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Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

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Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#91

Post by tobmlt »

standardUser wrote: post #36

This is a great example of how labor laws in the US are weak (deal with this sudden, dramatic change to your schedule or you're fired). It is also an example of how employers take great advantage of those weak labor laws. It is not, however, an example of how big corporations are evil. There's plenty of examples of that out there, this just isn't one. But for some reason is is surprisingly common for people to blame…

One of my first jobs was for a small engineering shop. Paid about 55k a year in 2010 dollars. It did pay overtime, that should have been my first warning. They hired me with the promise of 4x10 work-weeks. What happened in reality is that we came in at 7 am, worked to 6pm (or whenever "the boss" was ready to go home) with a 30 minute lunch, and then on Friday, ..."well we are behind so we need to come in again this week"... almost every week (there were a few exceptions) we worked all day Friday as well. Oh, and how about a half day Saturday many weeks. Once during my short time there, we had a solid week or more (hard to remember due to sleep deprivation and depression fogged recollections of this time) going at 90+ hours per week on a project. It was absolutely insane and I got out as soon as I could, trying to convince as many co-workers as I could (in practice only the young guys) that they were being gaslighted into thinking they had a good job. Luckily I was underemployed for my education level, and single; thus it was easy to get out of this, for there was no way to think sharply, keep proper food in the house, work out enough, etc., at this pace.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#92

Post by danaris »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #23
pklausler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this great customer service? I'd like to get in on some of that.

American customer service is leaps and bounds above anything you get in Europe. And I don't mean restaurant service. Europe as a whole is much more worker-first than customer-first.

I guess one might have to do some definition of terms here.

Is "customer service" where a customer gets to call/walk in and talk to a human who genuinely tries to help them solve their problems, or where a customer gets to call/walk in and treat someone like absolute shit in order to feel better about their problems?

'Cause "customer service" in the US is all too often used to mean the latter.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#93

Post by Aardwolf »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #11

American culture is optimized for consumers. When you're a consumer, it's a great thing: customer service, return policies, payment methods, and the entire process of buying stuff is leaps and bounds above somewhere like the European Union. When you're a worker, though, no one particularly cares about you. If a CEO can squeeze more profit out of his workforce by forcing them to work odd hours at the drop of a hat, he…

> customer service

Until you want to cancel your service, I suppose?

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#94

Post by danaris »

gigatexal wrote: post #52

If there was ever a case for a humanoid robot it would be for packing packages in a warehouse. Same for agriculture harvesting: the back breaking nature of picking strawberries could be done by a robot with hands that have the same dexterity and nuance as a human.

Why is either of these a case for a humanoid robot, and not a specialized robot? Humanoid is a pretty awful design for any specific task; it's just that we've evolved and learn to be good at many tasks.

In the warehouse, you can adjust the design of the warehouse a relatively small amount to ensure that the robots can easily store and retrieve the packages—which come in a finite number of standard sizes and shapes, which in turn can be adjusted to ensure they pack well while still leaving room for the robot's grasping arm/claw/whatever to grab it. Depending on the specific designs, it may be worthwhile to combine the store-and-retrieve robot with the carry-cart. It's certainly not going to be more effective to have a humanoid robot that has to climb up ladders, rather than some sort of wheeled or tank-treaded robot that can anchor itself to the floor and extend a telescoping part of it up to get or leave the package.

For picking strawberries, even if we accept that you want "hands with the same dexterity and nuance as a human", why would those hands do best attached to a human body? Strawberry plants are pretty low to the ground, so why not put them on a little rolling bot that can go between the rows right at berry-level?

No; the best case for a humanoid robot is in human-facing positions. We like to interact with people, and a robot (note, not a human-level AI: a robot; human-level AI gets into serious ethical and philosophical quandaries real fast) doesn't care if you yell and scream at it. It'll just keep saying, "Yes, sir. Please give me your account number so I can proceed," for hours on end if need be.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#95

Post by SkyMarshal »

gavin_gee wrote: post #74
SkyMarshal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the American middle class has been eviscerated by globalization, pandemic, etc and these are the best, er least bad, jobs available to many of them. They don’t have any leverage or bargaining power, collective or individual.

im not sure how minimum wage workers are being branded middle class here. These are minimum wage workers. unfortunately they will have less choices through lack of education and opportunity.

