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Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

seattletimes.com

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Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#291

Post by olliej »

runarberg wrote: post #257
hirako2000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting part it isn't even needed for this walk to organise. We don't need unions like we used to, some online admin at most is enough

No, we need them more than we used to. Back before the National Labor Relations Board unions were unregulated and collective action was unprotected. Unions were more like activist groups (think if BLM had a leadership structure and memberships). During strikes unions had to build solidarity and convince every worker to join. Strikers had to physically prevent scabs from entering the workplace, often with violence. No…

It's important when talking about violence and unions, we have to also consider the other side, where police and private security use violence against workers.

Numerous strikes were "broken" by law enforcement, various "national guards", and "strike breakers" shooting into crowds of strikers. On multiple occasions 50 or more were killed, and hundreds injured.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#292

Post by RestlessMind »

hackernewds wrote: post #287
RestlessMind wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-study to your counterpoint (better than sharing random anecdotes): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03044... From the abstract: Findings show that early career artists have the least social capital, established artists have the most, and late career artists begin to lose social capital unless they actively maintain it.

What about the corollary logical leap that is social capital is a measure or predictor of success at the workplace.

I think burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that social capital is not needed for success at workplace.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#293

Post by RestlessMind »

hackernewds wrote: post #286
RestlessMind wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is possible for everyone to get what they want. At overall software-industry level? Yes. At individual company level? It is much better to have uniform policies for the entire org. Either be completely remote, or completely in-office, or if you want hybrid then mandate the days when everyone must be in office.

> It is much better to have uniform policies for the entire or Why? There are ample examples than not where this is not applied. Significantly compensation

"uniform policies regarding WFH/RTO ". FTFY. I thought that was obvious from the context but oh well..

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#294

Post by RestlessMind »

_gabe_ wrote: post #289
RestlessMind wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> middle managers, If you think middle managers stand to lose due to remote work, you have no clue why middle managers exist in the first place. Remote work increases the importance of that role, in fact. > Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely Have you actually done meaningful software development? For a specific example - designing a complex system is definitely hard to do remotely. Put 3-4 key people…

> Have you actually done meaningful software development? For a specific example - designing a complex system is definitely hard to do remotely. Have you actually done meaningful software development? I'm sorry for the tone, it's just that you're presenting a completely unqualified argument based on your own personal experience and then claiming OP hasn't done software development. I do hobby projects that delve into…

> Great. And you can just as easily screen share over Zoom and draw on a tablet.

Nope - not "just as easily".

> The world we live in does not operate in absolutes, and the more I learn the more I realize that being dogmatic about any approaches or opinions is usually dumb.

I agree with this take. Speaking of dogma and absolutes, I wonder what's your take on GP's comment: "Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely".

Now with that perspective of pragmatism, I believe job of C-suite is to strike a balance between what's good for everyone on average. There would be some who are actually productive with fully-WFH and those who want fully-RTO. Which is why we are seeing a return to a hybrid approach. WFH a few days and RTO for a few days. The key is to mandate RTO days uniform across the org to ensure that benefits of RTO are actually realized.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#295

Post by osigurdson »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #254
jayd16 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you getting that? Where did they say it wasn't effective project management? They just said it was harder. And it is harder. For example, it's way easier to see when a junior dev is lost when you can see pain in there face from across the office instead of hoping it shows in one of the check-in meetings.

asking simple, low effort questions -- "hey how do I log into [this new system]" -- is as simple as leaning into a room or over a cube, but with remote you have to poke someone. in person you just drag a laptop over but remote you have a call, share a screen, carve out time. not necessarily more disruptive, but sure feels like more effort, and now involves multiple apps sucking up bandwidth and potentially logging ev…

Gosh, dragging a laptop over seems way harder than starting a screen share. No need to carve out time. Companies should be explicit about whether or not they log every conversation. Creepy companies that like to spy might already have cameras and microphones all over the place - not a good look.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#296

