Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by komali2 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

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…

>accept abusive employment

My friends and I tried to "end game" the conservative mindset and I hadn't thought of this option.

Our exercise was: if hard conservatives achieved their goal of, say, eliminating food stamps, what would happen? Presumably private churches etc couldn't pick up all the slack so the only thing we could think of was skyrocketing crime. What, are people going to just starve to death when they could simply walk out of Safeway with ten loaves of bread and a jar of peanut butter?

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

#352

Post by piracykills » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #350

piracykills wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That some tiny portion of the deaths in your country are from opioid overdoses? People voluntarily injecting themselves with drugs and fucking up? Why exactly does this concern you so much? It's hard to see it as representative of a larger systemic problem beyond the American drug enforcement and medical systems resulting in over-prescription of opioids and fenantly entering common usage. Not much beyond that, is the…

The opioid epidemic is a symptom of underlying socioeconomic and societal issues. That is why it concerns me so greatly. It’s a canary in the coal mine, if you will.

I don't think so - over-prescription of opioids and more common usage of fentanyl seem to the be the key factors in the death increases. Nothing to do with underlying socioeconomic conditions nor societal problems. I don't understand how you're making that leap - care to elaborate?

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

#353

Post by _bxg1 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

BtBfs wrote: post #310

_bxg1 wrote: post #157

Just one of the reasons I avoid giving Amazon money.

I've started cutting my Amazon usage too. It's difficult because I've become dependent but I can cut the delivery part for most products.

I pretty much only use Amazon as a fallback, when I need to buy something that I just won't find in any other store, online or brick-and-mortar.

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

#354

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

burke wrote: post #253

gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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

This is just anecdotal, but I see this a LOT. The stubborn insistence that blame is paramount in any discussion and that the world should be made fair before action can be taken to improve one's life is a pretty substantial barrier to said improvement. Sometimes the deck is stacked, and working on unstacking the deck can happen in parallel with reacting to the world as it is now. Out of college, I had friends who made half as much as me and spent twice as much; income aside, we were both exposed to pretty much exactly the same environment, and somehow we made purchasing decisions that were completely swapped from what you'd expect. As the parent comment said, "Amazon needs to do better" too, but putting personal behavior outside of the realm of control of the individual isn't helping anyone, it's harming them.

I agree with your general point that simply wishing that people would do better for a behavorial issue at this scale is unlikely to do much, but I don't think that's implied by the GP comment's suggestion. There have been successful campaigns to cause large-scale behavioral shifts before[1], and recognizing personal choice as a potential mechanism of improvement doesn't mean we can't approach the problem in an intentional, structural manner.

Just an aside, but in all of this I'm taking on faith the power of advertising that the HN community at large seems to consistently think that we're helpless before; this has never been my experience; I don't care much about ads, I don't see any mechanism in which they could drive my purchase decisions, etc etc. To wit, I buy the cheapest option (that I haven't already tried and disliked) for cheap items and extensively research medium to high priced ones. There's no question that brand advertising affects my level of brand awareness, but it's _really_ not difficult at all to remove that factor from your purchasing decisions. If anything, my prior would be that all the people who blindly purchase based on brand awareness are shifting the value prop towards brands that are _less_ well-known, since theoretically they need to compete on something else (price, features, quality, whatever).

[1] Spend any time with Europeans and you'll appreciate how impressive the American anti-smoking campaign was.

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

#355

Post by komali2 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #249

ihm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 80% of stock is owned by the top 10% wealthiest individuals[1]. More recent work[2] puts the percentage even higher. You might own some of the robots but most people don't. [1]: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/ExtendedAbstr... [2]: http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-ric...

But you know what most people DO own? Unnecessary consumer debt that stunts their ability to save and invest. When the average car payment in America is around $500 a month, it's clear evidence that people have a spending problem rather than an income problem. Here's an idea: Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance, plus healthcare costs) and suddenly peopl…

Isn't education the government's responsibility?

So, the American people don't have a spending problem, America has an education problem. (America has many education problems, really)

People only do what they know how to do. If you let a street worth of kids grow up on the street without giving them another opportunity, how are they gonna put food on their table? The ways they learned on the street. Same idea.

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

#356

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

piracykills wrote: post #352

toomuchtodo wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opioid epidemic is a symptom of underlying socioeconomic and societal issues. That is why it concerns me so greatly. It’s a canary in the coal mine, if you will.

I don't think so - over-prescription of opioids and more common usage of fentanyl seem to the be the key factors in the death increases. Nothing to do with underlying socioeconomic conditions nor societal problems. I don't understand how you're making that leap - care to elaborate?

The Guardian has an excellent piece far better than me rehashing it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/28/deaths-of-de...

“Is the US facing an epidemic of 'deaths of despair'? These researchers say yes”

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

#357

Post by truculation » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #307

truculation wrote: post #124

What's the typical walking time to the toilet in a large warehouse? Where do the relevant employees keep the bottles (e.g. are they attached to their legs underneath trousers? If not how do they avoid CCTV?) Are break periods mandatory or optional?

Ya, I do believe a FC warehouse job sucks pretty bad, but for some reason, this particular article seems strange. The journalist is clearly trying to find sensationalist material for his book. I'm not sure how much I can trust his sources.

That may well be but my questions are genuine questions (I'm curious).

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

#358

Post by aswanson » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #351

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>accept abusive employment My friends and I tried to "end game" the conservative mindset and I hadn't thought of this option. Our exercise was: if hard conservatives achieved their goal of, say, eliminating food stamps, what would happen? Presumably private churches etc couldn't pick up all the slack so the only thing we could think of was skyrocketing crime. What, are people going to just starve to death when they c…

Causing a rapid increase in gun sales. Two tenets of the platform hit with one stone.

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

#359

Post by wombatpm » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #71

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 is already spreading. Uber driver, Deliveroo biker, and their hundreds of copycats, all of them where "you're not an employee, you're a contractor".

Wait until the realize that the strip-club model of independent contractor would allow them to charge their contractors for the privilege of working in their environment.

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

#360

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #180

piracykills wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, reading real statistics on this kind of thing instead of alarmist and politically slanted headlines paints a very different picture of how the world is doing. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

As global average quality of life trends upward, the American lower and middle class are dying quietly in the streets. https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/21/5720803...

So you're thinking that people in the future will wonder why we weren't more parochial in our sphere of concerns? More precisely, they'll be morally shocked at the notion that we were too close to treating all humans as of equal moral worth, instead of prioritizing those that are located closer to us geographically?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very aware that most moral systems have somewhat-principled reasons to prioritize those that are geographically closer to you. This is intended more to illuminate that side of the argument than as a full-fledged suggestion for how to set our priorities. But the claim being discussed here, that the future will wonder why we let people die in the streets, is still bizarre to me in the context that you're framing it in.