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

#361

Post by iLoveOncall » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

hirvi74 wrote: post #359

iLoveOncall wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I am not assigning personal blame to any developer directly

Actually you did exactly that in your post that got deleted by moderation.

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

#362

Post by stronglikedan » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

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.

Most of the time it's not the same price, and most of the items are not in local stores. I know because I comparison shop, and 90% of the time I end up ordering from Amazon, because it's still the quickest and cheapest way to get things.

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

#363

Post by 65uu6 » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

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

reddit is no longer a good place to try and get a pulse on general sentiment. comment section is filled with bots and the front page has the most random content i have ever seen, like occasional random creep shots of celebs that get like 3,000 upvotes that gain more transaction than current events.

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

#364

Post by jedberg » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #287

mschuster91 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the world doesn't need a particular task to be done by humans, then the task should be performed by robots. The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Employment opportunities for the low skilled have all but gone down the drain - there is a reason why Walmart, Amazon and the other usual suspects love to set up shop in devastated communities: they have a captive audience that has no…

>while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests) While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.

The problem is, since the beginning of time, all the improvements were in mechanical work, allowing humans to shift towards more intellectual work.

Now the "robots" are replacing intellectual work, and humans have no where to go.

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

#365

Post by vel0city » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #331

vel0city wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

Most companies’ largest expense is labor/wages (usually somewhere on the order of 25-50%), and profit margins are usually on the order of 0-5%. Increasing pay or benefits substantially would increase costs by a lot more than 0.5%.

Sure, 0.5% is hyperbole on my part. Sorry. It's not like a 20% bump in costs for these workers would result in a 20% bump in prices or anything like that.

Their margin on that retail item is probably 30-40% of the cost of that product though. Let's assume the workers' benefits and wages in question here are 35% of Amazon's costs. If there was a 20% increase of that labor cost, that's going from 35% to 42% of the total share of costs, or an increase of 7% of the total costs. But that's 7% of the 30-40% of their markup. For a product with a 40% markup and they were to just pass that entire cost along to the consumer, it's a 1.6% increase in price.

So like in this hypothetical, which is not anywhere near real numbers for Amazon, we could give these workers a 20% benefit bump for increasing prices 1.6%.

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

#366

Post by EarlKing » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #332

greesil wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some large number of them have been "agitated". You can't acknowledge that propaganda exists which is capable of manipulating people into doing things they wouldn't do on their own (or that they shouldn't do), and then say that the left does not create that sort of propaganda. They're striking not for better wages, but so that some local or state politician wins an election in 2026.

Yeah, they're being agitated alright... by horrible working conditions, declining real wages, and the people who apologize for it and pretend they're all bots or something rather than real people with real interests that are every bit as deserving of respect as some corpo's bottom line.

Anyone thinking this is a one time thing and is going to blow over hasn't been paying attention.

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

#367

Post by ssl-3 » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

drawfloat wrote: post #270

Hikikomori wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start. Then some left over on top after essentials so you aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

Right, but we're talking about Amazon who make billions annually not "lots of companies".

So 6 weeks of vacation, then?

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

#368

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #287

mschuster91 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the world doesn't need a particular task to be done by humans, then the task should be performed by robots. The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Employment opportunities for the low skilled have all but gone down the drain - there is a reason why Walmart, Amazon and the other usual suspects love to set up shop in devastated communities: they have a captive audience that has no…

>while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests) While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.

> While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.

Agreed. But in general, the efficiency gains got redistributed to the people - usually, by (bloody) revolutions and strikes.

Across the Western world, we haven't seen any meaningful progress in that redistribution in a fucking century - the 40 hour work week got introduced around 1926 [1]. Instead, all we got was that women now get exploited by employment providers as well, so the pool of available labor power virtually doubled, driving down wages while over the last few decades housing costs exploded and the demand for labor went down, further driving down wages. It remains open if the rise of pacifism and "non-violent action" in general that has happened in parallel in the same timeframe was coincidence, causation or consequence.

We are in for a wild ride over the next years. Luigi will not be the last one of his kind, I think this was just the start...

[1] https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week

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

#369

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #292

crazygringo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my experience too. Local stores supply the cheapest crappiest version of something, but sell it at full price. This maximizes their profit. Online, I can actually see from the reviews which product is best, and buy that one. I spend the same, but get a much higher quality product. There are so many products only sold on Amazon that have 20,000 reviews because they're so much better than anything you can buy l…

I just searched for a Wifi Extender on Amazon. This [0] particular model has 3.6k reviews, and is the first option after "Amazon's Choice" Must be good, right? How about we scroll down to one of those reviews [1]. Oh, looks like it racked up a bunch of reviews for being a washing machine hose, and then changed product SKU. [0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extender-Antennas-Repeater-Wireless... [1] https://www.amazon.co.u…

You're completing ignoring the advice I gave. 3.6k reviews is nothing.

But if you visit the page for the product's category:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/computers/430578031/...

You see the #1 option has 36K+ reviews. Looks pretty solid to me.

Yes, you can purchase pages and change the product, it's a known scam that I agree Amazon should crack down on. That still doesn't change the fact that there are super-popular items that are usually way better than what you can purchase locally.

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

#370

Post by mckn1ght » Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 6:00 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #208

dartos wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you really think the local shopowner kept all the profit in their community? E.g. they didn't send their kids to college in another state? Imagine spending money and having that money allow people in your local community to afford college. Then imagine thinking that’s a bad thing. Obviously it’s complicated, but the gist is longer money stays in a local area, the better off that area is going to be. It’s better…

GP definitely did not say he thinks having people in the local community afford college is a bad thing. That's quite a straw man. Their point about the money quickly leaving the local economy is valid. If the shop owner is making a reasonable wage at the end of the day, then I think the local effect is good. Doubly so if they employ people from the local area. However, if the shop owner is getting rich and most of th…

> if the shop owner is getting rich and most of those profits are going into a fat bank account, then it makes no difference to the local economy

While arguably not ideal I would also argue that is still better than the same profits being captured by an increasingly centralized corporation many states or countries away.

Local millionaires using a bank will incentivize that bank keeping branches open in town, which can help other locals more easily maintain savings accounts. I personally make a point to use at least one locally incorporated bank for similar reasons.

Even something frivolous like a local millionaire buying a powerboat stimulates the economy because the infrastructure that is required to maintain that keeps a demand for other jobs open and keeps money flowing.

Now I’m not saying powerboats are intrinsically good. All I’m saying is that if someone is going to buy one with the profit captured from running a business selling eg home goods, it’s better for a local economy for a local to do it vs a Bay Area Bezos a thousand miles away.