Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 560 posts

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

#421

Post by vel0city »

nickff wrote: post #378
vel0city wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tota…

I don't understand how you got down from 7% down to 1.6%. I think you are not counting COGS as an expense, and that's where the error comes from. If your assumptions are otherwise correct, I think you'd get roughly a 7% increase in prices to sustain the 20% bump in wage expense.

I am including COGS in this; that's the retail price minus the markup. The markup is all the rest of Amazon's costs, of which I agree wages for workers are probably somewhere around 30%ish.

Are you suggesting the warehouse worker's benefits and pay is really 25-50%+ of the final purchase price of the good?? That'd be an extraordinarily high amount of cost.

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

#422

Post by maccard »

crazygringo wrote: post #369
maccard wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sup…

I didn’t ignore the advice - I showed a link to a popular product that has thousands of almost perfect ratings that is readily available on amazon.

An even better way to do it is don’t use Amazon for discovery, and only buy stuff you’ve researched off the site. But walking into Amazon to buy something is just as likely to land you with crap as going into your local shop and doing so.

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

#423

Post by maccard »

vel0city wrote: post #304
maccard wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If your solution to the problem is “don’t do the thing you want to do” it’s never going to work. It’s not just shoes, it’s all clothing, lots of tech (ever bought a device only to find out it doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to do?), lots of homeware goods. You’re basically saying don’t shop online.

If you think retailers are dumping every pair of shoes they get returned, you’re wrong by the way.

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

#424

Post by themaninthedark »

0xEF wrote: post #21
iLoveOncall wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only regarding delivery. You do realize that an electric Amazon van delivering hundreds of packages to your neighborhood pollutes a lot less than you taking your G-wagon to the local store, right? > but also the message it sends to local stores "You're obsolete", which is true? Local stores are usually more expensive, carry less inventory, require you to go there or charge delivery fees, have inexistent or pred…

Ignoring the tone of your comment, I agree with you in a way, but I also wonder if that has something to do with where I live. The US suburbs don't really have what I would call "local stores," just big, well known corporate stores. So, when making the choice of where to buy Product X, my options are giving my money to Best Buy, Walmart, Ikea, Kroger, etc...or Jeff Bezos, whose online empire offers slightly more conv…

Consumers killed family owned stores not because they didn't like them(though true in some cases), they killed them because things were getting expensive and they didn't want to lose their standard of living.

At one point in time, Wal-mart's big thing was they sold Made in America. Then they pivoted to cheap junk, their pivot occurred as jobs moved from the US to Mexico and China.

That was the point when it became unfashionable to shop at Wal-mart; as recorded by the finest news network : https://theonion.com/hostages-trapped-inside-walmart-insisti...

Consumers weren't completely suckered by savings and convenience; although that was some of it, they were trying to make their ever smaller budgets stretch further.

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

#425

Post by bdangubic »

amelius wrote: post #381
bdangubic wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you saying that antitrust law is nonsense? Not nonsense of course but if what Amazon is doing is breaking any of the antitrust laws we have in place there is a machinery for that already - the government can take this up if they feel like Amazon is breaking antitrust laws. The problem is - whatever "issue" someone has with something amazon is doing it inevitably ends up here on HN as "oh that should be illegal.…

You are skeptical but we __do__ have antitrust laws, even though people in power probably opposed them in several ways at different points in time.

no doubt... the question remains whether what is being discussed in this thread falls under an antitrust law breach though? and if it does not (it does not) would it make any sense to add it (I will argue it does not)

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

#426

Post by vel0city »

maccard wrote: post #423
vel0city wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If your solution to the problem is “don’t do the thing you want to do” it’s never going to work. It’s not just shoes, it’s all clothing, lots of tech (ever bought a device only to find out it doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to do?), lots of homeware goods. You’re basically saying don’t shop online. If you think retailers are dumping every pair of shoes they get returned, you’re wrong by the way.

> lots of tech (ever bought a device only to find out it doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to do?)

