Live data from Hacker News

Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

vox.com

121–130 of 158 posts

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#121
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should balance their concerns when taking a job like the relative pay, stress, work/life balance and ethics of the employer (if that's a thing you care about). Amazon loses pretty big on relative pay & ethics. Also, as a general note "be humble oh employee for the gift you receive from your benevolent overlord" is a big part of the philosophy that's utterly breaking America right now - we need less of it.

Why should you be the one to make that decision? I'm sure workers, especially highly skilled Amazon engineers, have the capacity to decide for themselves that Amazon isn't some evil company Hacker News paints them to be. And their warehouse workers are paid well relative to the position.

Sorry, to clarify, I'm not the one making that decision. Each person should weight that themselves - but I wanted to highlight that it is a decision we're all empowered to make. Given how often the refrain "the market will decide" is repeated... well, this is how the market decides.

Ideally the government would also be willing to step in and make sure ethical business practices are in place but they're out for lunch.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#122
post #60

Some comments here really had me scratching my head. Remember, it's not just engineers, code monkeys and managers at Amazon. The majority of their employees are unskilled labour. Warehouse workers and delivery drivers. An Amazon warehouse worker in Canada makes just a little more than minimum wage. Even if it might be a nice company to work for if you're in an office, it may be a very different reality for the majori…

I've heard good and bad things about the warehouse conditions. For many employees (from what I've heard) saying "low skill" is a severe under statement. I've heard from friends at a local Amazon warehouse of employees, for instance, using sex toys in the employee bathrooms (stolen from the carts.) Ex-cons starting fights on the floor, etc. Amazon is in turn has to be incredibly strict with its employees on the floor…

You know there are subsets of tech that look at developers as a group that needs to be kept in line also. It’s a very bad way to look at people.

Just think about you and your colleagues being seen with a very narrow dismissive lens.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#123
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-crisis, Amazon's warehouse workers in Ontario made just a little over minimum wage.

Ontario minimum wage is the 2nd highest of any state/provincial entity in North America at $14. Sure that is not taking currency exchange into account, but prices are also in CAD in Canada.

Prices are in CAD, but that doesn't mean that the number that follows the dollar sign is the same. It's typical to see a $15 USD book sell for $25 CAD.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#124
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should you be the one to make that decision? I'm sure workers, especially highly skilled Amazon engineers, have the capacity to decide for themselves that Amazon isn't some evil company Hacker News paints them to be. And their warehouse workers are paid well relative to the position.

Sorry, to clarify, I'm not the one making that decision. Each person should weight that themselves - but I wanted to highlight that it is a decision we're all empowered to make. Given how often the refrain "the market will decide" is repeated... well, this is how the market decides. Ideally the government would also be willing to step in and make sure ethical business practices are in place but they're out for lunch.

> it is a decision we're all empowered to make

It isn't. Taking a job that will pay off your child's college costs vs taking a job that will leave them saddled with the debt is not an 'empowered' choice.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't matter. The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson. Even if we had a strong Federal government right now, it would be interested in aiding Amazon , not it's workforce. As it is I fully expect to hear talking points that "responsible" workers wouldn't strike or try to organize, or that there should be a law against unionization du…

> The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson Is that true? Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs), attempting to tighten immigration, lowering taxes on repatriation of cash. Those are all pro worker.

> Those are all pro worker.

Not neccessarily.

> Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs)

Given the current situation where most production is offshored, this only hurts consumers in the short and middle term as there literally is no production capacity for most of the stuff that is produced in China (and other offshore countries), so the tariffs will be passed on 1:1 to consumers. To properly incentivize local production, tariffs would have to be so high that sum(offshore cost + tariffs) at least equals sum(cost of local production + extra cost of compliance with environmental regulation).

> attempting to tighten immigration

Did you ever look at which jobs have the most demand for immigrant (both legal and illegal) labor? It's mostly back-breaking labor: farms, hotels and bars, construction sites, medical (nurses and their unqualified helper staff). If tighter immigration would work out to help local workers, then Germany would not face a severe shortage of nurses or of farm workers or the UK a shortage of just about anything. The farmers complain "we can't get local labor as they're unwilling/unproductive or don't apply at all", but they never bothered to rise wages and working conditions (have you ever seen reports about what they call "housing" for the Romanian and other Eastern European slave workers?)... in the end, the "(illegal) immigration is killing our jobs" whine is only bullshit, it's underpayment that kills the jobs.

