I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them • Hacker News Board

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#171

Post by zippzom » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

gagege wrote: post #93

zippzom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not that the employee is being underpaid (although that is a problem), it's that the underpayment is only possible because the government (i.e. taxpayers) is also giving money to that employee. If that safety net weren't in place then Amazon wouldn't be able to employee these people at these rates since it wouldn't be enough for people to survive on. Essentially, the government is subsidizing Amazon. Als…

I think your first paragraph is saying the same thing I said. Amazon-like companies can pay less because of the safety-nets. I get what you're saying in the rest of your comment and I can confirm that it's easy to take less pay because of time constraints. Maybe "fair" isn't the right word exactly, but I will stand by it being voluntary.

My point in the first paragraph is more that Amazon is only able to pay that amount because the government steps in. If there were no government aid, then they would need to pay more or not hire people. I'm skeptical that the jobs are worth less than $7.25 an hour to them. It's just in their interest to extract as much value as possible from the employees. If they couldn't find people to do it for 7.25, I suspect they would pay more, not that they would cut the jobs.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#172

Post by aeternus » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

LitFan wrote: post #17

grecy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? Obviously Amazon make a lot of profit... if we forced them to treat their workers better surely they'd still make a lot of profit... just slightly less.

As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. The issue is that while the average person is lead to believe the notion that they can work hard and make enough to have a comfortable living, they can only afford it at the expense of others. The wealthy will not let that be at their expense - they want it to be at the expense o…

If the majority of the profit really is made by the 'subsidy' or delta between what companies can get away paying vs. the value provided by the low-skill worker, then it would be easy for other companies to come in and take advantage of that margin. Arbitrage should drive down the gap.

Few want to consider the more likely harsh truth: The overall value produced by some low-skilled workers may be insufficient to justify even minimum wage.

If that's the case, then no amount of legislation around working conditions will help since it makes more economic sense for companies to invest in automation than human capital.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#173

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

zippzom wrote: post #171

gagege wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your first paragraph is saying the same thing I said. Amazon-like companies can pay less because of the safety-nets. I get what you're saying in the rest of your comment and I can confirm that it's easy to take less pay because of time constraints. Maybe "fair" isn't the right word exactly, but I will stand by it being voluntary.

My point in the first paragraph is more that Amazon is only able to pay that amount because the government steps in. If there were no government aid, then they would need to pay more or not hire people. I'm skeptical that the jobs are worth less than $7.25 an hour to them. It's just in their interest to extract as much value as possible from the employees. If they couldn't find people to do it for 7.25, I suspect the…

> My point in the first paragraph is more that Amazon is only able to pay that amount because the government steps in. If there were no government aid, then they would need to pay more or not hire people.

No, if there was no government aid then people would be even more desperate for whatever pittance Amazon was offering; government aid increases wage demands two ways:

(1) moving people's starting income up increases wage demands because the declining marginal utility of money means that it takes more money to offset the disutility of performing servile labor.

(2) Means testing of aid programs (loss of benefits for outside income) means that it takes more than $1 of take home pay to net whatever the utility of $1 is, since some utility is lost to lost aid.

It's possible the total (not just wage) cost for labor would be higher without government aid, because the aid provides increased stability which makes it easier to hire and easier to retain workers, by enough to offset the higher wage demands. But that's, at best, a non-obvious conclusion.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#174

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

andrewla wrote: post #38

dragonwriter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The other is the issue of Amazon employees receiving food stamps (now called SNAP, apparently). This one seems particularly odd to me, because I'm not sure how to interpret it. You should interpret it as sign that even among much of what passes for the left in America, corporate feudalism is deeply entrenched in consciousness. Instead of meeting basic needs being seen as a responsibility of public authority, to be…

> corporate feudalism is deeply entrenched in consciousness Is there anything about Amazon being a corporation that really touches on this, as opposed to their simply being an employer? I feel like an analogy like this is of limited utility anyway. It's too easy to point out all the myriad ways that the existing system is different from feudalism, and it's unclear whether the negative aspects of feudalism continue to…

> I mean, isn't the point of feudalism actually the former -- that the public authority (the feudal lords) address the basic needs?

Lordship in a feudal system is a private property right (perhaps not freely tradeable because of the terms on which it was granted, but a property right nonetheless) [0], not a public position. (It exercised powers that current and even pre-feudal systems which had a concept of public authority associated with such authority, but it was not such an authority.)

