An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com • Hacker News Board

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#121

Post by bobbles » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 1:41 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #16

mabbo wrote: post #5

Speaking as a developer at Amazon.com, what contractors? I've never met any, and I only have heard of one who left a while ago. Edit later: Developer contractors at least. I mean, sure, cleaning staff are contractors/temps.

I mean, sure, cleaning staff are contractors/temps. Obviously people like that don't deserve any kind of job security and should be fired annually. /sarcasm

I remember a receptionist in a UK office complaining about the cleaning contractors the company was using. When I asked why they hadn't changed she mentioned there is apparently some union set up so that when you 'fire' the contractor, the new cleaners that you get are actually the same people, hired under a new contract.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#122

Post by hobs » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 1:54 AM UTC

jkonowitch wrote: post #46

anigbrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Freedom' becomes a slippery concept when you're dealing with contracts of adhesion, though. Non-executive workers have little or no negotiating power over their terms of employment, and the greater the asymmetry the less of a free economic choice it is. Obviously he's not that happy about it or he wouldn't have written this screed.

Is there research to back this up? Ie is it really the case that 'non-executive' workers have no negotiating power? Is this true in all sectors or only some? Anecdotally I've seen instances where non-execs successfully negotiated a salary increase, etc.

Check middle class salary increase the last 30 years.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#123

Post by shard » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 1:54 AM UTC

205guy wrote: post #115

jmduke wrote: post #17

A lot of people are jumping to the comments and assuming that the worker is either a developer or a warehouse worker, which makes me assume they didn't finish the article. The OP worked on quality assurance, which is staffed by a lot of contractors because (ideally) the ramp-up time for the position is much smaller than that of an SDE, and a lot of these positions don't last long enough to warrant full-time employmen…

Actually, I'm not sure the OP ever stated his job or job requirements. From reading between the lines, it seems like the OP and the other temps were content taggers: to watch a video/film and identify the characters and actors on the screen in real time. If that is the case, I would guess it's a low-skills technician-like job, and frankly, I'm surprised it isn't automated with image recognition software. On the one h…

Based on the article, it seems like there's a bit of artistry involved in the tagging. They had to choose a time (and possibly a place?) to show the tag, and probably needed to make a choice that would disrupt the flow of the narrative the least. I don't think software is quite up to snuff just yet when it comes to this, though I am willing to be surprised.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#124

Post by kevando » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 2:09 AM UTC

justin_vanw wrote: post #101

This is a social commentary thinly veiled as feedback on how to improve productivity. Companies are going to spend the smallest amount of money possible on every employee. If they are paying someone more, it's because that employee would go somewhere else if they paid less. If you don't like the policy of firing contractors, don't blame Amazon. If you were running a company that was barely breaking even, and there we…

I also feel like much of the criticism revolved around a single hire. Everyone makes hiring mistakes and it sounds like this female manger of yours hits that mark. It's unfortunate she stuck around, but maybe focus more of your feedback on the contractor's role at Amazon.

And congrats on directing your letter to Jeff, but if you were there for 11 months, you probably learned that someone else is in charge of these smaller matters.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#125

Post by Wingman4l7 » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 2:40 AM UTC

famousactress wrote: post #25

My first experience in a technical position was exactly the same. I was a temp employee at a major computer/printer manufacturer. In their case the policy (law, I think) was that you could work for as a temp for 6 years before you had to take something like at least 6 months off. There were loads of people who'd been temps so long they'd had one or two of these 'vacations' (unpaid, of course). It's unfortunate. It se…

Sounds like an excellent loophole for a company to keep its health insurance costs low, too.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#126

Post by ctdonath » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 2:42 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #59

nostromo wrote: post #49

> In this terrible economy, I am grateful for the work Seattle's unemployment rate is 4%, which is basically optimal and near what it was before the recession. https://www.google.com/search?q=seattle+unemployment+rate Seattle real-estate has almost completely rebounded. http://www.zillow.com/local-info/WA-Seattle-home-value/r_160... People may not realize it yet, but the recession is over. If Amazon values the work t…

if you're looking at how hard it is to exploit workers, I think U6 is a better measure than U3, the one you're referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#United_States_Bure... Nationally, that measure is still quite a bit worse than it was in 2007, and is twice as bad as 2001: http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp

There is a significant stratification of unemployment levels based on education. http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm shows last year's breakdown; how that interacts with U6 is not immediately available, but is worth considering. Just a thought.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#127

Post by sopooneo » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 2:53 AM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #116

barista wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the razor thin margins that Amazon runs with, I am not surprised. This is a company that is struggling to make any money even after people bought hundreds of Billions of dollars worth of stuff from them. They are bound to cut corners to stay alive.

