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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

#301

Post by spamizbad »

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.

What's funny is even if you hate unions, surely the demographics who frequent HN at least has a solid grasp of the capital investments and R&D costs necessary to "replace them with robots" - We are talking about delivery station roles here. You gotta build something that, amortized, can do it for less than $500/day in a climate where Wall Street is putting pressure on tech stocks to control costs. Have at it.

We heard this same argument about automation in food service. Remember when Miso/Flippy was going to put all those $20/hour fast food workers out on the street? Turns out hiking prices was way easier.

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

#302

Post by greesil »

SoftTalker wrote: post #296
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."

Everyone deserves the opportunity to earn a livable income, but not all jobs can or should be paying a "living wage." Some jobs by their nature are part time and some people only want to work part time.

Uh sure. Then why are they striking? I honestly don't know.

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

#304

Post by vel0city »

maccard wrote: post #257
vel0city wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still don’t get the Whole Foods return ability when not shopping from Amazon Free returns aren't free. We need to de-normalize this practice of people buying so much junk just to immediately return it.

> Free returns aren't free. We need to de-normalize this practice of people buying so much junk just to immediately return it. One of the things you lose from online shopping is sizing. Shoes run in different sizes, lengths, widths. How do you suggest you order shoes to find the right size if shopping online?

> How do you suggest you order shoes to find the right size if shopping online?

Don't shop for shoes online? Unless you're happy with most of those shoes you tried on but returned going to the landfill.

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

#305

Post by cpufry »

RavlaAlvar wrote: post #134

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFC/comments/1hhips1/amazon_te... Interesting to see discussion on Reddit from r/AmazonFC are pretty negative , wonder if these are genuine employees comment for PR team hired by Amazon

yea they pay employees and also have bots that do this

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

#306

Post by partytax »

vasco wrote: post #34
ramon156 wrote: post #5

Had to buy some simple toolkit today. It was 5 bucks on Amazon, but I decided to find a local store that sells it. Same price btw. I think we should be a bit more aware about the impact of ordering everything through Amazon. Not only regarding delivery, but also the message it sends to local stores.

I've had this exact sentiment for many years but... what are we supporting really? Is it because you want a distributed network of inventory across the country near you in case of emergency? Is it because you like talking to someone when doing purchases? Is it because you think someone is doing a societal good by parking money in inventory they brought near you? Is it because you just don't like someone doing it more…

On the localist/resilient extreme in a developing world village you have the problems of:

* Inefficiency

* Lack of options

* Stupid business practices uncritically continued

See https://asteriskmag.com/issues/07/want-growth-kill-small-bus...

On the globalist/efficient extreme in the USA, for example, you have the problems of:

* Economic dependence on large, national players that can leave at any time

* Business proprietors feel no social responsibility to your community because they do not live there and interact with locals

* Little power in deciding what products businesses offer

* Profits enriching another place rather than your own place

I don't want either of these.

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

#307

Post by bitmasher9 »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #175

I've unsubscribed from Amazon Prime and Audible. I don't mind waiting an extra for my stuff to arrive. It's important to support other smaller retailers. Amazon already started with enshittyfying some of their services.

What audible alternative are you using?

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

#308

Post by vel0city »

ITB wrote: post #210

I don’t understand why all these comments are about who buys or doesn’t buy at Amazon. The article is about unionization and strikes. I expect a conversation about the merits of unions and their negotiation tactics. In my opinion, events like these will just accelerate job elimination. The goal of a logistics company is to be reliable. Humans are unreliable and more so when they are purposely and collectively unrelia…

> In my opinion, events like these will just accelerate job elimination

Sure, probably. The jobs that can be automated will eventually be automated. But while they're still needed, I'd hope they have some basic protections and decent wages.

If my online shopping costs go up 0.5% but now a thousand workers don't have to have the mental stress of "I really need a pee break, can my metrics take the few minute hit this week or will I lose my job and go homeless?", I'll take that trade in a heartbeat.

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

#309

Post by iLoveOncall »

Symbiote wrote: post #273
iLoveOncall wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also wonder if that has something to do with where I live I live in the center of London and out of the 200 non-household goods orders I have on Amazon this year I don't think I would have been able to find even 20% of them in local stores. Actually even when I do go in a store and find an item I need, I scan the barcode on the Amazon app and saw that it's usually a LOT cheaper on Amazon (like, 30% cheaper for th…

I live in the centre of Copenhagen, and haven't ordered anything from Amazon for a decade — on principle. I have ordered from online retailers in Denmark, and I've made 2 orders from AliExpress, and a few more from eBay. Can you give five items you can't buy in central London, but can buy from Amazon?

I have 400 orders on Amazon this year (I think that means I have more than 400 unique items since one order can be more than one items, but it's probably around 450 items total so not far off).

Of those, I probably have a good portion which is household goods as I mentioned, like soap in bulk, soda cans in bulk, etc. which is cheaper than any other option (especially because I don't have a car in London).

Then I have around 170 orders which are items I got for free through the Vine program (https://www.amazon.co.uk/vine/about). And probably around 30 orders that are free books (https://www.amazon.co.uk/firstreads).

If I ignore all of those, and take only recent orders that I paid for, here are 5 items that I can't buy, or at least wouldn't know where to even begin looking for, in central London:

- A luggage and suitcase scale

- A monitor arm

- A good shower filter for hard water (not the crap that doesn't actually filter anything which you can easily find anywhere)

- A label printer

- A moth repellent for wardrobes

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

#310

Post by awkward »

nine_k wrote: post #108
a12k wrote: post #102

I’ve found that the rise of Apply Pay as a payment mechanism on random sites has been helpful in getting me off of Amazon. Often it’s just as easy to order something direct if they have Apple Pay (or ShopPay, but I have other issues with them) and the same price as Amazon. Plus discoverability is awful on Amazon anyways. Still don’t get the Whole Foods return ability when not shopping from Amazon, but not punching in…

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.

For me, the fast shipping is at a point where more reliability would be better than the current speed of delivery. If it's on time, I'd prefer to get a package in two days than have it delivered at 10pm in one. If it's behind the deadline, I'd prefer a more realistic deadline than emails about slipping on the schedule.
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