Post by dbish »

revlolz wrote: post #269
dbish wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ex-amazonian myself I agree with the first part about data driven and writing culture and that much of the way this is presented is very non-amazonian, but I'm not getting how rto is a "cookie cutter" example of day 2 behavior. Given that many startups are pushing for in person recently (at least publically, I'm not weighing in either way), how is going in person clearly something that means amazon is past the…

How leadership has handled rto is more what makes it the peak example. The bureaucracy, the company's stagnation, the crippling slow response to a modern market and digging their head into the sand. Rto is the peak example because it has exposed how when it matters the executives (L10+) abandon LPs, refuse factual discussion, and are choosing paths that aren't good for customers or employees. It's exposed all of thei…

Eh, the bureaucracy was creeping in many years ago, RTO has nothing to do with that imho. Amazon has never really cared what's good for employees, and that's both a strength and a weakness, since it allows them to decide what's best for the company with no pretense of some human good like the infamous "don't be evil" motto of another giant, though I did hear that shorly after Andy took over there was an LP added that might make what I just said wrong. I think fully or mostly remote companies are doing to be slower then their competitors anyway, and you're seeing this sentiment shift across the startup ecosystem (and if amazon is going to dust themselves off, looking to more dynamic/earlier stage company cultures is probably the right way), for example: https://twitter.com/zebulgar/status/1660722639420137496?s=20

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#297

Post by janalsncm »

refurb wrote: post #150
btheshoe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the nba player's association has secured nba players a nice share of revenue. seems to me like engineers could do something similar.

If you're one of a dozen engineers in the world who can do what you do, then sure, you can get a similar piece of the pie as NBA players. But most tech workers aren't like that. They are relatively easily replaceable in comparison.

If US tech workers could be replaced for a tenth of the compensation they would’ve been. Maybe that will change in the future but until then the fact that there is some scarcity means unionization is possible.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#298

Post by refurb »

janalsncm wrote: post #297
refurb wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're one of a dozen engineers in the world who can do what you do, then sure, you can get a similar piece of the pie as NBA players. But most tech workers aren't like that. They are relatively easily replaceable in comparison.

If US tech workers could be replaced for a tenth of the compensation they would’ve been. Maybe that will change in the future but until then the fact that there is some scarcity means unionization is possible.

Who said anything about a tenth of the wages?

There are plenty of US programmers making way less than FAANG wages happy to take those jobs.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#299

Post by revelio »

hackernewds wrote: post #284
revelio wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given people were originally predicting collapse within days, how long do you need to draw conclusions?

How do you know the business will not collapse? Revenue internally is down 40% and importantly the activity is a cesspool, wouldn't reckon that's the company just chugging along

"How do you know the business will not collapse"? That's a ridiculous question. Eventually all things die. The question is not will Twitter die but when, and so far the people predicting imminent demise were all completely wrong. Musk's detractors clearly had no idea at all of how much bloat ideological hiring had created inside firms like Twitter. Even if Twitter gets sold or whatever next year, it won't be vindication for those people because they were already proven wrong.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#300

Post by true_religion »

hackernewds wrote: post #285
bmcfeeley wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extraordinary and disingenuous leap, and it doesn't even merit responding to as a proxy for your willingness to engage with others, but to make the superficially obvious point more crystal clear: the existence of folks who prefer the communal and social aspects of work in a common location is not up for debate, and no, their preference on this subject does not imply that they uniformly think everyone shoul…

Disagree. The comment addresses the sentiment fairly > People want to work in the office with other people. If they go and end up working alone because their team is remote, then there is no point. The author would crave for others to be present to satisfy their whim of not only wanting to go to work, but also dragging others reluctantly there. It's worthy of a walkout

Not really. It’s just that you can’t satisfy office workers simply by opening the office doors and walking away.

At the least, you have to reorganize teams so the office staff have other team members who are also in-office and not remote.

If you can’t do that then you are better served with going all remote in my opinion.

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