The treatment of warehouse workers and of people with different non office jobs is a strong reason why I will never work at a place like Amazon or Walmart.
Glad to see some people sticking up for each other in these times especially.
Amazon warehouse workers get $17/hr starting wage (and a full 2x ($34/hr!!) overtime), with no experience/education needed and almost no barrier to getting the job (except physical capability to lift a box), as well as the best health insurance I've ever heard of entry-level manual laborers getting, as well as education budgets to be used on any higher level education they want.
Obviously warehouse work isn't glamorous and they are under a lot of pressure and there's nothing wrong with increased scrutiny on how they are treated, but it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are treated like slaves.
I worked in a warehouse picking and packing orders when I was in college.
It was a fantastic job relative to my other options. I got paid 2x minimum wage and lots of overtime. The job rocked compared to the retail jobs that were my other option.
It's pretty easy to shit on a job like that, and the pay, when you're making well into 6 figures and have a comfy office job with free snacks.
Their workers are treated like robots, not slaves.
And the "good wages for low qualifications" argument is equally exhausting. Money shouldn't be some universal justification for overlooking poor workplace conditions and unethical treatment of human beings.
What's your direct knowledge of the situation? As far as I can tell, Amazon PR and actual reports from warehouse workers, especially contract workers, diverge greatly.
Amazon was able to hire over 100k employees in the last month. They did that by providing the best possible choice for those people -- the people wanted to work there.
Sure, all for transparency, but let's be real. This job is a lot better than flipping burgers or mowing a road ditch. People are still lining up to work at Amazon.
It's easy to be like, "Hey look at the big evil company!" but the truth of the matter is Amazon is one of the best places for low-skilled workers to find employment.
IMO it isn’t really relevant how much they’re paid or what the educational requirements. It’s never okay to treat people the way Amazon treats warehouse workers. If you (and the government) consider your business “essential” you simply have to take appropriate precautions to protect the health and safety of those people who are carrying out essential duties. I understand there are supply shortages around the world but Amazon isn’t even trying to make a good faith effort to protect their people. They’re doing the opposite, it seems. Fighting their employees every step of the way.
What are you even talking about? Amazon is paying them $17 an hour at minimum (double federal minimum wage), with benefits, with double overtime pay. This is for totally unskilled and undifferentiated labor. Among warehouse jobs, Amazon is industry leading in wages. Walmart pays, I believe, a minimum of $11/hour. If people don't want to work in either of these places, they don't have to. It's a voluntary system. But clearly people want to work there and prefer that to the challenge of (for example) starting their own business.
I also do not believe that there were no changes made at Amazon's warehouses in response to the coronavirus. Their blog mentions many of these changes and the seem reasonable and practical: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/how-amazon-priorit.... Obviously, there are limits to what a company can do with a physical operation like this. There are limits to the distancing that can be practiced. Equipment like PPEs are facing huge shortages right now and so obviously it isn't reasonable to expect that Amazon magically can summon up hundreds of thousands of N95 masks that should likely be going to healthcare workers first.
Ultimately, if people don't want to take the risk of working during this time, that's up to them - they are free to leave voluntarily. All this outrage seems falsely amplified, and it comes off as opportunistic activism to leverage this crisis to push a nakedly leftist political agenda.
Until the end of April, when the $2 per hour "bonus" goes away.
>I also do not believe that there were no changes made at Amazon's warehouses in response to the coronavirus.
It does appear that employees are not being punished for things like adequately washing their hands or getting sick for the time being. They were being punished for these things at the start of the year, and that blog makes it sound like they will be punished for them again when the pandemic is over.
"[...]and it comes off as opportunistic activism to leverage this crisis to push a nakedly leftist political agenda."
That may be true, though I suspect it's equally plausible that this outrage is indicative of a nakedly capitalistic agenda promoted by Amazon's competitors via proxies. I don't see any reason why it can't be both.
Edit: To clarify, I should have ended my statement with "...why it can't be both, in addition to legitimate concerns."
I've cancelled any and all memberships, subscriptions, etc. with Amazon and anything they own, and I'm no longer ordering anything from them. It's completely unacceptable to treat workers this way, even if Bezos weren't the richest person on earth. Which he is! So on top of treating people like disposable garbage, he controls a plurality of the world's resources and refuses to mobilize any of them to help his workers.
Almost every business in the developed world relies on warehouse workers and pickers. Any manufacturer that sells parts or replacement parts relies on pickers. Every grocery store chain or department store chain relies on warehouse workers and pickers.
