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Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

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Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#251

Post by nostalgeek »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #40

What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?

> What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?

Yes it is proximity. How many relatives of yours do work in a Chinese factory or a Vietnamese or Pakistani sweatshop? There is also, let's be real, some form of racism as well. A lot of westerners see Asians as subhumans. It's absolutely an indisputable fact that westerners just outsourced slavery, they didn't really abolish it.

We need slave workforce to produce cheap stuff in order to be able to afford "life", and at the same time our personal and public debt is at insane levels. There is something fundamentally wrong with our society. It cannot last forever.

Now is it a reason not to care about what is happening at Amazon? that's a philosophical question, and a commercial one as well. If people did care, then Amazon would care. People don't so Amazon doesn't. Just like slave wages in third world sweatshops. If the customer cared brands would. Customers mostly don't, they used to, I remember all the scandals in the media with Nike and Adidas supply chain in the 90's.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#252

Post by TaylorAlexander »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #140
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

Well, Marx and Engels did accurately identify that a large reserve of under-employed workers, or people who didn't previously participate in the labor force, is what enables the most exploitative jobs. All necessities in life cost money: food, housing, childcare, healthcare; and those in the most precarious social positions are the people most willing to accept abusive employment for reasons directly tied to their su…

I believe it is technically possible to construct machines that produce most of life’s basic necessities at zero marginal cost. I am generally interested in finding others who want to work with me to design the first prototypes of these machines.

We can build any system we’d like.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#253

Post by burke »

gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #231
noonespecial wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever movi…

The average working class American is financing their car. The average car payment is $500. That is way too much car, yet people are financing that. Over the average working career, this $500 per month represents a foregone multi-million dollar net worth at retirement. So the average working class American is poor or struggling for cash not because of income issues, but because of spending issues. We have a spending…

> Americans also need to do better

Blaming any problem of this magnitude on individuals is not reasonable.

There's a systemic pressure toward overspending through advertising, etc., and we've created a society where many people make an amount of money, that, if spent "wisely", procures a stressful and unfulfilling existence.

Clearly Marxism is not the right solution: our system isn't inherently and completely broken, but it needs adjustment. I think Piketty has the right idea. A progressive tax on capital would do a lot to equalize this inequality — if we could ever amass the political will to implement it — though it wouldn't correct our current situation where everyone is constantly manipulated to think they'll be happy if only they buy this one more object.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#254

Post by didibus »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #114
mrfusion wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe simpler if companies own the robots and people own the companies?

Ultimately, yes. Assuming also the people have control of the companies, rather than a board of directors.

The board is elected by the shareholders. The system could change, but I don't see how it would scale not to use a representative strategy like a board. How would shareholders micro-manage everything?

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#255

Post by tsnont34nt »

conanbatt wrote: post #239
bmurphy1976 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably struggling from the previous 40 years of union busting, rights erosion, offshoring, financial manipulation, and discrimination.

Struggling doesn't pay. What where they doing with the productivity before Uber, thats the question. Are you saying they weren't doing anything at all and uber lifted them out of extreme poverty?

Not the GP, but my guess is that they mean that they were doing equally bad jobs, but without Uber's pretense that it wasn't a bad job.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#256

Post by trumped »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

shitty jobs will disappear first (robots/automation will take care of it)... and if universal income becomes needed, it will be paid for by the robot-taxes.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#257

Post by Aunche »

rossbmiller wrote: post #210
decebalus1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Amazon's stock vesting schedule for ICs is reasonable considering the sizable hiring bonus (iirc ~$20k for new graduates) One can get this bonus basically everywhere else in the area with similar sized companies. Hell, I got way more than that 8 years ago. The vesting schedule is diabolical: > 5% 1st yr, 15% 2nd yr, then 20% every 6 months coupled with the turnover rate: http://www.slate.com/content/dam/sla…

I think it's brilliant. If you live in Seattle and know anyone who's a mid-level corporate employee at Amazon, you should notice that it's a great way of selecting talent who are committed to the company and who will stick around. Also, contracts are re-negotiated every two years, so if you chain them up, you're getting a pretty significant annual payout.

That works in theory, but in practice, Amazon still has shitty employee retention. Top software talent is a seller's market. Most people who have the choice would choose Facebook, Google, or Microsoft over Amazon because Amazon is stingier.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#258

Post by nerdshoe »

lostapathy wrote: post #109
kevmo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad was a long-haul trucker for 20+ years. I did some hauls with him. I can confirm that peeing in bottles is the norm.

I don't think this is so normal anymore. Now that electronic log books are mandatory, drivers have to take breaks and for the most part should be able to pee.

The existence of littered bottles found along major highways tells a different story. Nobody throws out that many bottles of orange crush.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#259

Post by icebraining »

gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #231
noonespecial wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever movi…

The average working class American is financing their car. The average car payment is $500. That is way too much car, yet people are financing that. Over the average working career, this $500 per month represents a foregone multi-million dollar net worth at retirement. So the average working class American is poor or struggling for cash not because of income issues, but because of spending issues. We have a spending…

That average payment is for all Americans, not just working-class. The bottom 20% of American households spends only $3559/year on transportation (overall, not just on car payments). So either their car payments are much lower, or they just don't own many cars, but in any case they don't have many $500 car payments to forgo.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-high-income-and-low-income...

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#260

Post by nbardy »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

I don't know if ownership of the actual robots is a key component. But certainly, have full access and power to customize the machines in use is important. Something similar is already happening now in the developing world where the first access to the internet and computing for most people is a mobile phone. There is a growing number of people who don't know how to type on a keyboard but know how to use a computer. Voice commands are a large part of their input. As great as voice command can be, there is power and flexibility you simply can't access without a keyboard.

The only way I learned to program and now have a career is because I had easy access to the internals of a computer. I could start tinkering. I started messing with the internals of the computer even before I started programming. My curiosity led me to the file system of games and I started replacing sound and image files to mod my games. If someone's access to computing is a mobile phone they download and install prepacked bins. The can't and don't get to look at anything under the hood. No matter how strong their curiosity is they can't just discover.

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