[0] and while the lord/land relationship was granted from above, the lord/tenant relationship was in many feudal systems theoretically one of voluntary formation, though frequently, especially at the lowest levels, the subject of at least economic coercion.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#175

Post by amyjess » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #58

sokoloff wrote: post #36

IMO, it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. It's perfectly fine for enforcement agencies (OSHA, FDA, IRS, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to enforce policy/law on individuals/companies who have been found in violation, but to originally target individuals with the force of government lawmaking is a dramatic overreach of power, IMO. If Senator Sanders et al want to target all compani…

>Just so long as you don't torture a combination of such factors that, low and behold, it happens to only apply to the individual / company that you have it in for. >When you come up with a bill with an acronym "STOP BEZOS", I am pretty certain you've left the path of light and reason. Except that the content of the bill is quite broad and definitely doesn't "torture a combination of such factors" to target Amazon. I…

I agree with you, but the name of the bill could provide Amazon with a legal case to try and get the law struck down as a bill of attainder. The bill has good intentions, but Sanders shot himself in the foot with the execution.

Of course, that's purely hypothetical. There's no way this bill is going to pass, not with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#176

Post by geezerjay » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #167

geezerjay wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What people are upset over is the fact that so many of Wal-Mart's employees need to go on public assistance because the company refuses to pay them enough to live on. If that's the case then I fail to see how a particular employer is responsible for that problem. I mean, if the economy is so depressed in a region that the absolute best some job seekers are able to get is a job that requires them to remain on public…

I think employers like Walmart and Amazon are unique cases. Again consider the fact that Walmart as a national grocer is able to milk the SNAP program on a national level to the tune of $14B/year. That enables them to move into a depressed area and set up shop, even at a loss, which in turn allows them to shutter the existing market incumbent(s). With the mom & pops gone and/or employee owned grocer now gone only Wal…

> Again consider the fact that Walmart as a national grocer is able to milk the SNAP program on a national level to the tune of $14B/year.

Others in this thread have pointed out that "milk the SNAP" program is a very disingenuous and deceitful statement. SNAP is a wellfare program that subsidizes food purchases and both wallmart and amazon sell groceries, and somehow people like you spin the fact that supermarkets sell groceries to sound like these companies are stealing money from the government at the expense of poor people.

And even then what's your point? Either supermakets sell food to underpriviledged people or they don't, and I really doubt that anyone would advocate that poor people should be barred from supermarkets where regular people shop.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#177

Post by michael_h » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

LyndsySimon wrote: post #133

michael_h wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Amazon warehouses become fully automated and a big group of people lose their jobs and there's no safety net, the warehouses will be burned to the ground within 24 hours.

Well, that'll certainly solve the problem of housing and feeding those people.

It definitely won't of course, and I'm not saying it's right, but people who think that a mass people-to-automaton transition is going to go smoothly without a plan in place for the 'people' may lack perspective.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#178

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

ElBarto wrote: post #166

dv_dt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this law just another way to specify a minimum wage?

It's a very hypocritical way to blame companies for paying minimum wage, which is set by law...

[deleted]

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#179

Post by dv_dt » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

ElBarto wrote: post #166

dv_dt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this law just another way to specify a minimum wage?

It's a very hypocritical way to blame companies for paying minimum wage, which is set by law...

Wouldn’t this bill, if passed, also be set by the law? Its not blaming anyone, it is setting standards we expect companies to comply with.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#180

Post by 394549 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

LitFan wrote: post #97

394549 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. The operations of the market, with its vast information asymmetries , does not amount to a "decision" to endorse the particular behaviors of its participants. And even if Amazon's labor practices have been reported somewhere , they haven't been reported everywhere , and it's no…

You and your sibling comment are right - it's too harsh to say that society has decided they're okay with this treatment. However, I believe people need to be more aware of the decisions they make daily. Rather than passively supporting Amazon because it's the most convenient or cheapest option, investigate why they might be able to offer their service at a rate other companies in their space can't. I don't believe i…

> Why do people still support the company? Shouldn't people suspect something is fishy with that company's offering?

> My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service. That may not be the case.

I think a lot of people do not have the kind of personalities that drive them to get to the bottom of things. They didn't turn a blind eye, they just never looked beyond the surface in the first place. If pressed to explain how Amazon does what it does, they'll probably hand-wave that they're a tech company that uses magic computer innovation to out-compete old-fashioned dinosaurs.

> How can we fix this?

I don't know, but probably the first step is a lot of awareness-raising in ways that can emotionally grab the attention of the common man. Closely related is to also raise awareness of more ethical competitors, like Costco and others.

The second step is to somehow defeat the layers of pro-business propaganda and political polarization it's associated with in order to motivate real legislative action. That's a problem I have no idea how to solve.