461–470 of 560 posts
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Amazon is going to do that anyway. May as well stand up for your share of the profits.
The thing is, it used to be standard for full-time employees to get a full stock share, but that was bargained away --- anyone know the rationale?
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as a union diesel engine mechanic i can guarantee most, if not all these comments are complete PR. I went on strike about ten years ago to protest mandatory overtime and lack of chemical PPE. the minute we authorized the strike, we had news channels from three states covering us and a billboard up the road that demanded an end to the strike by "concerned" truckers was erected in hours. Every day I could count on at l…
My Boomer Dad was a Teamster. I remember there was a several-weeks-long (might have even been months-long?) strike when I was a kid, probably around the late-70s. Shit was real. One day I saw him loading baseball bats and clubs into the trunk of his Buick before he left the house. I was just a kid; I had no idea what was going on. I asked him about it later in life and he just said, "That's how it was back then. We h…
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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 manua…
Strike pay (at least often) requires picketing to qualify. Unions also often pay people to post comments online and otherwise present the union’s perspective to media or the public. Sometimes these people are listed as unit leaders, or have other ‘union management’ positions.
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I don't think it's a question of who deserves what. They deserve a living wage. The kids deserve to get their presents on time. I deserve a pony. The question is how whether to see it as a smart tactical choice to get that they "deserve" or a cynical move to strike when they get maximum publicity and do maximum damage.
Isn't that the whole point of a strike? You're going to have a bad time if you plan your strike at the most opportune time for your company. Whether or not striking is good for society is a separate discussion, but striking when you have the most leverage over your company makes the most sense for those striking to get what they want.
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> BUT, I could easily be just as happy living a simpler life Put your money or your comfort where your mouth is. > if there were other forms of labor, I wouldn't be less comfortable. Yes you would be. My grand parents all farmed and my grandfather was born in a cabin with a dirt floor and no electricity. His mother died in child birth, which was common at the time. He lost siblings to disease. His life was brutally d…
More false dichotomies. Technophiles love them. The choice isn't just between modern global capitalism and a dirt floor. It's just that you have a strong emotional attachment to technology and can't see a way out.
Your anti-humanist rants are frankly disgusting and morally revolting. Also, who goes around calling themselves doctor? Skimming you substack, I'm really impressed by the inability of a mathematician to string together logical arguments, "Five myths about technology" might be the most sophomoric and poorly argued blog post I've ever read arguing against technology.
For example, your claims that "Technology, in other words, grows and feeds on the medium of global humanity" is totally unsupported by your argument and fails in its basic understanding of peoples' revealed preferences. You argue by simple example, but fail to come up with anything more convincing than whatsapp usage in Brazil or cars in general. It's lazy writing and lazy thinking. Waving away cures and treatments for rare diseases by saying "such people are in difficult situations due to modern technology" is beyond foolish. You could name dozens of genetic hereditary diseases that have laways existed that were a death sentence two generations ago. Type 1 diabetes comes to mind.
I could go on, but you disgust me.
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The amount of leverage workers have is proportional to how hard it is for the company to replace them. Replacing unskilled workers isn't that hard so those workers don't have much leverage. The only real solution is to become skilled workers. Which, almost ironically, is to do the thing the company threatens to do -- find a way to automate work like this, so the people working at the warehouse are robotics technician…
Isn't Amazon getting to the point where they're having trouble finding employee candidates they haven't previously fired?
"Want a job? Can pass a background check? No interview. Apply today, start tomorrow."
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The thing is, it used to be standard for full-time employees to get a full stock share, but that was bargained away --- anyone know the rationale?
Bargained away? Which union did that and for what company?
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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 c…
Each was offering only part-time hours (16-24h) but required "full-time availability".
That is not an fair exchange of effort.
Small business owners all too often (as much as they are also a valuable part of the community) think that they are entitled to far too much of their employees, and seem to think they have some inherent right to not just their business, but to their desired profit margins.
One local business here closed recently with this self-centered, presumptuous and tone-deaf message:
> It is so sad to see that our dream with all its potential has collapsed because the community was not willing to support it.
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For me, Amazon cuts delivery times, improves reliability and makes returns 10x easier.
I've gotten a lot of free stuff from Amazon. Shipped duplicate products to me? Just keep the other. Food bottle slightly cracked and leaked in transit? Keep it and we'll send another. I was even able to get another 30% off an already sale price for a Kindle because my old one (>5 years) died, and they couldn't fix it. Not justifying any particular actions on their part, but their customer service has been above and b…
Hah, I have the opposite experience. My shampoo bottle leaked and filled a bubble wrap. Amazon said, "We'll send a replacement, but you need to return this." After discussing it, I went to the UPS Store for the return. UPS, reasonably, refused to accept it.
Had to debate this for far too long with another customer service person before they would agree that "We don't really want a ziploc bag of shampoo back".
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>What's ironic is we still make purchases on Amazon that don't require their fast shipping. We're just conditioned to expect it. I'm thinking TVs, books, project supplies, art, etc. Realizing this was what made me quit Prime years ago, and eventually drive down my Amazon purchases to just a handful of times a year. For the most part, there's really not much of a difference if I get a book tomorrow vs. four days from…
> Realizing this was what made me quit Prime years ago I quit Prime after Amazon replaced "two-day shipping" with "it'll get there when it gets there".
The same is true with two-day Prime. Even if you get to the item, all of a sudden, it's gone.
I think their argument is that it's "Prime" shipping (not two-day), so if their eco-get-it-in-a-week-option is available, that's still a variant of Prime.