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Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#261

Post by cloverich »

themaninthedark wrote: post #212
nxm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I spend 15 minutes each way driving (carbon emissions) to the store and waste 1 hr of my time in this case, when it can be delivered to me tomorrow? I definitely want to support local, but the cost/benefits are not as clear in this case.

How much carbon emissions went into making that available to be delivered tomorrow? You have a a large fleet of 18 wheelers, delivery vans and forklifts. Then the warehouses that go into making the supply chain work.

Which are definitely more efficient than having every individual that needs something hop in a car and drive for 20+ minutes. One delivery person with goods for 100 people in their truck is literally one truck replacing one hundred drivers. It is absolutely much more efficient carbon wise. All of the warehouses and 18 wheelers exist either way, since the local shops still need all the same supplies, although presumably more widely distributed.

The only way it works out is if people buy much less, which given prices would be much higher, they likely would.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#262

Post by maccard »

n144q wrote: post #138
nine_k wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the key feature of Amazon is the fast delivery with Prime. Do other merchants offer fast delivery often enough? Regarding credit cards, I started using privacy dot com for virtual, merchant-locked cards. It protects against (rare) card details leaks, but, of course, does not give you any points or cashback.

Do you actually care that much about fast delivery? My Prime membership ended 3 years ago. These days I just put items in the cart, and place order whenever it reaches $35. If I need an item in a hurry -- which rarely happens -- I go to a store to buy it. This barely affected me, and I ended up with much fewer impulse purchases. What's funny though is that the "standard" delivery often takes 5 calendar days. But AliE…

> Do you actually care that much about fast delivery?

I care about knowing when it's going to arrive. I don't necessarily need next day delivery, but if something says 2-3 day delivery that doesn't mean it will arrive in 3 days, it means it will arrive 3 days after it's shipped. Which for some major UK retailers can be 3-5 days. All of a sudden your delivery window is 2-8 days.

Also, much of the stuff I buy off Amazon is the sort of "crap" you make a single trip to the dollar store for - lightbulbs, wood filler, bin liners. They're the sort of things that I kind of need when I need them, or shortly after. My parents are the sort of people who will spend 20 minutes doing a quick round trip to the nearest dollar store/supermarket to get one thing, twice a week. I order it on amazon, and know it'll be there by the weekend for me to do whatever I need to do with it.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#263

Post by jvanderbot »

smileysteve wrote: post #220
jvanderbot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at Amazon. What you want to support are: - local retailers offer better jobs, and often better benefits. The work you do stocking at Menards is much better than sorting boxes at Amazon - support local repair vs repurchasing. This cuts down on the upstream demand and does wonders for local small-business economies. And again, provides better jobs than sorting boxes. - Efficiency is great! But what is Am…

To disagree, local "mom and pops" often don't offer better jobs or benefits, or meaning. Historically, in the US, these shops and restaurants often depended on underpaid (often children of the owner) labor, offered no benefits, and had no safety net in case of owner or business failure. On average, today, starting wages at McDonalds, Walmart, or your "local" Amazon warehouse are 25-50% higher than local restaurants a…

Comparing Amazon to an average rural main street coffee shop or craft store isn't fair.

But you're right I suppose, if your choice is employee number 3 at a tiny thrift store for half the pay, I'd choose Amazon too. But I'd probably want my kids to work at Target stocking shelves rather than Amazon hauling boxes.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#264

Post by greesil »

abduhl wrote: post #248
greesil wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage != Livable wage I don't think it's worth considering the comparison. But sure, maybe working at a distribution center pays well enough where you're located. Likely that's not the case where these strikes are happening. It's expensive out there. Also, what you wrote gives the impression of "I've got mine already so I don't care what happens to you."

Define what a livable wage is then. Is it $25/hr? $50/hr? $100/hr?

[flagged]

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#265

Post by aio2 »

Hikikomori wrote: post #256
abduhl wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define what a livable wage is then. Is it $25/hr? $50/hr? $100/hr?

Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start. Then some left over on top after essentials so you aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

Yea no. I understand the sentiment and agree with it, but not exactly feasible for a lot of companies, especially for the type of job they offer

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#266

Post by azemetre »

billy99k wrote: post #240
okokhacker wrote: post #223

I’m not sure why the general sentiment here is that Amazon workers do not deserve a living wage and should be replaced with robots. All the best to the union, I sincerely hope they meet your demands.

