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1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

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Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#291

Post by ElFitz »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #219
drorco wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the other option similar to what happened after the New York Elevator Operator Strike in 1945 -- the total elimination of a profession. https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/100-years-ago-we-fear... "It wasn't until the middle of the twentieth century that the tipping point came along for the driverless elevator as the result of a strike by the elevator operators' union in New York City in 1945. The str…

"being a temp for future robots" While everyone was predicting that the dirty jobs would get automated, instead its a lot of midlevel jobs are getting automated, but we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash. I am willing to bet my house thay we can automate away the CEO but not the janitor, and it will be hilarious. Management is just analysis of data, we can do that. But the physical works requires de…

> but we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash.

Pneumatic waste collection is a thing, and has been for quite some time.

See

- https://www.wired.com/2010/08/trash-sucking-island/

- https://untappedcities.com/2020/04/09/inside-roosevelt-islan...

- https://qz.com/1909600/the-future-of-garbage-collection-is-p...

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#292

Post by andreilys »

shakezula wrote: post #90
underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

> So aside from “just stop buying from Amazon” what can we do ? The "just stop buying amazon" arguments never made sense to me in the first place, because most people who use it are the ones budget-stretched in the first place. A lot of rural communities have no other viable options for some items as well. It will take massive government action and that's it. There's no other way we can fix this problem. Wages are su…

Wages are suppressed because it's _legal enough_ to suppress them

I'm not an Amazon defender by any means, but doesn't Amazon pay the best in terms of comparable work which is why the warehouse jobs are so competitive to get? Or is that just Amazon PR to stave off regulations

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#293

Post by hattmall »

underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

Don't stop buying, keep buying, start returning. Buy things that are sold by Amazon and return them make accounts for free trials, buy things and return them, become unprofitable then figure out how to circumvent their bans!

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#294

Post by abawany »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #244
Buttons840 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the reason I use Amazon is there web app doesn't suck. If I go to Walmart's website it will be ugly and slow and I'm not confident it will work well on my phone. Why can't Walmart get this right? I'm fine buying from Walmart and having them store my CC info like Amazon does, it's only that poor web app experience holding me back. Maybe someone can make an Amazon competitor that is just a decent shopping app. I d…

walmart.com is rebadged jet.com. It isn't a clusterfuck with a tech debt extending back to the 00's like the old walmart site.

Agree. While Walmart's search can be a little silly still and selecting the retailer as Walmart.com every time gets old (esp. since it moves around), the search is light years better than the trashfire that Amazon.com serves me. Also, it is nice that Walmart.com emails actually list the items that I ordered instead of just the total order amount: the latter ensures that I must go to the site or app to determine what I ordered vs. searching my emails.

Ordering from Amazon.com has been a pain for me for a long time, from the prompting to join Prime on every checkout, the reqd. selection of non-prime free shipping on every checkout, the content-free order emails, and etc. I contacted them specifically about the email issue but they pretty much replied with 'thanks for the info.'

Most of my orders are now local, Target, or Walmart. If the latter 3 don't have it, then I reluctantly fire up Amazon and hate my life a little bit for it.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#295

Post by jdgoesmarching »

shakezula wrote: post #157
pwillia7 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 152 other families to work as scabs for each striking worker. I worry all of this won't be resolved until the next State level paradigm shift, like when the world mostly did away with kings and queens for liberalism.

The vast majority of those other workers won’t be flexible enough to be able to just drop and work for Amazon. This is a problem inherent to neoliberalism, you’re right, I’m just not sure I’d agree that it requires a nation state level shift in politics to make Amazon pay their fare share in taxes and wages.

No, but it will be a constant struggle when companies are incentivized to infinitely reduce costs and their political power far outweighs ours. Significant tax and minimum wage increases are almost a generational event at this point. Those are features, not bugs of our system.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#296

Post by judge2020 »

jaredklewis wrote: post #232
gimmeThaBeet wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bloomberg had an article along similar lines late last year. The main hypothesis isn't terribly controversial to me, amazon lowers logistics wages since it pays less than the traditional players, and has sort of the 'business gravity' to immediate move in and be a significant employer. I would not call that suppressing wages on its own. Amazon's argument is that they aren't driving wages down, they are raising them u…