> lowering taxes on repatriation of cash

The mega-rich don't use that cash even when it is repatriated, at least not in ways that benefit the employees who made the riches in the first place! The only way I'd accept tax lowerings on cash repatriation is when said cash is at least partially redistributed to the employees.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#126

Why does anyone work there? What a nightmare.

It seems hard to find an ethical, large tech company. Amazon? Mistreats warehouse workers. Microsoft? Antitrust, baked-in telemetry. Facebook? Privacy, cambridge analytica. Capital One / credit card companies? Profiting off financial illiteracy / people in need. Apple? Anti-competitive app store practices. Google? Ban people with no visible justification or reasoning, no customer support, benefits off lack of privacy…

Can't we at least mostly agree that mistreatment of workers is clearly a more tangible bad offense than most of those?

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#127
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case and they're making ~$21 CAD an hour, then Amazon's American warehouse workers are paid considerably more than they are in Canada despite the US having a lower cost of living. At least in my local context, their behaviour doesn't seem to be something worth lauding. It's just another grueling underpaid warehouse job. With a union-busting employer.

Then quit and find a job with better pay. My guess is most of them can't because they're already getting the market rate for unskilled labor.

Right. Quitting to find a "better job" means swirling around the bottom of the puddle. Standing up and bargaining for better working conditions at your place of work has historically been shown to be more effective. Labor movements brought us modern luxuries such as the weekend, the end of child labor, etc. Folks didn't make that happen by quitting and finding a better job.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems hard to find an ethical, large tech company. Amazon? Mistreats warehouse workers. Microsoft? Antitrust, baked-in telemetry. Facebook? Privacy, cambridge analytica. Capital One / credit card companies? Profiting off financial illiteracy / people in need. Apple? Anti-competitive app store practices. Google? Ban people with no visible justification or reasoning, no customer support, benefits off lack of privacy…

Can't we at least mostly agree that mistreatment of workers is clearly a more tangible bad offense than most of those?

https://www.newsweek.com/apple-samsung-and-microsoft-linked-...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderat...

If we're going on "what is the most offensive thing I can point to about a company", it seems like Facebook and most hardware suppliers have that beat.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard good and bad things about the warehouse conditions. For many employees (from what I've heard) saying "low skill" is a severe under statement. I've heard from friends at a local Amazon warehouse of employees, for instance, using sex toys in the employee bathrooms (stolen from the carts.) Ex-cons starting fights on the floor, etc. Amazon is in turn has to be incredibly strict with its employees on the floor…

You know there are subsets of tech that look at developers as a group that needs to be kept in line also. It’s a very bad way to look at people. Just think about you and your colleagues being seen with a very narrow dismissive lens.

I think that's an easy thing to say when you have never worked on a factory floor with unskilled labor with a lot of problems. So, I don't think that's an apt comparison. I have a friend that works for an automotive contractor and someone was beaten with a wrench and hospitalized over some minor very quibble. These things never make the news. You don't see that in development or many other jobs. I have worked on an unskilled factory floor for a short time and there were good people, but you do have to understand that the workers that these jobs attract are sometimes untrustworthy and it's a difficult task to figure out who is who when there is so much employee churn. It is terrible, but it's a reality that I think so many people are in denial about.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#130
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson Is that true? Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs), attempting to tighten immigration, lowering taxes on repatriation of cash. Those are all pro worker.

It is true yes - though it's also true that recently both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor. The trade deal renegotiations didn't focus on or accomplish good changes to keep labour local and, while I'm not wholly against tariffs tax changes have wiped out any local investment motivations tariffs were supporting. Lastly, the repatriation of cash was a loss for everyone - companies that skirted tax laws got a gif…

> we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws

If it's legal, it's not skirting the law.

> both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor

No argument here. But if we're comparing the current administration to (recent) previous, it's an improvement.

Post reply on HN