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The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

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Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#71

Post by sergiosgc »

unreal37 wrote: post #60

"Jeff Bezos is obscenely rich, and in any moral society, he would not have that much money." There's the rub. Buried near the bottom. The guy thinks people should not be allowed to be too rich.

> The guy thinks people should not be allowed to be too rich.

Or the fact that people get that rich points to a systemic flaw in the system. Bezos earns 4 million per hour, no matter if he's asleep or awake. It's pretty wild to assume he personally creates that much value. The only other justification is that society is distributing wealth in a skewed fashion.

The fact that capitalism is the best resource allocating framework we found, for managing society, shouldn't prevent us from discussing its flaws.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#72

Post by School-Cotton »

random314 wrote: post #68
School-Cotton wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to many examples of non-capitalist societies where conditions are better for most people than in the United States? From my perspective, capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system in history. By what metric has it “failed” ? Because the bottom few percent live in shitty conditions? Before capitalism, the bottom 90% of people were illiterate subsistence farmers.

I must point out that it is disingenuous to look at USA in isolation when discussing capitalism. USA increased shareholder wealth within it's borders by exporting misery and poverty to Latin America. So you need to look at USA+Latin America, Chile etc in totality. Moreover eastern Bloc countries and Cuba had severe trading restrictions imposed on them by usa making their economic survival difficult. Cuba, iran and NK…

Ok, forget about the US. Is there any non-capitalist country doing as well as, say, Ireland?

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#73

Post by Alex63 »

sergiosgc wrote: post #57
Alex63 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, in this case "free market rules" include: 1. Most customers choose to buy from the seller with the lowest price. 2. Employees are free to leave their employment if they find the conditions intolerable. Which of these rules do you want to change?

I'd like to indirectly change: > 1. Most customers choose to buy from the seller with the lowest price. By setting a floor for the lowest operational cost, defining such basic concepts as: 1. Maximum work schedule (12h/day mandatory is not acceptable); 2. Minimum wage. If every seller must abide by the same rules, the market is fair. Costs won't be absurd and no worker will work under medieval conditions. I know cost…

Both your proposals seem likely to result in increased automation, thereby reducing overall employment. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a good thing that some people feel they have to work a 12+ hour day, but isn't it better that they have that choice than that their job is automated out of existence?

Also, if you mandate higher costs for suppliers (through limited hours and minimum wages) then you will create incentives for people to buy from suppliers that aren't subject to those regulations (i.e., foreign suppliers). You can try to prevent that through tariffs and duties, but they have their own problems.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#74

Post by mbrumlow »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #53
cloakandswagger wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm commenting on the article that was posted, which describes the "human cost" of Black Friday. I'm asserting that the complaints presented in the article don't sound like some excruciating human cost, it just sounds like...a job. That the source was tangentially involved in the military makes it even more comical. A job that requires its workers to be screamed at, put through torturous physical conditioning and pos…

I don't get it. Why the sarcasm? That the person who has worked through ostensibly "torturous" military working conditions, is now complaining about their private sector job, only strengthens their complaints in my eyes.

It could also bring in question the current skill level of our armed foecses.

If a manager job makinking 80k a year with the major complaints bring -- taking orders -- giving orders -- bening on feet for 14 hours -- and no real designated lunch time, then I am not sure how well our armed foecses are going to do in a actual war -- which is sort of what we keep them around for...

Or Vox is just a flame bait instablishment who has a nack at finding people who like to complain about stuff because -- feelings.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#75

Post by Alex63 »

n4r9 wrote: post #56
School-Cotton wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that Amazon’s fault or problem? Is your issue with Amazon, or with the system of capitalism in general? If the latter, why are people criticizing Amazon specifically?

It's a general criticism of the system. Highlighting Amazon's particular behaviour is useful as a demonstration of how/where the system fails, and may produce short term wins if it incentivises amazon to stop being inhumane.

I sincerely don't want to oversimplify your argument, but it seems like the logical end-point would be a global socialist/communist society. Is that your desired/intended outcome?