Amazon warehouse work pays almost $20/hour where I live, which is well above the federal minimum wage and more than almost every other company in the area for this type of work. This is a living wage. "should be replaced with robots" I also think it's funny we are having this discussion. When songwriters and other creators were complaining about piracy in the 2000s, the general response from the tech community was th…

$20/hr still isn't much money and you can only survive, note I'm not saying thrive here, on that amount in the poor areas in America.

There are very few jobs that actually pay well in America nowadays, and the ones that do tend to be congregated in few geographical areas and require extensive schooling.

The vast majority of Americans deserve more money.

Also check your priors, there are many musicians that do not complain about piracy and even partake in it (see Trent Reznor being part of oink/what, or Dead Kennedys encouraging people to record music on their tapes). I know many musicians that would upload their music on private trackers, regardless of what their label wanted or said.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#267

Post by jvanderbot »

gruez wrote: post #196
jvanderbot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at Amazon. What you want to support are: - local retailers offer better jobs, and often better benefits. The work you do stocking at Menards is much better than sorting boxes at Amazon - support local repair vs repurchasing. This cuts down on the upstream demand and does wonders for local small-business economies. And again, provides better jobs than sorting boxes. - Efficiency is great! But what is Am…

>- local retailers offer better jobs, and often better benefits. Is this backed by empirical evidence? I've also heard that small local companies have worse labor conditions, because they're small and fly under the radar compared to multinationals. One incident of an Amazon delivery driver peeing in bottles (even if they're technically working for a local subcontractor) is enough to show up on the New York Times. The…

I was wrong to imply "local" since that conjures images of things like a main street one window shop with 3 employees. Obv their benefits are lower.

I had in my head things like Target, Best Buy, or more social, occasional-customer-interaction-based work. It's just those mega corps are local. Also the large retailers like Home Depot, Menards, etc. At least those aren't as soulless and monotonous. By "local" I meant "brick and mortar" etc.

But I'm out of the edit window so, best to ignore it.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#268

Post by gruez »

themaninthedark wrote: post #214
gruez wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>An Amazon delivery car with a bunch of products to deliver is the equivalent of OP filling up his car with purchases when shopping in town. Right, but if you want something in 2-3 days (which amazon provides), you need to make a dedicated trip. Even if timing wasn't a factor, at best doing a consolidated errand run allows you to visit a handful of stores, whereas an amazon delivery van delivers to dozens of houses i…

Amazon built up a dedicated logistic network in order to get the 2-3 day delivery time. How does the Carbon Emissions of that factor in?

Is there to believe that logistics network has worse emissions compared to logistics networks for brick and mortar stores? At least for me, most of the amazon packages' tracking shows up as departing from a local warehouse, so I'd imagine most of the fast delivery time comes from pre-positioning goods in warehouses near buyers, rather than shipping packages across the country using planes or whatever.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#269

Post by 93po »

billy99k wrote: post #240
okokhacker wrote: post #223

I’m not sure why the general sentiment here is that Amazon workers do not deserve a living wage and should be replaced with robots. All the best to the union, I sincerely hope they meet your demands.

Amazon warehouse work pays almost $20/hour where I live, which is well above the federal minimum wage and more than almost every other company in the area for this type of work. This is a living wage. "should be replaced with robots" I also think it's funny we are having this discussion. When songwriters and other creators were complaining about piracy in the 2000s, the general response from the tech community was th…

I think your standard for a living wage is way, way too low. We should be able to comfortably afford food, housing, and medical care at minimum - both without spending most of your paycheck, to be able to afford it during periods of joblessness, and with a retirement at a reasonably young age. You cannot do this at $20/hour, and the only reason this isn't the normal standard is incredible greed and capitalism.

Re: Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

#270

Post by drawfloat »

Hikikomori wrote: post #256
abduhl wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define what a livable wage is then. Is it $25/hr? $50/hr? $100/hr?

Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start. Then some left over on top after essentials so you aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

Right, but we're talking about Amazon who make billions annually not "lots of companies".
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