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

Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 135 posts

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#71

Post by brailsafe »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #18
pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #5

I’ve said it before and I won’t tire of saying it: »Gut, das ist der Pfennig! Und wo ist die Mark?« https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ihb2XqEsa4g The same bullshit is happening everywhere. In the German Bundestag MPs gave standing ovations for care workers. Meanwhile those continue to slave away for pennies, now more precariously than ever, while the next items on the MPs agenda are bailouts for airlines and fucking car ma…

Check out this CNBC interview with one of the warehouse organisers who was fired. (Which led to Tim Bray quitting.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HUGc7R8hw At one point it almost seems like he is suggesting to this poor guy that it is unreasonable for him to protest for better working conditions because "people like me" need to be able to place orders on Amazon while in lockdown. Imagine the difference in salary…

Watched and agreed.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#72

Post by rumanator »

espadrine wrote: post #61

The title is purposefully misleading. Amazon is not handing out ‘Thank you’ T-shirts to its warehouse workers. It is handing out “Thanks to you, we will deliver” T-shirts to its fulfillment associates. It is a societal statement on their power dynamics, not a hypocritical act. Amazon wants to be seen as exploitative today, because it will morally justify the layoffs tomorrow once all this is automated away.

> is handing out “Thanks to you, we will deliver” T-shirts to its fulfillment associates.

Is it too hard to say "warehouse workers" instead of convoluted and misleading terms like "fulfillment associates"?

> It is a societal statement on their power dynamics, not a hypocritical act.

There is no societal statement. It's self-serving PR. And if Amazon is so hell-bent on announcing pay hikes and toot their own horn on how great they are for increasing wages then it should also be ok when they are called out for backpedalling on their actions.

> Amazon wants to be seen as exploitative today, because it will morally justify the layoffs tomorrow once all this is automated away.

Since when does Amazon have a plan to cease to be exploitative? Last time I've checked, Amazon was firing warehouse workers for complaining about unsafe working conditions, and then mobilizing VPs to put on smear campaigns targeting their own workers to avoid having to do anything about the problem.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#73

Post by hnhg »

econcon wrote: post #37
the-dude wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not the faintest clue where you get your immigrant angle from.

Germany also imported farm labor from Romania and cramped them in airplanes without any social distancing. Meanwhile I hear lots of Germans don't really work and still get to live high quality life. I am here suggesting that Germany only cares about its own citizens as they help Germany enable control over capital and means of production, including technology financing, adminstration at the same time it doesn't care…

I don't know where you get your information from but it's largely fantasy. Perhaps you should spend some time in Germany getting to know it. Then you might also find the implication that Germans are lazy and getting foreigners to do their work for them laughable.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#74

Post by [deleted] »

ccthr wrote: post #8
partyboat1586 wrote: post #3

Reminds me of the weekly clapping for the NHS here in the UK when what they really need is a pay rise and PPE supplies. Sometimes thank you is not enough. In the case of Amazon this seems much more sinister and cult like. I struggle to believe that any of the warehouse workers buy into it.

Agreed. Where could we get the tax money to make those pay rises from? hmmm

[deleted]

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#75

Post by jleahy »

zpeti wrote: post #44
harimau777 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A potential solution would be to pass regulations that protect workers. Examples could include minimum wages, profit sharing plans, or mandatory benefits. That wouldn't necessarily affect consumer behavior but it would affect what strategies corporations are able to use to service that behavior.

Ok, but then amazons prices will be higher. Taken to the extreme amazon might not exist because it can’t deliver the low prices it has so far. Is that what you want? If you do, that’s fine, that’s a fair enough perspective, but understand that you are probably making it harder for people with less money. Same goes for Walmart.

The minimum wage in the UK is $10.55 and amazon still works just fine. In fact we’ve had 1 day delivery for a long time, and it’s still working post-covid.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#76

Post by netsharc »

ccthr wrote: post #2

Reading this makes me thing I should divest. I feel ashamed owning shares in a company that thinks 20 hours unpaid time off a quarter is reasonable.