Amazon works hard to have a minuscule profit. If they have no profit, they don't have any tax liability. The business they're in lets them adjust their profits in real time -- whenever they expect to have large profit, they just lower their prices to eat it. Consumers love this, so they have huge turnover, and thanks to this, small increase of prices earns them big profit, if they ever need cash to fund acquisition,…

I don't understand why you'd want to minimize profit just because of tax liability. Even if I paid 60% in taxes, I'd still be better off keeping 40% of a higher salary. What's the rational?

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#128

Post by jmduke » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 3:10 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #94

bmelton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, there's been nothing to suggest that these were sub-par working conditions. Except for the length of the engagement, which is fairly normal, I don't see anything even remotely unusual about this working arrangement.

It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance . This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite be…

It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance.

The majority of the quality assurance/editorial people I know (that's the position this guy was in) at Amazon started out as contractors and were then promoted to full-time employment because of their performance.

While I think employing a contractor for 11 months to purposely avoid paying benefits is a dick move, its also the case that a lot of these positions don't exist for an entire year because the teams either a) automate them out of existence or b) send them out to Mechanical Turk.

This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent.

Agreed, though I think this is less a case of "this is an injustice to the workers" and more a case of "this is a dumb idea that leads to bad things all around".

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#129

Post by bmelton » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 3:12 AM UTC

Jormundir wrote: post #107

bmelton wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I'm trying to figure out what, specifically, is being objected to. I'm getting the sense that there is a context beyond the article that I am not familiar with, which is fair enough, I suppose, but I don't see anything in the article to suggest that this employment was in any way unusual or exploitative, at least, not as I understand it.

I think you're looking for points to argue on and prove your superior understanding of economics and fair labor, and in the process brushing away important points and ignoring the insights of peoples' comments. You've asked for more context, so here's what I have that is not talked about in the article. Leading up to 2006-2007 and the financial crisis, these entry level jobs were salaried positions with standard bene…

> I think you're looking for points to argue on and prove your superior understanding of economics and fair labor

False. I do not know why you seem intent on being invective and assuming bad faith. I have never once proclaimed any superior understanding of economics, and in fact, have specifically stated the contrary on more than one occasion here at HN.

I simply don't see anything exploitative in hiring people for a fixed amount of time, for a certain amount of money, so long as the terms of both are freely negotiated up front and do not violate the terms of the law, and are not broken through deceit.

Thank you for the background on the rest. The point you made about California law though, is actually federal. The US Department of Labor sets the terms on what constitutes a valid internship, and the last I checked, California has no specific provisions above or beyond that. If you're referring to the recently decided Searchlight case, that was decided that the specific behavior was exploitative, not that internships are in general, where they abide the terms of the Department of Labor.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#130

Post by bmelton » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 3:15 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #99

steveklabnik wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking off my Marx hat, generally, people mean something along the lines of "an employer can take advantage of the fact that people will take any work rather than starve, and this drives wages down to a point that's unfair." In other words, an employer can exploit the fact that people are desperate. So yes, it may have been a contract that they 'voluntarily' agreed to for a wage they 'voluntarily' agreed to, but that…

That of course assumes there's a price that is "fair" and you have a magic ability - personally or "as a society" - to figure it out while ignoring the markets (because the markets are "unfair"). I wonder how one does that and doesn't end somewhere in the vicinity of Detroit.

Please explain how the markets are unfair?

As for my 'personal' judgement on what is fair, I always defer to those entering the terms of the contract, so long as those contracts abide by law. If you offer me $10 an hour to do something I might ordinarily charge $100 for, and I accept that $10 an hour, and the $10 an hour does not break any law, then to me, that is fair. I am by no means authoritative on the subject though, so I appreciate any insight you may have.