Is this worth it? Is this worth having the ability to pick between 10,000 different toasters via internet and have them delivered to your doorstep in 2 days?
Sometimes I look at society as a complete organ, with a hypothetical ability to make cohesive decisions for itself. And I think, it is making extremely self-destructive choices. All for the sake of satisfying the urge to buy more, at lower prices, with more convenience.
I wonder how much of the stuff in those warehouses is utter garbage that gets bought and used just once.
Why would Amazon pay one more penny than they have to? To win a nice guys award? To get a warm, squishy feeling inside?
There is precisely one solution to this problem, and it is us electing leaders who change the rules in favor of the working masses, and enforce those rules mercilessly against exploitative employers.
For the same reason the mouth passes food to the stomach instead of keeping it to itself. The same reason we remove tumors from the human body. The whole organism (or in the case of human populations, superorganism) depends on nourishment flowing through the whole organism, not concentrating in small pockets.
> To win a nice guys award? To get a warm, squishy feeling inside?
Why not? There are plenty of well-natured, kind people in the world. The price of being not nice is quite high.
We haven't reached the peak of human wealth distribution systems with a byproduct of the fall of feudalism. Let's rack our brains, I'm sure we can figure something.
No we can't, Amazon is popular because it's cheap because its hyperoptimised. And if not anything, there are other major issues other than worker's rights (which are bad enough).
This is far from being unique to Amazon and from my experience constant pressures like these are prevalent in many low to mid-income paying jobs. I briefly worked as an Insurance Claims Representative for Farmer's Insurance. At the time, I lost my place, my car died and I was running low on funds so I had to take the first thing available. The job offered a free car and the first 4 weeks were spent in training. As someone who had previously only been exposed to the intricacies of white collar work, I found the whole experience to be quite eye-opening. Nearly every claims rep I met looked or acted as if they were chronically stressed, some hid it well while others wore it pretty plainly.
I later found out that they were always on edge because on any given day, one mistake could cost them their chance at a raise, bonus or any cost of living increase for the year. Farmer's had an elaborate points system used to determine eligibility for pay raises (basically cost-of-living increases). We were mobile and had to investigate 3 claims per day without exception. Our daily assignments and locations were algorithimically generated by very substandard software (didn't fully take into account variations in traffic over time and wasn't based on reliable, curent data in the first place). It was in Los Angeles, so traffic and distances between appointments could be immense. Yet, we weren't allowed any exceptions. If we didn't make one of our appointments, depending on the size of the claim, that could disqualify you from a bonus or pay raise. Too many (5-8 per year) could jeopardize your job. The same went for providing iaccurate estimates. So if you missed something (more realisistically paid out too much without trying to deny responsibility) on one flagship luxury or sports car (7 series BMW, S Mercedes, etc.), you'd likely lose your bonus. It's like every day is a chance for you to lose while I feel like for many of us here on HN, each day is a chance for us to earn a bonus.
UPS drivers are under the same pressure. That's why they leave packages outside or in the lobby of buildings. If they don't complete their algorithmically generated deliveries for the day, they're dinged. They can never question the software either. Customer service is another field with similar pressures. Being under that daily constant fear and pressure for such little reward must be so mentally taxing, like if one was still in the food chain
I should add that a couple of years ago, I received a check in the mail for several hundred dollars due to a class action settlement launched on behalf of the Claims team. Management really pushed for employees to hit that 3 claims a day mark , granting overtime in the most limited of circumstances by suggesting that we could eat and be driving to an appointment during the lunch hour. In effect, they encouraged us to skip lunch if we needed to and/or to eat while driving. Remember, this is coming from an automotive insurance company.
As someone who only worked there for a month, it was a pretty nice unexpected bonus.
I am by no means siding with Amazon - check my post history. But as far as I know, there exist state and federal laws covering this. Even in my podunk state, law requires an uninterrupted 15 minute break per 4 hours worked, and even guides when that time must be allocated. Anything over 6 hours must be given an unpaid 30 minute meal period. Not perfect, but we aren't pissing in bottles.