Yea, if the argument is that amazon drives wages lower because Amazon took a skilled job (forklift operator) and turned it into an unskilled job anyone can do, then I agree with that premise. I just think it is misleading to call that wage suppression as that is not how the term is traditionally used. Operating a loom probably does take less skill than knitting fabric by hand, but that's not wage suppression; that's…

> forklift operator

I get where you're coming from (there are other logistics-related specialty jobs), but i've heard that Amazon designs their warehouses around not needing forklifts (except in very few areas0 since they're incredibly dangerous in general.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#297

Post by whall6 »

foobiekr wrote: post #241
kungito wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Management isn't analysis of data, it is making a decision based on that analysis. A completely different and more complex problem. One could argue that the border between the two is unclear but we have for sure been automatizing the analysis and we are nowhere near removing the managers. Maybe we could say we have removed layers of management though

I'm with the bet-the-house guy. I've worked for huge organizations since 1990 and I really think that even a mid-grade student project could make decisions as well as the management I've known, which includes multiple Fortune 50 CEOs. When I say "known" I mean "known" and not "been ten layers under." What I think will happen is CEOs will be glorified actors that are tasked with delivering the decisions some ML system…

Because you knew every counter factual, right?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#298

Post by tharkun__ »

brutus1213 wrote: post #286
ethbr0 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a frequent Walmart delivery customer, but my impression was they didn't take buy-online/ship-to-home or buy-online/ship-to-store seriously until the Jet acquisition. Which Walmart bought in 2016?

So Walmart Canada's pick up seemed to develop in front of my eyes. At the start of the pandemic, there were almost no spots and they screwed up a lot. E.g you'd get half the items you ordered, wrong items, would not get pick up order ready in time, fee on orders, etc. Whoever ran the show, executed brilliantly. It kept getting better. A relative scoffed at my high praise, and I convinced him to try it .. he too was b…

To be brutally honest: What does "touchless" mean here except clever marketing that plays off fears about Covid?

If anything more people touch your items in this system or its on par. Sure there's no cashier/packer touching your items at checkout. But the equivalent has to happen internally. I have no idea how it actually works but I gather since most stuff goes directly into the store and not the warehouse someone walks through the store and picks the order like you would exposing themselves to the Covid risks and then potentially someone else packs it all up and yet another person delivers it to your car as this happens asynchronously and there might even be a shift change in between.

FWIW my Costco didn't pretend the pandemic didn't happen. I still sometimes have to wait to get into the fruit/veggie or dairy coolers, with someone making sure that not too many people are in there at the same time. They applied the limits intelligently (only allowing one person per membership into the warehouse at all at a time when the government limits were very low) so as to allow more people to shop without having to wait outside for ages (which happened in the first 'panic buying stage' of the pandemic). They have less produce in the cooler too to allow more space for passing (even to the detriment of the produce. I just don't buy some stuff any longer as its no longer cooled and there are quality issues). They also rearranged some other stuff to make it easier to access without bumping into each other. None of the other stores I have been to have done this at all.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#299

Post by abawany »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #147
macintux wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, when I wanted a specific pair of shoes, I ordered them directly from the brand. It's very convenient to buy from Amazon, but it's hardly a hardship to not do so.

No reputable brand is going to sell even half decent shoes for $35. This is a good example where you can see how much people are really willing (or able) to spend on “local” or “quality” goods that can help pay for a store’s staffing needs and other expenses.

I've gotten a few pairs from Adidas (adidas.com or their eBay store) and they have been great for my light needs. One can find Alphabounce-soled sneakers and etc. for around that price, including shipping.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#300

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #234
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"being a temp for future robots" While everyone was predicting that the dirty jobs would get automated, instead its a lot of midlevel jobs are getting automated, but we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash. I am willing to bet my house thay we can automate away the CEO but not the janitor, and it will be hilarious. Management is just analysis of data, we can do that. But the physical works requires de…

> we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash Because it's hard to justify the $$$ on a robot to automate a job that takes 30 seconds once a week. Modern people don't realize it, but an awful lot of household drudgery has been automated. I'm old enough to remember life before the microwave. What a marvelous time saver that is! You can even buy one from the thrift store for $10. I remember them being $1000…

Add to that the cheap-as-dirt popcorn maker. My mom would make popcorn in a frying pan. The machine is sooo much easier.

There are the mothers of kitchen automation:

1. refrigerator

2. garbage disposal

3. dishwasher

4. electric / gas stove and oven

These are really marvelous inventions. It seems I spent half my childhood washing dishes by hand. Ugh.

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