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U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#81

Post by eropple »

kazagistar wrote: post #45
gerbilly wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge imbalance of power between the company and an individual worker. So it's "kind of" not the same at all. Why are people so quick to defend the powerful?

This is the site of a tech investment company. Its full of the rich and powerful who are protecting themselves.

Aspiring rich and powerful. Most people here (myself very much included) remain part of the precariat, and the fangs-out defense of the rich and powerful is most frequently done by those who, in the end, may manage to not lose but likely will not win.

John Steinbeck wasn't wrong.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#82

Post by patientplatypus »

Serious question. Kavanaugh lied during his confirmation hearing about sexually assaulting many women (https://www.salon.com/2019/09/16/republicans-know-brett-kava...). We have evidence that the POTUS, attorney general, and vice-POTUS are all complicit in international corruption (and they were major sponsors of Kavanaugh). At what point are Supreme Court decisions non-binding as the justices themselves are criminals?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#85

Post by whack »

If Amazon is paying people minimum wage, then it could be argued that the extra 30 minutes would push them over the edge of minimum wage laws.

However, from what I recall of Amazon's announcement this year, they pay all warehouse workers at least $15/hr. This means they are significantly above the minimum wage requirement, even if you factor in the 30 minutes spent in security screenings.

In an ideal world, Amazon would factor in the time spent in security screenings, when advertising the job's hourly rate. Ie, workers are spending 5% of their time in security screenings, so the advertised hourly rate should be 5% lower than $15/hr. I would also like for all food-prices in restaurants to factor in taxes for the same reason, but I've thrown the towel on that fight. Ultimately, this seems like a purely cosmetic change with little substance behind it.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#86

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

gerbilly wrote: post #33
dev_dull wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like how people say “then unhappy amazon employees should simply find another job”?

There's a huge imbalance of power between the company and an individual worker. So it's "kind of" not the same at all. Why are people so quick to defend the powerful?

Human beings are tribal creatures, not individualists.

As such, we have leaders and followers.

By definition of leaders and followers, most people will be followers, whether for genetic or environmental reasons.

Followers will always support those who are leaders. In our current society, that would mean the powerful.

If you don't believe me, look at behavioral sciences. Most people will shock someone to death just because an authority said so (yes the Millgram experiments were biased, but the results aren't completely invalidated by that)

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#87

Post by mfer »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #5

It seems eminently reasonable and obvious that workers should be compensated for performing the Duties of their job while at work or in premises. Clearly submitting to a security check before being allowed to leave work is an obligation they incur as an employee. They should not be able to “clock out” until after such security checks.

Changing this is up to the legislature rather than the courts. In other news, about 18% of Americans approve of congress job while about 81% disapprove of it [1].

[1] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional...!

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#88

Post by Dylan16807 »

jbob2000 wrote: post #63
goto11 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it should affect the speed of delivery that the Amazon employees gets paid for their time? But yeah it might affect the price - or Amazon might be able to optimize the "security check" if they have to compensate workers for the wasted time.

Money saved on labour means you can spend more money on more labour! Or you can buy more machines, or you could invest in a project to reduce packaging times, etc. etc. There's probably not a direct correlation between saving on security checks and reduced shipping time, but it's all connected. Maybe paying these wages means there's no money for more robots, so packaging things will take longer?

> Maybe paying these wages means there's no money for more robots, so packaging things will take longer?

Packing an individual box takes minutes. So it's a question of capacity, and it's pretty binary. If they have enough capacity then a large majority of items can ship within a couple hours. If they don't have enough capacity then the 90th percentile shipping time becomes indefinite/never. A situation where packaging takes an extra day, end of story, is unlikely and unstable.

And I'd say that some robots are R&D, so not having money for them has no effect on shipping times, and the rest are a cost-saving measure, so they'll always have the money.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#89

Post by cesarb »

toasterlovin wrote: post #55
travisjungroth wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense to me. If the company makes them undergo security screenings, they were hired to undergo security screenings. By this logic, it seems like they could make them do an hour of phone support at the beginning and end of each shift since that’s not what they were hired to do.

I don’t have an opinion on this case, but this may be a useful analogy (and may not; I’m not a lawyer): employees are required to commute to work, but they are not compensated for their commute. There are plenty of jobs, in construction for example, where the job site changes on a regular basis. Some job sites require longer commutes than others. Compensation still doesn’t include commute time.

> employees are required to commute to work, but they are not compensated for their commute.

Where I live (another country), employers are required to compensate workers for their commute (vale-transporte).

Re: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal

#90

Post by edoceo »

mruts wrote: post #83

If I would get fired for not wearing clothes, should I get compensated for the time it takes me to get dressed? Also we could also talk about: dry clean suits, taking showers, cutting hair, shaving, putting on make-up, etc.

No, you're generally not on-prem for those tasks. And time for putting on your kit, for jobs that require that, is paid time
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