Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by ITB » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #299

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…

unions and strikes are not illegal. The merits of unions, not always but their goals are, multiple. a/ compensation and working conditions leverage in negotiations b/ structure that can directly address all sort of issues the employer don't care about and isn't obliged to deal with. That it makes your service experience particularly painful is exactly the goal, bad (or better, no) customers experience hurts the emplo…

But it’s also not illegal to get fed up and go above and beyond to automate everyone.

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

#352

Post by robertlagrant » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #275

robertlagrant wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon employing people creates a lot of taxes. Don't forget everything's taxed, not just corporation tax. Every employee generates income tax, employee tax, if they invest their money the interest is taxed, almost everything they buy from a shop has VAT, fuel they purchase is taxed, everything they buy has a higher price because that business has to pay tax and so do its employees, ad infinitum. There's tax everywhe…

The local stores also employ people. They also pay business taxes that Amazon avoids.

I don't understand the dichotomy. Local stores can exist and their taxes can pay for things, but the Amazon HQ also exists and can pay for things. And its employees likely pay the higher taxation bands as well, although I could be wrong.

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

#353

Post by irq-1 » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #301

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 hear…

(off topic) I was thinking today about how robots should throw packages to each other. It'd be faster and it's all the things robots are great at: hand-eye coordination, weight and holding angle, and group coordination.

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

#354

Post by crote » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #203

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…

Why do you care about providing your credit card number to order something? You're not liable for fraud and most banks will replace the card quickly. In 25 years of having credit cards and using them extensively online I've had them compromised only a few times. It's really not something to worry about.

> You're not liable for fraud

No, but you're still paying for it.

Let's say you're a small EU-based merchant accepting payment for international orders via Stripe. An incoming iDEAL payment costs €0.30 / transaction. An incoming credit card payment? €0.25 / transaction, plus 2.5% of the transaction value. On top of that, you as merchant are charged €20 for every chargeback! And those additional costs are of course passed on to the customers because they will raise all prices by 2.5% to make up for it.

There is no free lunch. You are implicitly buying fraud insurance on every order and paying 2.5% for it.

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

#355

Post by webdood90 » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #266

billy99k wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 com…

> The vast majority of Americans deserve more money.

This is pedantic but I strongly dislike when people say anyone deserves anything.

I support an equitable system that allows citizens to move up in economic class (which we don't currently have) but I don't subscribe to the idea that everyone inherently deserves anything.

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

#356

Post by themaninthedark » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:52 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #180

Symbiote wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many replies already, but one point that hasn't been mentioned: The local store pays their taxes — local and national taxes. Amazon is big enough to evade these, or where possible, pay small amounts only in Luxembourg, Delaware etc.

Amazon pays sales taxes, which makes up a big chunk of the local business' tax burden anyways. Moreover, the retail division Amazon barely makes any money, so any taxes on profit going to delaware or whatever is probably minimal (as % of your spend).

If the retail division of Amazon barely makes any money, why hasn't it been cut or spun off so that the company can concentrate on the things that it is really good at and are more profitable?

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

#357

Post by jedberg » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:52 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #301

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 hear…

> We heard this same argument about automation in food service.

Have you been to a fast food joint lately? Even at peak traffic they have maybe three people working when they used to have 7-10. Now you walk in and you have to order from the kiosk, which is literally the iPhone app on a vertical touch screen. You don't even talk to a human until they hand you the food.

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

#358

Post by sterlind » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

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.

That's fine. Part time jobs can pay a living wage/hr instead.

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

#359

Post by hirvi74 » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #243

hirvi74 wrote: post #205

[flagged]

In silk bedsheets. I also don't see how developers have any link with contract negotiations with warehouse workers? How do you sleep at night knowing that you attack people based on which job they do to provide for their family?

> I also don't see how developers have any link with contract negotiations with warehouse workers?

Developers obviously have no direct impact on labor conditions of the warehouse workers. However, all the time-tracking, logistical optimizations, employee monitoring systems, etc. that enable Amazon to squeeze every bit of efficacy and profit out of these warehouse workers had to come from somewhere/someone.

I believe by contributing to companies that are as highly unethical as Amazon, developers are supporting entities that enforce and perpetuate such awful labor practices conditions. I am not assigning personal blame to any developer directly, but I do believe that as developers we need to be more considerate of the downstream ethical impacts that our work may have on others.

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

#360

Post by sterlind » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

webdood90 wrote: post #355

azemetre wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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 com…

> The vast majority of Americans deserve more money. This is pedantic but I strongly dislike when people say anyone deserves anything. I support an equitable system that allows citizens to move up in economic class (which we don't currently have) but I don't subscribe to the idea that everyone inherently deserves anything.

That puts you at odds with the tradition of natural rights. The Declaration of Independence says everyone deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.