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#76

Post by dang »

grardb wrote: post #22
cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

How could you possibly come to that conclusion? > The military is known for being a bastion of sexism, but I had a worse experience at Amazon. > . . . the managers do not get any sort of break or lunch. Most of us just never ate. Everyone is on their feet for 12 hours a day. > Associates got a 30-minute lunch break, two 15-minute breaks, and an additional 15 minutes of “time off tasks.” Working 12 hours per day with…

Please don't break the site guidelines, regardless of wrong or annoying another comment is. "Did you even the read the article" is explicitly against the rules. So is downvote-baiting, and flamewar generally.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#77

Post by sergiosgc »

Alex63 wrote: post #73
sergiosgc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to indirectly change: > 1. Most customers choose to buy from the seller with the lowest price. By setting a floor for the lowest operational cost, defining such basic concepts as: 1. Maximum work schedule (12h/day mandatory is not acceptable); 2. Minimum wage. If every seller must abide by the same rules, the market is fair. Costs won't be absurd and no worker will work under medieval conditions. I know cost…

Both your proposals seem likely to result in increased automation, thereby reducing overall employment. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a good thing that some people feel they have to work a 12+ hour day, but isn't it better that they have that choice than that their job is automated out of existence? Also, if you mandate higher costs for suppliers (through limited hours and minimum wages) then you will create incen…

> Both your proposals seem likely to result in increased automation, thereby reducing overall employment. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a good thing that some people feel they have to work a 12+ hour day, but isn't it better that they have that choice than that their job is automated out of existence?

That is not a bug, it is a feature. I prefer to never have people in medieval working conditions. Pushing society to evolve past that need is a good thing.

So far, we have been able to reallocate jobs so that automation does not cause widespread unemployment. When[1] that is no longer the case, we can as a society find another stable working model.

[1] It is possible that automation is already exceeding society's "job reallocation rate". It is still difficult to tell, but something to be vigilant about.

> Also, if you mandate higher costs for suppliers (through limited hours and minimum wages) then you will create incentives for people to buy from suppliers that aren't subject to those regulations (i.e., foreign suppliers). You can try to prevent that through tariffs and duties, but they have their own problems.

You are describing one of the large flaws of globalization, which we should, as a society, have already tackled. It is not acceptable, for example, that Chinese or Indian workers get poisoned by producing chemicals without proper hazard protection in place.

That it is possible to circumvent regulation is not a justification to abolish regulation. It is a justification to close the circumvention loopholes.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#78

Post by Baeocystin »

cik2e wrote: post #32
grardb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you possibly come to that conclusion? > The military is known for being a bastion of sexism, but I had a worse experience at Amazon. > . . . the managers do not get any sort of break or lunch. Most of us just never ate. Everyone is on their feet for 12 hours a day. > Associates got a 30-minute lunch break, two 15-minute breaks, and an additional 15 minutes of “time off tasks.” Working 12 hours per day with…

From what I understand, many hourly workers look forward to the rare opportunity of getting paid 1.5x to work overtime. Also, a lot of the workers in these industries are hired as seasonal temps for the holidays. The salaried managers sound like they have it pretty rough, but I'm guessing that this is actually a pretty good job in the hourly category.

>From what I understand, many hourly workers look forward to the rare opportunity of getting paid 1.5x to work overtime.

Nobody looks forward to working extra hours at a job that is already tiring. What they look forward to is the chance for a brief respite from the constant stress of poverty, even if it comes at great cost to everything else in their lives.

Source: worked as a welder in a shipyard after the first dotcom crash. Took all the overtime I could get, because bills don't pay themselves. I enjoyed the work in a general sense, and my coworkers, but a human body can only push itself so hard before there are long-term consequences, and that is something that most hourly workers have to deal with over their entire careers.

tl;dr- "Looking forward" to overtime is like saying that someone who is drowning is "looking forward" to breathing.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#79

Post by jhbadger »

School-Cotton wrote: post #66
jhbadger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem lies in the definition of "capitalist". Certainly there are numerous countries that by a variety of metrics have a better quality of life than the US (longer life expectancy, fewer percentage impoverished, smaller degree of economic inequality, and so on). The Scandinavian countries are the classic example, but most of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, are as well. Capitalism vs socialism is a continuum,…

Scandinavian countries are capitalist by any standard. They are not even close to being “on a continuum” between capitalism and socialism. As far as I know most businesses in Scandinavia are not controlled and owned by their workers. We could use more public spending on safety nets in the US. That has nothing to do with whether “capitalism has failed”.

But you can't ignore the reason why the US doesn't have effective safety nets is because corporations don't want them. The reason why the US doesn't have a universal public health care system is because private insurers are doing everything they can to fight it, for example. Countries that put the needs of their people over the needs of corporations are more on the socialist continuum even if they have private businesses.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#80

Post by random314 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #70
random314 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuba vs Haiti

Yes Haiti is poorer than Cuba. I was asking if there is any non-capitalist society doing as well as the United States . Not the shittiest, poorest example of a technically capitalist society that you can find.

You can also compare life expectancy in Cuba with life expectancy in the USofA. Cuba with all kinds of trade embargoes and a history of poverty has better life expectancy than USA.

Moreover, if, for arguments sake, you pick the most powerful capitalist state for comparison - I should also be free to pick the weakest capitalist state to balance things out.

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