201–210 of 468 posts
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Its in the UN declaration of human rights and also if you think about it, in the Declaration of Independence. "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
> Its in the UN declaration of human rights This is, legally speaking, a meaningless document.
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I worked in a factory building car bumpers. The work was so alienating that one day I "woke up" in the factory with literally no recollection of the last 2 hours. From all I knew I could have been taken by ETs but since my bumper quota was good I guess I just zoned out and became a bot. And I still call Amazon "horrible working conditions". The fact that it is better than being poor isn't saying much.
$16 per hour, at 2000 hours a year, is $32,000. The poverty line in the United States is around $26,000. "Slightly above poverty wages" is still pretty dang poor. (And to forestall the inevitable adjustment of one's pince-nez to well-actually: that it'd be median or even above-median wages somewhere else does not mean that it is not poor in America , nor that the two situations can be reasonably compared.)
What tracks are available for Amazon warehouse workers who want to move up?
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Think about it this way: both sides have the right to freely negotiate a contract, and then decide whether or not to enter into it. The CEO can't prevent the workers from talking to each other and figuring out what they think a fair contract would be, and the workers can't prevent the CEO from talking to other CEOs for the same reason. The specific human right is usually referred to as "freedom of association". You c…
As you observe, workers talking to each other to agree on prices for labor is the flip side of the coin from CEOs talking to each other to agree on prices for labor. But the latter is in fact illegal. CEOs can't talk to each other and agree to pay $10/hour for warehouse workers. Coordinating with others to set prices for labor or goods isn't viewed as within the scope of freedom of association. Union activities are i…
In 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and…
I respect a history lesson, but honestly, I think old comrade tales are not helpful. I don't mean that it's irrelevant, strictly, but we hear more of these than 2020 tales, 2020 strategies and concerns. This is 100 year later, and despite of how many union die hards see it... most workers aren't likely to buy int a centuries long struggle. They're interested in their own lives & jobs.
The coal miners were mostly Irish and German immigrants and African Americans. They all joined together and brought about changes that workers still benefit from today. People in 2020 can do the same.
Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.
> the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury. Who is forced to work in Amazon's warehouses? Is Amazon rounding up people with guns everyday to make them work there?
Interfering with unionization needs to be illegal, and not met with fines that affect only the bottom line of a balance sheet, but jail time for everyone involved, with mandatory minimum sentencing. If this is true Bezos should be behind bars.
How many corporate execs have actually gone to prison for wrongdoings done in the name of the corporation? There's Ken Lay from Enron, one completely random banker from the financial crisis of 2008, and not a whole lot of others I can think of.
Lay, who at age 64 succumbed to a massive heart attack at a rented Colorado vacation home, was found guilty by a federal jury in May along with former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling of conspiracy and fraud. The two were star defendants in the notorious business scandal, which vaporized more than 4,000 jobs and billions of dollars in stockholders’ investments.
But when a defendant who pleaded not guilty dies before sentencing, as Lay did, in most cases the conviction is wiped out on the grounds that the defendant did not have the opportunity to appeal, legal experts said....
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-06-fi-lay6-...
In 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and…
I respect a history lesson, but honestly, I think old comrade tales are not helpful. I don't mean that it's irrelevant, strictly, but we hear more of these than 2020 tales, 2020 strategies and concerns. This is 100 year later, and despite of how many union die hards see it... most workers aren't likely to buy int a centuries long struggle. They're interested in their own lives & jobs.
1. Their own struggles aren't new: companies have been trying to fuck workers over since time immemorial, and 2. There is a well-known solution to these problems: unions.
Are you working 16 hours a day, barely able to afford rent + food + utilities, and slipping further into debt every day? It doesn't have to be that way, and we have a really good idea, based on historical facts, about how to fix it.
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Can I just point out that I think the "horrible working conditions" things is a little played up. You want to know terrible working conditions dancing with a sign for 5 hours a day in the sun when it's 90+. I did that for 3 years and was happy to do the job, mind you this was only 10 years ago so it isn't forever. I made 7.50 an hour. I would've killed to get a job at amazon back then. People are getting payed $16 th…
> People are getting payed $16 that is incredible for an unskilled labor position. That's one view, but it's only informed by "the way things are". Another view is based on the way things should be, that no one should have to work for less than the wage it takes to live a reasonable life. https://livingwage.mit.edu/ offers values for this. I don't see why someone should work full time and still end up poor.
no offense, but this assumes too much about a person. you could make minimum wage $100 an hour, and there will still be poor people because some people make bad decisions. (not even taking into account that that would cause massive inflation etc). just giving a person $100 an hour doesn't guarantee they won't end up poor, as evidence by all the professional athletes that made millions and ended up bankrupt
another note, your link above gives massively different outcomes based on life situations (1 adult, 2 adult, 0-3+ kids etc). Do we need to make minimum wage such that it works for 1 adult with 5 kids who somehow got there with no skills whatsoever such that they are still working for minimum wage? Some people make poor choices in life, and we can't just raise minimum wage to a point that makes up for that. It's simply not possible.
Now, we can talk about other safety nets, such as a universal basic income, and universal healthcare, etc which I'm 100% for. The gov't should help these people, they shouldn't force small businesses to pay people more than the value they bring to the business. This is just picking winners, amazon will get bigger, and small businesses will get killed. Let the free market decide how much people are worth in the market to a business, and let gov't help keep people out of poverty.
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"Because capitalism" is always a terrible argument, whatever your position. It's a very nebulous term. Does it mean free markets? Does it mean private ownership of the factors of production? Does it mean laissez-faire? Does it mean economic organization of a professional manager class, with management separated from ownership, and ownership characterized by tradeable claims on assets?
It has a specific definition that you can find by googling: "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." Don't assume that others are naive, imprecise, or uninformed about what capitalism is and how it affects the world, just because your own understanding of it is limited.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning…
Wow, what a time saver I wish I had known about that earlier.