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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#331

Post by supergeek133 »

Lammy wrote: post #204
2ion wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's just somebody with FY money in the bank so he can do whatever he wants in a larger scope than others. I'll keep my hat on; this is nothing special in his position.

Do you think he would feel safe speaking up about this (or any) injustice if he weren't financially secure? That's sort of his entire point, imo, since the people Amazon fired certainly don't have that luxury.

No, I don't think so. This is why you don't see others doing what he did. He said it will cost him "a million pre tax dollars".

He worked there 5 years, I'd imagine he already made one or more millions.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#332

Post by rchaud »

schnischna wrote: post #33
stupidcar wrote: post #20

> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…

That's why people work hard to acquire skills, to be able to work in better jobs. I have never run a warehouse, but I suspect that many of the strange seeming rules are in place because people otherwise try to exploit the system (like getting paid for smoking on the toilet for hours on end). It may seem inhumane, but perhaps it makes it possible to give people jobs who don't deserve automatic trust. Such people exist…

> I suspect that many of the strange seeming rules are in place because people otherwise try to exploit the system (like getting paid for smoking on the toilet for hours on end).

There have been large, profitable corporations that preceded Amazon and did not need to implement such draconian tracking systems.

Perhaps these rules are in place because the people creating the rules know that rank and file have no bargaining power and cannot advocate for a less draconian system without fear of termination.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#333

Post by [deleted] »

awinder wrote: post #225
nicoburns wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle. On the contrary, bucketloads of people do this all the time. The world would be a better place if more people did.

VPs don’t normally quit companies over personnel decisions on line employees outside of their reporting chain. Especially Fortune 500 companies. Let’s give some credit where credit is due.

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#335

Post by azernik »

pgrote wrote: post #306
thanksforfish wrote: post #178

> Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength. Legislation or unionization. Any other routes?

>unionization I am confused why there weren't wholesale strikes in the grocery, retail, warehouse, gig workforces during the shutdowns. Workers had complete power to force change.

Because of active union-busting efforts, which have made it hard for these workers to organize collective action.

Walmart: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-wal...

Whole Foods (post-acquisition): https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/27/amazon-whol...

Uber: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/22/uber-lyft-ip...

Amazon: https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-re...

This is not a new problem; low-wage workers have always had the collective power to force change, and businesses and business-friendly have always worked tirelessly to disrupt that collective action.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#336

Post by fs111 »

tafox wrote: post #256
CalRobert wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the challenge with large mortgages and heath care requirements taking away people's moral agency. Maybe that's the idea.

I had a boss that would try to bully employees into buying expensive cars they couldn't afford, just so they had too much debt and he could exploit them... because they could no longer afford to quit. One might be disappointed how effective this technqiue can be. Now imagine you have car payments, a mortgage, and a family to feed.

Why would anybody let themselves be bullied into buying a car? That is seriously foobar

Re: Bye, Amazon

#337

Post by moduspol »

Pfhreak wrote: post #318
moduspol wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they're working as fast as they can to automate these folks out of jobs so that someone else can be blamed for being sexist and racist by employing them. And then the new employer can be the "villain of the month" on HN.

Employing someone is not a gold star that entitles you to treat workers however you'd like. One cannot excuse terrible/racist/sexist treatment of workers with, "at least they were employed."

Nobody is excusing that.

I'm pointing out the irony of the most probable outcome after all the moralizing and hand-wringing here by (primarily) well-paid, privileged, white collar tech workers. The jobs will be automated away, Amazon will be no more morally virtuous than they were the day before, yet the outrage will simply shift to the next employer.

A fair assessment of Amazon's worker treatment would involve comparison to the workers' treatment if Amazon were not employing them. Presumably nearly all would be employed elsewhere. How would they fare at other employers? Better? Worse? More or less the same?

If the answer is, "more or less the same," then it hardly seems like Amazon is the problem. Perhaps they're just a more convenient target.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#338

Post by jeffrallen »

Come on, Tim. You lost me at, "cost me a million dollars".

Congrats that you did the right thing, but no one should care how much it cost you to be ethical.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#339

Post by this2shallPass »

supergeek133 wrote: post #324
stupidcar wrote: post #20

> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…

I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g., food service, warehouse, retail sales). For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This was…

Thankfully no "high pay" labor ever just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc) ;) And never at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered.

Pay might be a factor. I think people are people, and their behavior and beliefs vary.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#340

Post by msoad »

yalogin wrote: post #231

Am curious, what happens if an engineer quit like this after writing a blog about the company, does it have a negative impact on their hirability? Do other companies not want him or does it not matter?

Tim is not "an engineer". He is not gonna look for jobs.
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