Many of these minimum wage workers used to be blue collar workers making more than minimum wage and solidly middle-class. Then, en-masse their jobs got exchange-rate arbitraged (outsourced) to slave labor overseas making pennies an hour.

Keep in mind only 30% of the US population has a college degree, much less a graduate degree. More and more of that 70% are falling out of the middle class and struggling to survive.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#96

Post by krapp »

gigatexal wrote: post #52

If there was ever a case for a humanoid robot it would be for packing packages in a warehouse. Same for agriculture harvesting: the back breaking nature of picking strawberries could be done by a robot with hands that have the same dexterity and nuance as a human.

Amazon is testing automation for picking, stowing and palletizing but none of them are humanoid. They still have human workers to do the jobs that require manual dexterity and "wetware AI," which both reduces the cost of the automation and reduces the value of human labor.

Win win for Amazon, lose for the employees.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#97

Post by dang »

ggggggt wrote: post #63
deeblering4 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a 4x10 would be workable if the hours fit roughly into a traditional household schedule. But 4x 1:20a-11:50a shifts per week would make it impossible to get your kids ready for school. And you'd be sleeping when it's time for dinner, or homework. Not to mention having time for a relationship with your spouse. Etc, etc. The shift they outline in the article sounds miserable.

You shouldn't be raising a family if you are doing bottomtier warehouse work.

Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. We're trying to avoid that here.

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

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#98

Post by SkyMarshal »

dusyshhhdudu wrote: post #80
FrozenVoid wrote: post #22

US is reverting to early 20th century labor market norms, thanks to 'gig' economy and megacorps subverting unions. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/22/tech/amazon-nlrb-union-el... Only thing missing is union-busting Pinkerton thugs... https://www.npr.org/2020/11/30/940196997/amazon-reportedly-h...

As a gig worker I hope it stays, gig work has been a massive quality of life improvement for me. I think if the unions want to compete with us that's fine but the state shouldn't get to pick the winner.

As a brand new account can you prove you're actually a gig worker, and not some PR firm working for Uber to manage the online conversation about this topic?

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#99

Post by blackrock »

random5634 wrote: post #21

I actually left an early job because it didn't offer a 4x10. 4x10 is amazing. Your work days are your work days, but the extra day off is amazing. You can actually go do stuff. My own view - everyone should switch to 4x10 or at least have it as an option. Now I'm working crazy hours so all a dream anyways these days. Note 4x10 shifts are not new in warehousing (or even in mfg).

It’s better if we can just switch to a 4 day per week schedule. And still work 8 hours a day.

We don’t work on farms anymore. Software Automation, machines, and robots are everywhere now. But the capitalist bozos owns all of them. If they don’t want to pay higher wages, then make them pay for it by giving people more time off.

Re: Amazon Is Forcing Its Warehouse Workers into Brutal 'Megacycle' Shifts

#100

Post by 2112 »

mc32 wrote: post #71
tuxxy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really coming on HN to try and blame immigrants for this? Do you know the kind of contributions immigrants have had in this industry? Do you know how important open immigration has been to the rise of tech?

There are different kinds of labor from immigrant populations, one is mostly brawn, the other is the one that brings brains (and conversely may cause brain drain in the source country). That said, China has been successful (there are others) and have achieved success without this input. So I don’t think it’s a necessary ingredient. That said, talent improves economies. Imported labor (as well as automation) drives do…

> Imported labor (as well as automation) drives down labor costs and affects unskilled and semi skilled workers the most.

The impacts of automation are massive, I really recommend this Andrew Yang interview [0]. It's a real eye-opener.

I had not realized the scale of this mess before watching that episode. Interesting numbers and insights in that 17 minute segment.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAtyv8NpbFQ

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