> Sometimes I look at society as a complete organ, with a hypothetical ability to make cohesive decisions for itself. And I think, it is making extremely self-destructive choices.
One of my favorite philosophical thought experiments! I'd argue that that society is an organism comprised of several governments/companies which act as the organs.
I usually observe each organ making decisions to optimize its use of money, (or blood in this metaphor!).
It is usually clear that these decisions have net negative effects on us individual humans (cells) in the organism.
But the question remains, when each company and government optimizes for money instead of individual health, is that healthy for the success of society, the broader organism?
The trouble is not the decision to optimize for financial or physical health, the issue is that Amazon seems to see some people as part of its organism (long-term entity), such as its engineering talent, and other people, like these poor warehouse workers, as a temporary part of a future robotic optimization. Companies like Apple value their lowest level employees because nobody is sure that computers will competently replicate sympathetic customer service. Amazon doesn't need its warehouse workers' soft skills, only their muscle and basic logic.
It's not like people's entire paycheck is going toward materialism. In the US, nationally, roughly 70% of consumer spending is essentials (more or less): housing, transportation and food.
You might find the film Samsara quite interesting. It's a timeline documentary showing how people live all over the world. Timelapses show the interconnectedness of things that happen too slowly for us to appreciate. Like star trails.
The film evokes a sense of how things are connected and all the suffering we create due to a desire to alleviate suffering.
It's not only worker's rights (which is bad enough). It's many things, for example the environment. For instance, the amount of fuel burned, and carbon emitted, to deliver an item in 2 days instead of 3 is 40% higher (sorry I don't have a citation right now). We're boiling our planet alive for the slightest of conveniences! It's bonkers! Like we're filling the oceans with trash for using completely superfluous plastic packaging that improves our lives in the most negligible of ways. All of this to sell ever increasing (because current market capitalism demands constant "growth") piles of crap.
And for some reason one can only buy two sizes of socks. For shoe sizes 6-12 (regular) and 12-16 (large). A sock that fits 6 through 12 shoes sizes? Capitalism failure.
That's a specious question - there are minimum standards for wrking conditions. What people upset at Amazon really want is to change those standards, which is a completely fair standpoint. Let's not muddy the waters by papering over 100 years of accomplishemnts of US labor...
I was just questioning the ideology of the person I replied to, not making a statement on the current situation. I'm trying to get people to see that the current situation is the result of organized labor, not some natural condition we happen to find ourselves in.
To the degree that workers are not your slaves or property, yes. They should be free to decide who to work for, and employers cannot treat people as their property. But as long as there's informed consent, most things are pretty fair.
If their next best option to working at an Amazon warehouse is starvation, then it's a pretty good thing for them that Amazon has a warehouse there. That said, I strongly suspect they have better "next best" options.
Funnily enough, we have enough food and shelter in the U.K. that this shouldn’t need to be a choice people have to make - the issue is one of inefficient resource allocation. Instead of noticing this and solving the problem, our Government have decided that if you desire any sense of dignity, you deserve to die.
Not against them. I'm against them being required by law. (Some safety standards should definitely be part of the law). But if the law limits hours then it hurts some people more--if they didn't have to pay overtime, you might be able to work twice as many hours. For many programmers, working 1.5x as many hours might be worth 1.5x the salary. But if the company is required to pay for overtime by law, it may be more economical to just hire new workers. In that case, the guy who wants to work overtime is at a disadvantage. This is similar to what happens in part time jobs where people want to work more hours but it's cheaper for the company to hire someone else. The long-term effect is that people have to work 3 part time jobs to get by rather than 1 full time job where there's more opportunity for growth/raises.
