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Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

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Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#221

Post by MikeUt »

whitepaint wrote: post #190
padthai wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them do not want to know anything about unions, this is a common opinion among the American public. Other would like, or even try. But Amazon management, an enormous American corporations, are determined to not allow to do so. Amazon warehouse workers are, generally, not a particularly wealthy or powerful segment of the society.

What is the solution? Make unions mandatory?

The solution is winning hearts and minds to convince workers to organize. In the past, corporate propaganda and improving living conditions convinced many that unions were a net negative. As conditions change, so too can those convictions.

But I don't think mandatory unions are a solution. Unions would have to be very popular for such legislation to pass. But if they were so popular, they would no longer need compulsory membership.

In general it is unions and organized labor that push legislation meant to help workers, so starting with legislation instead is putting the cart before the horse.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#222

Post by golergka »

Yoric wrote: post #185
sneak wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often repeated, but I don't understand it. What power imbalance? The ability to offer a job is only a power over a worker if the worker has no other options for jobs, which is only the case in a company town or something like that. Then the company gets to decide if the worker starves or not. The labor market in the US is highly liquid, even for unskilled workers. This described power imbalance simply does no…

I'm not familiar enough with the situation in the US to comment for what's happening on your side of the ocean. In my country, there are laws to protect both sides. Unless an agreement is negotiated, the employee cannot leave without giving a ~2 months notice, the employer cannot fire/layoff withing giving a ~2 months notice. In many cases, though, there is a strong power imbalance. If, for some reason, you decide to…

This:

> the employer cannot fire/layoff withing giving a ~2 months notice.

Leads to this:

> Both for highly skilled positions and unskilled positions, getting a new job is hard

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#223

Post by refurb »

shmageggy wrote: post #25
MattGaiser wrote: post #7

Isn't Amazon's fear of running out of people a sign of the market correcting this?

They're in no danger of running out of people to employ. Social safety nets are too weak and economic conditions for the poor are too precarious that there are plenty of people willing to endure abusive conditions for a paycheck. The high turnover rate only ensures that they end up employing the most desperate and vulnerable.

Considering the shortage of minimum wage workers your hypothesis is clearly wrong?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#224

Post by nexus_dave »

rightbyte wrote: post #150
nexus_dave wrote: post #56

[flagged]

> If you don't like Amazon or what they are doing to their workers, don't shop on Amazon. If you think working for Amazon is bad, don't work for Amazon. Isn't warning people part of that?

Haven't we been warned enough by now?

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#226

Post by nexus_dave »

southerntofu wrote: post #62
nexus_dave wrote: post #56

[flagged]

"If you don't like what Hitler is doing, just ignore he's murdering millions of people". No thanks, i'd rather organize to have this guy killed to restore just a tiny little bit of justice on earth. You obviously have a very privileged position where you don't NEED TO work for Amazon. Lots of people are in a different position and i hope you appreciate that. Also, you obviously have no idea about the rich history of…

I grew up in communism.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#227

Post by jseban »

solveit wrote: post #211
jseban wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever rules exist at the moment, just decrease the time by 25%. Not sure exactly how to make such a change though, probably hard, just suggesting a solution like was asked for

> Not sure exactly how to make such a change though, probably hard, just suggesting a solution like was asked for Might I gently point out that the difficulty of the problem is all political. The easiest "solution" is of course to take all the wealth that exists in the world and fairly distribute it while keeping everyone working as effectively as they are now. Now obviously that idea isn't anywhere near being a solu…

I don't understand what you're trying to say, the work day has already been successfully shortened to 8 hours, so why couldn't it be further shortened? Seems like a natural progression as technology improves, and this solution is extremely simple and also fair.

What you are suggesting I can't even understand because of how vague and impossible complex it is to even start to define what it would mean to fairly distribute all wealth the wealth in the world.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#228

Post by Cederfjard »

polskibus wrote: post #91
WalterBright wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have historically complained a lot about firings not being based on an objective formula. Now the complaint is an objective formula is being used. > WW2 prisoner camps For starters, those camps would shoot anyone who tried to leave. Not the same thing at all.

I'd argue that if a process does not have room for you to explain yourself, and ensure that ALL data is taken into consideration by the other side then such process is authoritarian and not objective. An algorithm only looks at data it was programmed to look at, which is usually too narrow to be able to be without faults in the real world. There are good reasons why judicial systems have higher instances in them to w…

>An algorithm only looks at data it was programmed to look at

Programmed, or even worse trained, which means there’s no general intelligence around that really understands why it does what it does.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#229

Post by LeonidasXIV »

patall wrote: post #114
johnchristopher wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the EU is a big place and people are free to pick which country they live in. There are limits though. You have a 3 months period where you can stay in another UE country then the national authorities can ask for your leaving. There are statuses that allows you to stay longer (work, studies, retirement, etc.) but those statuses have requirements and obligations. You can't take your tent, set it up somewhere in…

> You can't take your tent, set it up somewhere in another country and declare you live there without some fiscal authorities coming for you at some point. Can you do that within any one single country? In Germany I have to register within 4 weeks of moving anywhere, it has to be a place that is registered as residential zone and you need an owner-ship or rental agreement certificate (even when living with your paren…

In Germany you have to have an address and submit it to the Bürgerbüro, that's all. But you can be unemployed and move from place to place in Germany, no problem, even to Flensburg. But you can't just (legally) move to up the border to Padborg in Denmark, since you need a residence permit and you only get that as a worker (or a person with sufficient funds).

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#230

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

navaati wrote: post #98
johnchristopher wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the EU is a big place and people are free to pick which country they live in. There are limits though. You have a 3 months period where you can stay in another UE country then the national authorities can ask for your leaving. There are statuses that allows you to stay longer (work, studies, retirement, etc.) but those statuses have requirements and obligations. You can't take your tent, set it up somewhere in…

What the hell ! I moved from France to Ireland and there was no question asked at any point, I just booked a ferry and rented a flat, no paperwork at all and I could live there as long as I wanted to. I'm not so much saying you're wrong as afraid you're right, do you have sources ?

I don't know if you broke the law or not, but I'm guessing you didn't do anything to make the authorities think you did.

There's probably not a great incentive chasing down and expelling other EU nationals unless they are actually causing trouble or breaking other laws.

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