I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

It's interesting how we put down companies for their abusive labor conditions in China but at least 50% of the population will rally behind forces that prevent any sort of government regulation or unions that help prevent this kind of abuse "in the homeland".

Oh and I don't just mean the right wing, fun fact, Hillary Clinton was a bigtime lawyer for walmart to help them prevent unions. Walmart even has a swat-like team to respond to possible union formations.

I spent the first five years of my professional life developing software for these places. I've seen lots of warehouses and even worked in them briefly to test our software. Not the most glamorous work, but I could do fun stuff like use genetic algorithms for optimization problems or create a dynamic 3D visualization of the warehouse space.

It took me a while to realize that my work is making other people obsolete and replaceable, but I guess so does a big portion of software and technology in general. But it was surprisingly refreshing to switch off your brain for a few hours and do whatever the scanner tells you to do. Though of course I didn't have any pressure to do more than 1,000 picks a day, that is insane!

This was in Germany though, so the unions and worker's council made sure that the working conditions were more humane than described in the article.

These conditions aren't unique to warehouse jobs; the customer call-center industry is similar in many ways. Time is tracked down to the second, you are being recorded and/or monitored at all times, tardiness and absenteeism are ruthlessly enforced with no excuses, and there is relentless pressure to "hit your numbers", which are often nearly impossible. And of course, you're still expected to "always put the customer first" under these insane conditions.

If you don't live up in any respect, they're happy to let the next batch of trainees have your job. In fact, they prefer it; those with 5+ years of experience have the most to fear, as they acquire raises and cushier benefits over time, and so are often fired for the same infraction that gets a newbie a write-up.

I suppose that call centers are preferable to warehouses, in that there is little risk of injury, and there are more opportunities to move up or transfer careers. Still, this is one of the human costs of corporate capitalism in general: if you don't have rare or specialized skills, you have no negotiating power, and have to take whatever you can get. And don't even think about uttering the word "union".

I don't agree entirely with this line of thinking. The concept of protecting workers from abuses by corporations is not in and of itself undesirable. As we have seen all throughout human history those who wield power usually abuse it.

The issue with unions, as most people in America view them, is that they became to powerful themselves. This allowed them to make demands that would ultimately lead to their organizations becoming hamstrung and unable to rapidly adjust. Hence business look at them as the plague.

The issue as I see it is that business, labor, and consumers need to understand the concept of "moderation". Consumers do not need an abundance of cheap crap. Businesses shouldn't focus solely on short term profits. Unions should seek to protect their workers and not pry as much money as they possibly can out of their employer.

I'm not a big fan of unions in general (especially with regards to years = seniority in pay & firing), but on ergonomics I'm with them. It doesn't cost much to implement the warehouse in an ergonomic way, but clearly this company and many like it aren't doing that at all. That has a really important effect on the difficulty of the job.