It's getting harder and harder to participate in the modern world for me. So far I've deleted my accounts on Uber (because of the harassment reports) Airbnb (because they don't give a fuck about scams), and last, Twitter (because they were enabling Nazis, and continuing to use Twitter is basically endorsing Twitter in my eyes). But the majority of the world seems to just shrug and are fine with the terrible behaviours.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#77

Post by easytiger »

neotek wrote: post #70
easytiger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but this is emotive gibberish. > slave No. > away for pennies No. > We can’t live without the care people What are you suggesting? Literally destroy all of civilisation to do what? Hire infinite care workers? > bailouts for airlines and fucking car manufacturers. So you don't want anything of society to remain? You want all efforts of existence to be focused on care workers?

What a thoroughly disingenuous comment. Here, let me have a go at emulating your style: >I'm sorry but this is emotive gibberish. Are you saying all emotion is gibberish? So you want people to have no emotions whatsoever? You're literally in favour of killing people who display emotions?

> What a thoroughly disingenuous comment.

Care to explain which bit you have an issue with?

> people to have no emotions whatsoever? You're literally in favour of killing people who display emotions

I'm saying this person is using an emotionally assumed moral highground to justify arbitrary and unspecified ends. I want to know more about what they are insinuating.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#78

Post by makomk »

tsimionescu wrote: post #45
deadgunslinger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe permanently raising wages to offset black swan events such as the COVID-19 epidemic is a wise move? What about the next black swan event? Are they going to be paid enough then or they'll need a pay rise again? Healthcare professionals are paid much more compared to the average UK citizen. Especially doctors, the average pay (100k pounds) is in the 2% of the earners. Emigrant doctors couldn't even dream…

The COVID-19 epidemic is not a black swan event. It is a foreseeable event with a computable probability of happening. Epidemics are recurring events throughout human history, including in the present day. Sure, the recurrence is low, especially for global pandemics, but you can be almost absolutely sure that within the next 100 years there will be another one. In fact, even in the black swan book, they are explicitl…

Here's how this would go. The UK government did have epidemic plans, including a stockpile of PPE. Here's how the BBC described that stockpile: "Coronavirus: UK failed to stockpile crucial PPE". Of the four items that it complains were missing from the stockpile - gowns, visors, swabs and body bags - two (gowns and swabs) were ones that the government didn't expect to need for the epidemics it was planning for, the visors are expensive and bulky to store but so easy to manufacture hobbyists with 3D printers can literally do it at home, and I'm not even sure what's going on with body bags because there was famously a huge Brexit stockpile of those. Anyway, my overall point is that governments and corporations don't get credit for planning, they get blamed for the ways in which their plans don't predict the future exactly.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#79

Post by makomk »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #21
zpeti wrote: post #7

I’m genuinely interested in what people who think of amazon as an evil company think it should do. It hardly ever makes a profit. Any profit it makes is from AWS usually. It is popular because it’s so cheap, which is why people buy there. So really the solutions can only be: 1. Raise prices and consumers suffer 2. Keep wages low and workers suffer 3. Stop existing. I wonder how many people who complain about amazons…

It is ridiculous that you've boiled it down to those two options. The 3rd is cutting executive salary and paying low wage workers. Also amazon is not cheap compared to my local competitor and aliexpress, people buy from amazon because of convenience. And amazon makes profit on non-AWS products as well, don't be silly. I can literally google their financial statements to prove this.

The fundamental problem with this solution is a simple, numeric one: there are very few executives and a lot of low-wage workers, so large-sounding pay decreases for the former can only fund tiny pay increases for the latter.

Re: Amazon is handing out 'Thank you' t-shirts to warehouse workers as it cuts pay

#80

Post by wdb »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #3

Reminds me of the weekly clapping for the NHS here in the UK when what they really need is a pay rise and PPE supplies. Sometimes thank you is not enough. In the case of Amazon this seems much more sinister and cult like. I struggle to believe that any of the warehouse workers buy into it.

Yes, and from next year all immigrations from abroad have to pay NHS immigrant tax per person which can be up to £600. We already barely use the services we pay for, and now they want to charge even more. Why not increase it for all citizens?

Really get the feeling they don’t appreciate immigrants like us

Post reply on HN