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I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

theguardian.com

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Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#51

Post by 394549 »

swarnie_ wrote: post #40
LitFan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this downvoted? The only way to make this change is for people to boycott the service.

I'm not even sure why people work there. The warehouses are universally known to be shitty places but people sign up anyway. Surely if its terrible and no one will work there they will have to improve or pay more? Or am i misunderstanding basic economics?

> Surely if its terrible and no one will work there they will have to improve or pay more? Or am i misunderstanding basic economics?

Your mistake was assuming that this is something that could be understood solely with "basic economics."

"Basic economics" is a horribly limited intellectual tool-set that will mislead you if you rely on it too heavily.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#52

Post by souterrain »

sokoloff wrote: post #36

IMO, it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. It's perfectly fine for enforcement agencies (OSHA, FDA, IRS, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to enforce policy/law on individuals/companies who have been found in violation, but to originally target individuals with the force of government lawmaking is a dramatic overreach of power, IMO. If Senator Sanders et al want to target all compani…

I wonder if the direct nod to Bezos is an attempt to gain favor with a wing of the President's base who already have a target on the Amazon CEO, a long shot to combine forces from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#53

Post by barry-cotter »

swarnie_ wrote: post #40
LitFan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this downvoted? The only way to make this change is for people to boycott the service.

I'm not even sure why people work there. The warehouses are universally known to be shitty places but people sign up anyway. Surely if its terrible and no one will work there they will have to improve or pay more? Or am i misunderstanding basic economics?

They will hire anyone. That’s why. If you need a job and you will show up on time all the time and perform to the standard they ask you’ll keep the job too. It’s a crap job but for a lot of people it beats being unemployed.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#54

Post by sandworm101 »

sokoloff wrote: post #36

IMO, it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. It's perfectly fine for enforcement agencies (OSHA, FDA, IRS, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to enforce policy/law on individuals/companies who have been found in violation, but to originally target individuals with the force of government lawmaking is a dramatic overreach of power, IMO. If Senator Sanders et al want to target all compani…

That is the theory. The reality is that at these scales a great many laws target only a single company. To target the leader in a given industry all a legislature need do is put a lower cap on enforcement: only companies beyond X number of employees need comply. At the other end, local governments certainly provide special legal treatment to individual companies (zoning/tax incentives etc). So while I agree it isn't a good idea, I'm not naive enough to say that every law targeting a specific company is delusional.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#55

Post by newshorts »

sokoloff wrote: post #36

IMO, it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. It's perfectly fine for enforcement agencies (OSHA, FDA, IRS, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to enforce policy/law on individuals/companies who have been found in violation, but to originally target individuals with the force of government lawmaking is a dramatic overreach of power, IMO. If Senator Sanders et al want to target all compani…

Is it the job or someone with power to help, to try and help, when it’s clear the normal regulating authorities will do nothing?

I’m sure Trump isn’t keen on any government agency regulating amazon.

Besides, it’s just a political stunt. This bill will never be passed, it’s just calling attention to the problem.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#56

Post by camtarn »

nemo44x wrote: post #2

The people who work in these warehouses should unionize. They have a strong case and their roles can not be outsourced. These things have to be local for it to work - it needs people for it to work. Automation may come eventually but it's not as close as people think. This is the perfect environment for a union to operate in.

Agreed.

But if you watch the discussions on the Amazon internal Facebook groups, you constantly see somebody in the US bring up the case for unionizing, and immediately get shot down with anti-union tirades, talking about corruption and protectionism. There's a lot of anti-union bias in the US.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#57

Post by TimPC »

grecy wrote: post #10
Rotdhizon wrote: post #6

A company as big as Amazon doesn't make as much as it does by treating workers fairly. They are the modern day version of old industrial factories. They take down and out people who they know they can exploit and push them to their limits. I've seen a few places in the poorer section of states where most of the locals are forced to work in a small number of factories/plants. Even in these cases though, they are at le…

So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? Obviously Amazon make a lot of profit... if we forced them to treat their workers better surely they'd still make a lot of profit... just slightly less.

I think the problem is Amazon makes a lot of Revenue at very small margins so they have built a culture around squeezing out every last drop of margin they can. Historically they've had a lot of negative profit years and some very tiny % profit on very high revenue. Not every large company is like this.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#58

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

sokoloff wrote: post #36

IMO, it is never proper for the legislature to target an individual or individual company. It's perfectly fine for enforcement agencies (OSHA, FDA, IRS, FAA, FTC, SEC, etc) to enforce policy/law on individuals/companies who have been found in violation, but to originally target individuals with the force of government lawmaking is a dramatic overreach of power, IMO. If Senator Sanders et al want to target all compani…

>Just so long as you don't torture a combination of such factors that, low and behold, it happens to only apply to the individual / company that you have it in for.

>When you come up with a bill with an acronym "STOP BEZOS", I am pretty certain you've left the path of light and reason.

Except that the content of the bill is quite broad and definitely doesn't "torture a combination of such factors" to target Amazon. It will impact Amazon but it will also impact all of Amazon's competitors too, and companies completely outside of the sector. The dubiousness of your 'path of light and reason' aside, it seems quite irrational to decry a bill for its name and not its content.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#59

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

llamataboot wrote: post #28

You get the society that your systems incentivize. There may very well be a perfect version of capitalism and a free market that allows for free movement of employees between firms and a virtuous circle. Instead, we see a vicious spiral of incentivizing externalities (including treating workers like a never-ending powerless resource you can run into the ground and break and then find new ones) and a person with more…

What's funny is that the system encourages this society and those who are able to take full advantage of it become so rich they are able to completely opt out. The goal of capitalism, of supply and demand, labour and capital, is to have so much that all goods and services are within your grasp for no effort or time.

Re: I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them

#60

Post by maxxxxx »

swarnie_ wrote: post #40
LitFan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this downvoted? The only way to make this change is for people to boycott the service.

I'm not even sure why people work there. The warehouses are universally known to be shitty places but people sign up anyway. Surely if its terrible and no one will work there they will have to improve or pay more? Or am i misunderstanding basic economics?

A lot of people don't have other options so they take whatever they can get in order to survive. Why don't victims of domestic abuse leave immediately but stay for years?
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