Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 158 posts

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#131

Post by linuxftw »

mschuster91 wrote: post #125
linuxftw wrote: post #81

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.

> 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 i…

> tariffs would have to be so high that sum

I disagree. Almost anything made overseas can be made in the US, it's vast place. If you raise tariffs, that's going to hurt the largest international corporations and stimulate the local small to medium sized companies. Prices for goods would go up, but so would the demand for labor. Also, goods would be of higher quality and there would be less disposable consumer-culture, a win for everyone.

> Did you ever look at which jobs have the most demand for immigrant

Yes, I have. These 'back-breaking' labor jobs are also the most underpaid.

> it's underpayment that kills the jobs

I don't see how you can fail to realize the two are intimately related.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#133

Post by maximente »

da_chicken wrote: post #10
foob4r wrote: post #2

Seems like Amazon's getting desperate now. Too bad the US government is the weakest in decades it's been to do something for the workers.

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…

actually, i wouldn't be surprised if trump tries to go left of biden in a few key areas if only to try to win the next election. i think he's under immense pressure due to mishandling the pandemic - he's not polling well at all, not that that means everything - and i suspect he's not above wildly shaking up policy in order to pick up votes, esp. in the critical swing states.

his party isn't in a position to throw up a challenger so the Rs are stuck with him, from my point of view: if desperate enough, who knows what he'll try?

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#134

Post by aphextron »

pacala wrote: post #34
aphextron wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does anyone work there? What a nightmare. Money. Lots and lots of money. Amazon also operates at a scale unimaginable for most of us, which I imagine is enough of an interesting problem for some people to look past everything else.

Therein lies the problem. As the machine scales larger and larger, the cogs at the bottom have worse and worse conditions. Almost as if 'software is eating the world' is not the key to unlock Utopia, as techno-optimists would have you believe.

>Almost as if 'software is eating the world' is not the key to unlock Utopia, as techno-optimists would have you believe.

I'm starting to agree with this as well.

It used to be that organizations were made up of vast bureaucracies with a thinking, breathing, human being at every level making decisions. Institutions could be imposing and callous, but there was always a "flexible" human element to things. They never had the level of completely monolithic, soulless, hyper-optimized determinism that modern technologically driven corporations have become. Google was the pioneer here, with their default customer service stance of "go away, we don't care, there's another billion where you came from". But more and more the world has become an automated meatgrinder with no room for people beyond their immediate economic utility. The machines alone determine your worth as a human being, and unsupervised, uncaring algorithms can make or break your entire life.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#136

Post by ForHackernews »

wgerard wrote: post #84
ForHackernews wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't that hard: Just don't work for the evil ones! If their recruiters contact you, tell them why. There are plenty of non-evil companies that will pay you well to do interesting work. Even in your "FAANG" list, Netflix just makes entertaining videos. Apple makes pleasantly overpriced hardware and competes on privacy in software. Apply to them, instead of ad-tech and sweatshops-as-a-service.

Just to play devil's advocate a little: You should look up some of the ethical issues around cobalt mining [1], which Apple is at least indirectly complicit in. Netflix famously made their culture documents transparent to much derision about their workplace being an unhealthy competitive environment. Relatedly, they're also arguably the most famous progenitor of the "unlimited-vacation-but-don't-actually-take-it-or-e…

Maybe we should revise this to "try to work for companies that are only indirectly (rather than directly) evil"

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#137

Post by tomatotomato37 »

Frondo wrote: post #118
rochester46 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with your comment. I see no reason why these workers shouldn't be unionized. In my comment, I am addressing the pay and benefits argument that is being brought up by many HNers, because your statement "The pay being high is good" is a very rare statement on this website in regards to Amazon. And I am also not wholly convinced that a lot of people aren't conflating the two (I see a lot of arguments that…

Yes, agreed 100%. Pay is one of the many things collective bargaining is good for addressing. Workplace safety is another. Greater autonomy is another; maybe these people want a 45 minute lunch break? Who knows? (Well, the workers know what they want...) Another thing I've seen a lot, can't remember off the top of my head if this applied to Amazon too, is doing mandated security searches off the clock when people lea…

I really don't see the connection between a union seat and blocking initiatives that run against progressive culture coming to play in practice. Amazon has a workforce larger than some US states mainly comprised of unskilled workers in locations with cheap enough land to make a half-kilometer wide warehouse remotely feasibly, aka rural or industrial locations; and if recent politics are anything to go by, unskilled rural labor tends to not align very well with that of skilled urbanites. If this union uses anything resembling a democracy for internal policies the woke software engineers in seattle are going to be vastly outvoted by the blue collar workers and rednecks working pretty much everywhere else.

Don't get me wrong a board seat would be great for preventing the company from pulling Gorden Gekko type shenanigans, it's just if the plan is to use it as a platform to further the progressive agenda than there's going to be some disappointment

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#138

Post by da_chicken »

linuxftw wrote: post #131
mschuster91 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

> tariffs would have to be so high that sum I disagree. Almost anything made overseas can be made in the US, it's vast place. If you raise tariffs, that's going to hurt the largest international corporations and stimulate the local small to medium sized companies. Prices for goods would go up, but so would the demand for labor. Also, goods would be of higher quality and there would be less disposable consumer-culture…

> Prices for goods would go up, but so would the demand for labor.

That's true, but no rational economist or politician believes that tariffs are here to stay. They're a reflection of Trump's ideas rather than a recognized modern economic policy. Even then, Trump's goal was to combat China's policies, not create a long term system of import and export taxes to protect American workers.

As a result, there hasn't been significant industrial investment in the US. That's one of the problems we've had with Covid: the PPE, medications, and ventilators are all manufactured overseas. We've had to retool our auto manufacturers to spin up ventilator production. You'd be crazy to invest in US manufacturing since the tariffs look about as permanent as a White House press secretary. You know you'll be undercut and put out of business in just a few years.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#139

Post by redmattred »

londons_explore wrote: post #85
redmattred wrote: post #45

Here is the page to cancel your Amazon Prime membership: https://www.amazon.com/mc/pipelines/cancellation

If you are not happy with the way amazon treats it's warehouse workers, you should work to get the law changed, benefiting workers at big and small organisations across lots of jobs. Targeting Amazon just because it's a household brand simply makes an uneven labor playing field - sure, amazon workers might get paid better after your protest, but J J Doe and Sons Glassworkers won't change their ways. Nor will the no-n…

Believe it or not its slightly easier to click a cancel button than to lobby for a major law change.

If an amazon worker gets paid and treated better, then other employers will need to do the same if they want people to choose to work for them.

Re: Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts

#140

Post by redmattred »

miscPerson wrote: post #135
redmattred wrote: post #45

Here is the page to cancel your Amazon Prime membership: https://www.amazon.com/mc/pipelines/cancellation

Who would you suggest online shopping from instead — perhaps that treats their employees better?

Try googling "ethical amazon alternatives"
Post reply on HN