With health and safety standards, there's always going to be some really shitty jobs. For example, in terms of health and safety mining coal is pretty undesirable. But if nobody is doing the job, the demand still stays there and the position is available for much higher pay. If you could earn $500k a year doing a job that's destructive to your body it can still be very much worth it. Of course, most of these workers either have few choices for work or are not totally aware of all the health issues associated with their jobs. This is obviously of concern, but I don't think banning the job outright is the right way to go.
Can I say "yes" without being down-voted? I'd like the government not to limit free association of moral agents. Two people should be free to work together under whatever arrangement they voluntarily enter into.
All our current system of labour and union law has accomplished is the offshoring of suffering. We've not gotten rid of the existence of, nor our reliance on abhorrent working conditions. We've just moved them elsewhere, in the process wasting tremendous amounts of energy (not to mention the associated destruction of the environment) shipping things to and from more lenient jurisdictions.
I propose that if the working conditions we rely on were present under our noses, we would do more to try to actually mediate our dependence their production.
I understand that viewpoint,and even agree with it mostly on a person to person level, but if the government didn't have these laws why would it be any better. When people tried to negotiate with companies without the states involvement, the companies used violence to try and get their way.
Corporations aren't moral agents and can't be treated as such
the companies used violence to try and get their way
And that's exactly where we need the state, in order to protect us from violence. I'd just like there to be limits on the scope of its authority. Corporations are just groups of people.
Corporations may be groups of people but they don't get treated like people. There's no corporate death penalty for companies that end up killing people. There's no corporate jail to remove companies that can't behave out of society for a set amount of time. There's fines that seem to never be greater than the profit the companies earn from breaking the law and it just becomes a cost of business.
If they're going to be treated like people then go all the way, but until then they need to be regulated to prevent the worst of their excesses that have been played out again and again
Corporations may be groups of people but they don't get treated like people
They don't have to be. All we have to do is hold individuals accountable for their actions. If a person in a corporation orders violent suppression of a labour dispute, then they are personally accountable. A corporation is a legal fiction. It can't be held accountable because it doesn't do anything, the people who run it do.
As I replied to the parent, the laundry list of items is a little odd, since, in the US at least, the only thing there that's protected by law are the workplace health and safety standards.
And... I guess I must not be as optimistic as you are. If we didn't have things like OSHA, I do not expect that most workplaces would act in the best interests of their workers' health and safety. Look at countries where there aren't OSHA-like laws and see how well they do there. (Hint: not well.)
Look at countries where there aren't OSHA-like laws and see how well they do there
That's exactly my point though isn't it? We still rely on goods produced in those places, we just don't have any visibility into the conditions they are produced in. We've just offshored the suffering, not alleviated it.
I'm fully agreed with this. The question is then what are the ways we can improve the working/living conditions of people around the world. The way workers around the world have fought for better conditions is by using their ability to withhold labor and collectively bargain with the capitalist class.
And they should continue to do that. In fact this works quite well without government interference (labour/union law) or even in spite of it (See the Indian independence movement). I'm suggesting we need the government to protect us from violence when negotiations go awry, not to interfere in said negotiations between free private entities.
all things that exist without the government and which vary wildly amongst professions. i work far more than 40 hours and don't take most weekends - as I am entitled to.
> If the workers don't like it they can work elsewhere
Note that the submitted article is from the UK, where the workers might not be able to work elsewhere, and where they may have had some element of compulsion through the current benefit system to apply for and take jobs at Amazon.
No, it's accounting for the large numbers of people involved.
For clarity: people claiming Universal Credit will have been compelled to apply for work at Amazon, and will have had their benefits cut if they had refused to apply. And, once employed, people face a minimum 6 week wait before they can apply for benefits if they leave Amazon, and that time is extended if they chose to leave or were fired.
Sometimes I look at society as a complete organ, with a hypothetical ability to make cohesive decisions for itself. And I think, it is making extremely self-destructive choices. All for the sake of satisfying the urge to buy more, at lower prices, with more convenience.
I wonder how much of the stuff in those warehouses is utter garbage that gets bought and used just once.