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Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

theintercept.com

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Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#201

Post by jeromegv »

ars wrote: post #173
Aunche wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that employers in tornado prone areas should have sections of the building that are sufficiently safe from tornados. As far, as I can tell, Amazon was following the rules, but labor activists are blaming Amazon for doing say, saying instead that they should have let them leave.

They did have a shelter area. It wasn't enough, most can't survive a direct hit, it's just a fact of life in that area. And if you leave every time there a tornado in the area you don't work for many months of the year. Instead you go to the shelter when it's very close, which is what they did (10 to 15 minutes before). Don't listen to activists, they usually aren't interested in the employees, rather they just want…

Yes, we all know that all social and labor progress was achieved by employers by the kindness of their heart. Those activists just complain and nothing progressive in our society was achieved by them.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#202

Post by randmeerkat »

thelucky41 wrote: post #160
KennyBlanken wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if Amazon is trying to set up a distribution center in your state, county, or town: fight it. At the very least insist on language that prohibits any sort of corporate welfare. No tax breaks, no free infrastructure. Bezos is the richest man in the world; he can afford to run a new sewer or water main to his big fancy warehouses, instead of making a county's worth of low-income blue-collar folks pay for it. He can…

If the next town over does not follow this strategy, you will quickly find yourself in a diminished community with less public services and available jobs.

If we insist on giving up our principles because someone else may also give up their principles, then we’re damned to a race to the bottom that neither of us will ever escape.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#203

Post by coding123 »

grapeskin wrote: post #157
uncomputation wrote: post #49

> The major goal of the program, Amazon’s head of worldwide consumer business, Dave Clark, said, was to reduce employee attrition by fostering happiness among workers — and also productivity. Shout-Outs would be part of a gamified rewards system in which employees are awarded virtual stars and badges for activities that “add direct business value,” documents state. At the meeting, Clark remarked that “some people are…

The scariest thing isn't that Amazon is a company worth nearly trillions and using that money to oppress workers to maintain their lead. It's that tech workers are happily applying to get a decent paycheck and crushing people under them, just to protect the company's billions. Then they'll post online about how happy they are to have been smart enough to save up to buy a lakefront home and retire at 45, and say peopl…

It's all downhill if you keep going up.

It's supposed to be a system where you enrich your country that you live. So you see less homeless people. But, Walmart and Amazon executives have focused on selling you things made in other countries. China, mostly. It has just taken a long time to catch up but the system has nearly perfected moving money up and out.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#204

Post by grapeskin »

chii wrote: post #178
grapeskin wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massive salaries for programmers won’t last forever. Most people here on HN are self-taught; it’s a skill a large number of motivated people can pick up. Eventually, large corporations will feel comfortable lowering wages once they have a secure grip on the market, and the tools programmers today made will be used against the next generation. It’s no different from millennials resenting boomers for burning economic b…

> feel comfortable lowering wages once they have a secure grip on the market unless amazon is a monopoly employer, this isn't gonna happen. Or they can collude with other employers to lower wages (or indirectly, like no-poaching policy, or do what google+apple did with their wage collusion). And if programming is valuable, why wouldn't these "low paid" programmers quit and take their skills elsewhere, including start…

> Or they can collude with other employers to lower wages (or indirectly, like no-poaching policy, or do what google+apple did with their wage collusion).

You already provided a real world example of them doing it. So it does happen.

And most big companies are now in a phase of buying up disruptive tech companies and extinguishing any competition. That's only going to expand going further. The automotive industry in the US killed public transport to secure their market, they shipped their factories off to other countries, and they still steal subsidies from tax payers.

Tech companies are going to happily follow that path.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#205

Post by matthias509 »

grapeskin wrote: post #174
Firmwarrior wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that coders as an industry are destroying the road behind us, since there isn't really a road between "warehouse worker" and "software engineer", unless someone has the knack for coding (in which case there's a very clear and well-paved road within the company between those roles) I think the best solution is to empower workers via unions or whatever else. It should be impossible for workers to get gro…

Massive salaries for programmers won’t last forever. Most people here on HN are self-taught; it’s a skill a large number of motivated people can pick up. Eventually, large corporations will feel comfortable lowering wages once they have a secure grip on the market, and the tools programmers today made will be used against the next generation. It’s no different from millennials resenting boomers for burning economic b…

High salaries for tech workers are not a new phenomenon. So if programming were truly a skill a large number of people could just “pick up”, it would have happened already.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#206

Post by jimt1234 »

I administered Microsoft Exchange for "Evil Corp" back in the 90s. I was asked to install a filtering package that monitored emails for keywords (curse words). After collecting data for about a week, there was one clear conclusion: The worst offenders were in middle-management. Oh yeah, and I had to explain to some uptight HR director what a "MILF" is. Good times.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#207

Post by tomschlick »

panarky wrote: post #200
s1artibartfast wrote: post #106

Please keep in mind this is a rewards program text box, not a chat app. The program itself may be stupid, but I don't know any company that would allow these terms in internally visible recognition. My company uses manual review for recognition, but I would expect a call from my manager if I sent a public kudos "Great job fighting for union pay raises for the slave labor at our company"

Quoted post unavailable.

Not the parent commenter, but its pretty weird / creepy that you spent the time to go through 2 years of their posts to find that rather innocuous comment.

Also, it isn't really cancel culture for a company to say they dont want that on their internal kudos app presumably while using company equipment.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#208

Post by Fernicia »

panarky wrote: post #200
s1artibartfast wrote: post #106

Please keep in mind this is a rewards program text box, not a chat app. The program itself may be stupid, but I don't know any company that would allow these terms in internally visible recognition. My company uses manual review for recognition, but I would expect a call from my manager if I sent a public kudos "Great job fighting for union pay raises for the slave labor at our company"

Quoted post unavailable.

What a bizarre straw man. People who denounce their employer publicly are not victims of cancel culture.

Also, a word of advice: if you want to convince someone cancel culture isn't real, digging up their comments from 2 years ago is not a great start.

Re: Amazon worker chat app to ban words such as “union”, “pay raise”, “slave labor”

#210

Post by zaik »

tomschlick wrote: post #207
panarky wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Not the parent commenter, but its pretty weird / creepy that you spent the time to go through 2 years of their posts to find that rather innocuous comment. Also, it isn't really cancel culture for a company to say they dont want that on their internal kudos app presumably while using company equipment.

It only takes a few seconds to find a keyword in someones comment history: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
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