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Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#71

Post by AcerbicZero »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #38
dhruvrrp wrote: post #17

> He says he has to pick an item about every eight seconds, or 332 per hour, for a 10 hour day. Ignoring the math, it’s hard to imagine that pace. Are they forced to continually be moving? Or is the person counting picking up, say 15 usb chargers as 15 separate things?

Yes. I read an article last week about a guy who got fired for "unnecessary motion." (will update this comment with a link if I can dig it up.) Here's a story about a patent on a wristband that enables this kind of tracking: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/31/amazon-wa... It is humanly possible. As a teenager, I worked at UPS, where I was expected to stack boxes real-life-Tetris-style into a van at a…

I did a similar job for UPS, but at an airport before school in the mornings (~2am-6am). Unloading the containers from the big plane, then sorting all those boxes, and finally loading the smaller planes or trucks. Everything was timed, and it was tough cold work (middle of winter, in a cold part of the US, at an airport where there is nothing to stop the wind), but its totally possible.

Comically enough, the part that stuck with me the most was how bad I was at memorizing the codes for the various trucks/locations as well.

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#72

Post by thecount122195 »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #29
Wohlf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scabs are workers who cross the picket line, not customers. If you think boycotts are a good idea, ask the auto unions how well customers not buying cars worked out for their members.

Customers boycotted Stop & Shop when workers went on strike earlier this year, and it worked out pretty well for the workers[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/stop-shop-strike.html

Not the first time New Englanders have boycotted a supermarket chain either. When Market Basket ousted their president and voted to give the shareholders dividends rather than reinvesting in the company[1]. Though these workers wern't on strike they were protesting what they felt like was the first step of the company getting gutted and sold.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Basket_protests

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#73

Post by matz1 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #65
mdorazio wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Because it's not an Amazon problem, it's a fulfillment center/warehouse employee problem that applies to just about every company in the industry I'm aware of. 2) Because Amazon is a for-profit company, not a charity, and its responsibility is not to pay employees more than it has to or give them more benefits/easier working conditions than are necessary. Are you also demonizing your own employer for not paying ev…

This is a fine plan if you're not the one suffering. Democracy takes time, and you can (and should) use leverage against corporations at the same time when necessary.

Democracy takes time but I don't see any other way, as someone who are not the one suffering, I'm not going to boycott amazon. I like fast shipping and cheap item.

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#74

Post by jefflombardjr »

fao_ wrote: post #43
jefflombardjr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then what? Amazon will continue to do the bare minimum to appease these signals periodically. It is not the duty of consumers to provide a social safety net for workers. This is precisely where government should step in. If you really give a shit about the people working at Amazon, write to your congressman/congresswoman and voice your support for social programs that would positively impact them.

> And then what? Amazon will continue to do the bare minimum to appease these signals periodically. Which is the point of a strike. > It is not the duty of consumers to provide a social safety net for workers. This is precisely where government should step in. If you really give a shit about the people working at Amazon, write to your congressman/congresswoman and voice your support for social programs that would pos…

I'm not against striking - I'm just undecided on the efficiency of it in this particular case.

It seems to me it would be easier to get people to vote than to boycott Amazon in an impactful way. But as brundolf pointed out, it doesn't have to be either/or.

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#76

Post by wolco »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #57
mdorazio wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The compensation should reflect the mental and physical stress they put people through. As with all companies paying workers to do a job, the compensation should reflect the confluence of supply and demand in the market. The fact that Amazon can easily hire as many workers as it wants at $15/hr says that they are paying their employees plenty already. It bothers me that people are constantly demonizing Amazon for t…

Market conditions are set by regulation and market participants (there is no such thing as a pure free market except in an economist's textbook). Congress (the Senate specifically, conservatives/republicans) have failed to raise the federal minimum wage ($7.25, unchanged since 2009) to reflect the required wage to survive with increased costs of living (housing, broken healthcare, etc). This caused Senator Sanders to…

$7.25.. wow at some point robbery/murder/fraud makes more sense economically.

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#77

Post by [deleted] »

matz1 wrote: post #73
toomuchtodo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fine plan if you're not the one suffering. Democracy takes time, and you can (and should) use leverage against corporations at the same time when necessary.

Democracy takes time but I don't see any other way, as someone who are not the one suffering, I'm not going to boycott amazon. I like fast shipping and cheap item.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#78

Post by bduerst »

Someone1234 wrote: post #40
vorpalhex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the fix to this is Amazon laying off all their workers?

As automation keeps on improving and productivity gets more centralized will there be a shortage of jobs? The above poster makes a fair point that this is work well suited to automation. In the broader sense with retail closing and Amazon taking market share, centralizing productivity (i.e. reducing retail jobs to fewer picker jobs), and then automating those fewer jobs away entirely, are we going to have a hole in s…

No, because job demand is not a zero-sum game but a function of supply.

For every job that gets "destroyed" by technology, several new ones are created. The problem is we, as humans, are terrible at predicting the future - for example, try explaining a mobile app developer job to someone thirty years ago in 1989. Now try imagine what jobs we will have 30 years from now, keeping in mind how off a person in 1989 would have been.

Perfect world solution here is that Amazon retrains their workers, but as we're not in a perfect world, that typically falls to the state. As human labor becomes more valuable to fill niche and volatile job markets, due to automation taking large scalable jobs, retraining is going to become even more important.

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#79

Post by bad-joke »

icelancer wrote: post #53
fao_ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company cannot pay it's workers properly then, to be honest, it really shouldn't exist.

People keep seeming to apply for jobs at Amazon warehouses making $15-16/hr, so...

Hundreds of people applied to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

Re: Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day

#80

Post by toomuchtodo »

wolco wrote: post #76
toomuchtodo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market conditions are set by regulation and market participants (there is no such thing as a pure free market except in an economist's textbook). Congress (the Senate specifically, conservatives/republicans) have failed to raise the federal minimum wage ($7.25, unchanged since 2009) to reflect the required wage to survive with increased costs of living (housing, broken healthcare, etc). This caused Senator Sanders to…

$7.25.. wow at some point robbery/murder/fraud makes more sense economically.

“I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.”
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