121–130 of 253 posts
I know regulatory capture is a thing but it seems like there should be some minimum “Crimes committed for financial gain that are punished with a fine must have a minimum fine of 100x the amount of money they made from the crime”
The 90’s saw a constant stream of journalists and politicians praising 3 strikes laws. Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much of that was from Californian warehouses? Because if you don’t do that math, the fine gets overturned by the courts. That not only reduces the deterrence factor. It delays private enforcement by the harmed employees who would have otherwise relied on the commission’s facts in court without the colour of them being overturned on appeal.
The fine doesn't even amount to a slap on the wrist. It's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. Why be law abiding when you could break the law and potentially make more money? You'd have to be stupid to be law abiding in a system like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fine doesn't even amount to a slap on the wrist. It's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. Why be law abiding when you could break the law and potentially make more money? You'd have to be stupid to be law abiding in a system like that.
Surely the fines will become exponentially bigger every time they are caught doing the same, right?
Amazon made $64,809,782.60 in revenue every hour in Q3 2023. Source: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-much-does-amazon-make-i...
It's not a good idea to ask how much money a retailer has by looking at their revenue.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266288/annual-et-income-...
> California investigated two Amazon facilities near Los Angeles and in May found that the company failed to “provide written notice of quotas to which each employee is subject,” according to a copy of the citation shared with The Washington Post by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for improving working conditions at warehouses. Very few workplaces have written quotas for employees. Be…
That's because they don't have quotas.
If they don't have a __written__ quota then they can't hold employees to a quota; it's as simple as that.
Amazon: Oooohh, scary!!!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much of that corporation is California?
You mean the 4th largest economy in the world? I'd imagine it is quite significant.
Still surprising.
Retail has had labor quotas (with serious health/mental consequences) since time immemorial, but i don't see any outrage against Sears, ToysRus, or BedBath. Why ?
I would like to believe you’re an extremely passionate labor rights advocates and that you can hold all corporations to account. If that’s the case could you keep the original text and add an “Edit: my bad. We shouldn’t downplay their harms, but I’m passionate about this, where are more of these conversations happening?”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if Amazon is guilty of heinous crimes for not giving workers a strict written quota The issue isn’t having or not having quotas. It’s having a quota and not telling employees about it.
Why is this a meaningful difference? Any at-will employer could stack-rank and cut the lowest 5% of workers every month. Or adjust the quota every month at the 5th percentile. There's literally no difference to workers, it's always "make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job.
> “Undisclosed quotas expose workers to increased pressure to work faster and can lead to higher injury rates and other violations by forcing workers to skip breaks,”
What you're saying about:
> make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job.
Is literally that. It just adds pressure which leads to accidents. When you don't know the playing field, you're going to assume the worst and then work yourself to death. It's sad to see HN defending this approach.