claim, but over 10 years ago close to $18/hr is what you could expect to make as associate working in the distribution center of another big corporate behemoth: Walmart. We're talking low-skill grindwork smack dab in the post-economic collapse, and that $18/hr figure does not account for the "veteran" workers on the receiving end of the more-or-less guaranteed annual pay bumps that come with just continuing to work there. (They were making $20+/hr.) Again, not now in the current post-COVID era (because otherwise who cares), but over 10 years ago.

It blew me away when a few years ago I learned that Amazon was only paying something like $13.

So Amazon is $15 today? Who cares. Almost every fast food place around is paying close to that now, I'm told. $15 is so low that no one was getting paid that low at the Walmart DC that I'm familiar with, which (again, since it bears repeating) was over 10 years ago.

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#104

Post by XorNot »

gruez wrote: post #56
chownie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's not at all true. Historic raises in the minimum wage did not cause an inflationary response in goods nor currency.

>Historic raises in the minimum wage did not cause an inflationary response in goods nor currency. The "historic raises in the minimum wage" were also very conservative and decried by proponents of $15/$20/whatever minimum wage as being too low. A one time pay bump won't cause serious issues, but giving in to ever increasing demands for minimum wage (ie. $15 last year, $20 this year, $25 the year after) will.

Minimum wage should be going up all the time to keep it inline with inflation. That's the point of minimum wage.

Minimum wage used to ride regularly, then since 2005 has remained constant while in real terms reducing by about 40%

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-val...

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#105

Post by Lich »

onethought wrote: post #78
colinmhayes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only point of a company is to maximize shareholder value. You're right, that doesn't always mean "maximize revenue at all costs.” It usually does though, because especially as a growth company that's what shareholders want. Obviously there are competing priorities, but overall most shareholders want to maximize discounted profit, and all their priorities reflect how that should be done.

That’s not true though. The shareholders are people so what they want are as varied as what people want. Does Elon want SpaceX to be super profitable or does he want to make life multi planetary? (They aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s weird to think that he is just trying to make as much profit as possible).

> but it’s weird to think that he is just trying to make as much profit as possible

Why is it weird to think that?

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#106

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #75
kolbe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to give some support for this intangible and unverifiable complaint?

Just take a look at amazon warehouse worker turnover rate. No other company in the industry comes anywhere close. Amazon's strategy is to gamify work and force the workers to put the pedal to the metal until they burn out and quit.

> No other company in the industry comes anywhere close.

Arguably not the same industry (but devastatingly adjacent): have a look at FedEx warehouses. Recently as low as $13.xx/hr, same sort of grueling work, plus the privilege of not knowing whether you'll need to show up at 4:00 AM or 7:00 AM. You don't get to know that until the night before, when you call a phone number around 8 or 9 to listen to a recorded message that will tell you. (Even then, you might show up only to find tape over the time clocks with a note that they're going to be starting later, after all, with the expectation that you'll just hang out off the clock in the meantime and then start at the new designated time.¹) And you have no idea how long you'll be working, either (except that it won't be 8 hours). 5–6 hours is possible. ~3 hours is probable. So you'll need to work 6 or 7 days just for the chance that you might get close to 30 hours. Ridiculously high turnover, as expected.

1. Yes, really. This is begging for a DoL inquiry; "Package Handlers are always paid for TIME WORKED [...] In the future please meet with your manager before just leaving. Thank you." — says a FedEx Ground facility's Area Manager, "Crystal", in an email.

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#107

Post by hkt »

pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #103
missedthecue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were the first to $15, literally leading a nationwide wage increase for low skill labor, and now they pay closer to $18 by me. For people trying to hate Amazon at any cost, the goalposts keep shifting. If Amazon announced $20 minimum tomorrow, there is no doubt in my mind that people would still be griping. And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles a…

> They were the first to $15[...] now they pay closer to $18 by me This is bullshit. I'm sure there's some Hollywood accounting justification for this claim, but over 10 years ago close to $18/hr is what you could expect to make as associate working in the distribution center of another big corporate behemoth: Walmart. We're talking low-skill grindwork smack dab in the post-economic collapse, and that $18/hr figure d…

Relating to those pay bumps: Amazon has targets for staff turnover, which will potentially purge anyone who gets incremental pay increases even if they start doing that (which AIUI they don't really)

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#108

Post by otikik »

verall wrote: post #71
macintux wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that there’s no law that says companies must maximize profit at the expense of everything else. The fiduciary duty is to be responsible with shareholder’s money, not to maximize return on investment.

It doesn't matter if it is the law or not if Amazon is made up of a large group of managers with competing interests that all boil to maximizing profit in order to meet their individual key goals. The GP said nothing about it being the law, simply that it is how Amazon, as a giant megacorporation, acts in practice.

It does matter because assuming it as a matter-of-fact prevents discussing or even conceiving alternatives. It prevents you from asking: What should the companies fiduciary duty be? (Perhaps respecting the law and not busting unions?)

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#109

Post by rtpg »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #100
aldebran wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because the higher pay comes at the cost of peeing in bottles aka losing human dignity. It feels like there’s no shortage of people out to defend Amazon either.

If someone is willing to sell their dignity (which I guess is now defined by whether or not you urinate in a bottle) then why should we stop them? We’re not talking about safety or child labor where there’s a moral duty to put up guard rails.

Because what happens is every single company will start doing this in practice. Not to mention that overworking people to the point that they do not believe they can even take a real rest break is a safety issue.

Re: Leaked memo reveals Amazon’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California

#110

Post by SoftTalker »

missedthecue wrote: post #14
dave_sullivan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will spend money on literally anything else except wage increases.

They were the first to $15, literally leading a nationwide wage increase for low skill labor, and now they pay closer to $18 by me. For people trying to hate Amazon at any cost, the goalposts keep shifting. If Amazon announced $20 minimum tomorrow, there is no doubt in my mind that people would still be griping. And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles a…

> "whatabout" the urine bottles as if the heavily unionized UPS drivers don't also do this.

Anecdotal I guess, but every time I see either an Amazon or UPS driver at my house they seem pretty relaxed. They pull into the drive, walk to the door with the package, and walk back to the truck. They don't seem rushed. Maybe they pee in a bottle in their truck but based on my observations that's probably just the easiest thing for them to do, at least for the males.

When I delivered pizza in the late 1980s I ran back and forth from my car to the customer's door. 30 seconds saved could mean being ahead of the next driver getting back to the store, where it was FIFO.

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