No, because I don't buy the cheap no-name junk off Amazon. It's pretty rare for me to encounter returns for stuff like that, because I already try and avoid supporting the e-waste game from the get-go. But I would say if you honestly tried to get a good and it wasn't what was advertised that's a good reason for a return.

But acting like the majority of returns are things which weren't as advertised is ignoring reality. Look no further than sibling comments here where that user openly acknowledges buying more than needed regularly and returns the rest. They're not alone with this; tons of people behave in this way. Buy something, decide later they didn't really want it/need it, return it. Decent chance it went to the trash. It's not worth it for the retailer to actually inspect and restock it.

> If you think retailers are dumping every pair of shoes they get returned, you’re wrong by the way.

Not all of them, just most of them.

Buying a dozen shirts and returning 10 of them because in the end you just didn't like the fit, you probably sent 5-7 otherwise fine articles of clothing straight to the landfill. Maybe a few of those will make it to some "donation" scheme, which will probably send half of those "donation" bound goods to the landfill. Then the last few will get put on a boat in a giant pile of goods, dropped off to some poor part of the world, and have a 50/50 chance of being worn by someone there or just become another piece of trash floating around.

Buying five pairs of shoes and returning four of them probably sent 2-3 pairs to the landfill. The rest are probably following that same flow above.

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

#427

Post by viraptor »

ActionHank wrote: post #198
rsanek wrote: post #152

10k is about 0.7% of their total employee count. I wonder if this will have any effect.

It will have more business people asking about robots, other than that I doubt it will. Amazon don't even care if the packages are late because of this, they still get your purchase.

> don't even care if the packages are late because of this, they still get your purchase.

Not at this time of the year. If something doesn't have a pre Christmas delivery, it won't be bought in many cases. Or even if it does, people may hear about the strike and not risk it.

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

#428

Post by RankingMember »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #219
RankingMember wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> well, if the items are manufactured in China, why not just order on AliExpress where you get the same/similar items and pay less. Yep, I've come to see it as a general rule that, if the item on Amazon is sold under one of those all-caps gibberish brand names, the same exact item is almost always on AliExpress for 30-50% less.

Fantastic experiences doing this, highly recommend discovering on amazon and shifting to bargain sites to actually purchase

Sometimes I'll even browse Amazon for a product I'm about to buy on AliExpress simply because their reviews are much better than Ali's. Someone wanna write a greasemonkey script to replace the AliExpress reviews with Amazon ones when browsing AliExpress? :)

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

#429

Post by aio2 »

Hikikomori wrote: post #291
aio2 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea no. I understand the sentiment and agree with it, but not exactly feasible for a lot of companies, especially for the type of job they offer

So you acknowledge that the job should be done but the people doing it deserve to live in squalor even though they work a full time job. Just for corporate profit and your convenience. Just so you know, all things I listed are things most people in Western Europe already have. Including employees of Amazon and McDonald's.

Here's my perspective. Not exactly related, but I hope you understand how I think:

If I am a small shipping company, and all I need is someone to wrap boxes and store them, and the load isn't much, then should I be paying them full time for the job? Heck, should I pay them a living wage? No. I pay them the value of the job.

Obviously, we need a certain minimum wage because nobody deserves to get scammed and make 10 cents a day, but at the same time, this push for all these benefits isn't realistic. I wish it was, but it isn't.

Obviously, my example is different from Amazon, but this is more a business owner perspective.

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

#430

Post by mrguyorama »

nickff wrote: post #416
david38 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love for astroturfing to be illegal and heavily enforced.

Would union supported/enforced comments count as astroturfing as well? I think it’d be interesting to ban pay for picketing & comments, though I’m not sure it’s enforceable.

If the union pays you because you are not working, and you choose to use that time to talk about how much you value unions on the internet, that's not astroturfing. If the union pays you TO post about how good the union is on the internet, that IS astroturfing.

At one point, amazon had a literal program where warehouse workers could opt to sit at a desk and post propaganda comments instead of doing their normal manual labor job.

Post reply on HN