Small outlets rely on distributors that rely on warehouse workers and pickers.
Just about everything people use, eat, ride, drive, or wear relies on warehouse workers.
Most non-Amazon warehouse workers are treated worse and paid less than Amazon employees.
If you hate Amazon so be it, but hating them for the way they treat their warehouse workers and pickers is not rational unless you hate just about every modern business equally.
The irony in you typing this from most likely an iPhone/Android/PC made in China by factory workers under conditions far far worse than Amazon is quite palpable.
Yup, and there are tons of alternatives. Maybe sometimes it's not obvious for instance where to get some movies or order certain stuff. But a bit searching often pays off and sometimes reveals even more interesting places where to buy things. (I wish AWS wasn't that popular though...)
> Previously, Costa said Amazon attempted to intervene in the group’s efforts to organize the panel by deleting invitations sent to other workers internally, which the group claims were accepted by more than 1,500 employees.
It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the full right to control what happens on their resources.
At the same time, I find that deleting the an email after it has been sent by the sender unknown to the sender to be a kind of gaslighting, and dystopian. Having a policy to not organize using work resources might be harsh, but at least it is more transparent as in the proverbial line is drawn in the proverbial sand.
The issue is, you're undermining the rights of your laborer's to organize, and I'd even be willing to make a case that you may be shooting yourself in the foot in the long run, because if you annoy them to the point they organize anyway, you can expext compensation to be elevated even more than it would have been to satisfy the collective bargaining unit since they will pass on the cost of paying for their own organizing infrastructure (since you can't be trusted to let your employees use yours).
So they need to nut up and shut up. If you can't be trusted to let your laborer's organize in good faith, they have no ground on which to stand when the bill comes for a second labor specific communication network comes due.
All that waste they could avoid by just being decent disinterested network operators. Sad really.
I am also curious about the rate of false positives. I wonder how many of those deletions resulted in disrupted work. Maybe I should start taking "I never got your email" excuses more seriously now.
I've got a domain with punny code from to two different character sets, the express goal of which is to get my emails to disappear in strange and interesting ways.
I love when people tell me they didnt get my email, that means it worked!
Obama's NLRB disagreed with you. Trump's NLRB overturned their previous decision and agreed with your take. This will continue to go back-and forth as control of NLRB changes.
I personally think email is equivalent to an office bulletin board. What NLRB has said about that is you simply can't be DISCRIMINATORY on non-work issues. So if you can post on a bulletin board about sponsoring you in a Charity Fun Run, then you can post about union activity. If the employer only allows work-related things, then it's fine for them to not allow union activity.
I would guess that Costa means the invitations had an associated calendar entry and they deleted the calendar entry. Deleting emails would definitely be pretty creepy, but I don't know if I've ever heard of that happening.
> It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the full right to control what happens on their resources.
It's against Amazon's interests to have this organization happen in a parallel, side channel instead. But they seem to be pushing this action in that direction.
You can organize at your workplace, but you don't have a right to use work resources to do it. (Workers used to have the right to use their work email, but the NLRB has recently overturned that precedent.)
It's not just company resources that are being effectively stolen to push personal political agendas. It's also company time - not just the activists spending their own time that they have been compensated by the company for, but also the time of everyone they send these emails and invites to.
As best I can tell, there's evidence that everything these workers are advocating for would have no effect on or better for the company long term through people liking the brand more reducing hiring and training costs by increasing worker retention, reducing the lost of productivity associated with sick workers getting other workers sick, etc.
But I guess some people think well paid executives always know better then regular employees.
Personally if I had a say at Amazon, I'd suggest given the 47.3B they had in cash on hand as of nov of last year and how they've been raking it in since people have begun sheltering in place that they at least could afford to experiment.
While I'm glad that Amazon corporate employees are doing something to show solidarity, this seems more like a feel good activity for the corporate employees.
This is similar to the Google walkout, what difference does it make if you leave work for one day, when everyone knows you're going to be at work the following day?
If you do work at one of these companies, I would love to hear from you, I don't mean to be snarky/rude, but I sincerely don't see how walking out is helpful to anyone.
I’ve been monitoring Amazon’s stocks through this whole crisis, and how they’re going through the roof while almost all others are taking huge losses.
I can’t help but wonder if it will someday implode from the terrible, unsustainable conditions their workers seem to be facing — even prior to the pandemic, but exacerbated by it — and Amazon’s complete dismissal of it.
And this isn’t even including the increasingly poor state of consumer trust in reviews, third party resellers, counterfeit products, and the myriad of ways resellers can game the system. All of which Amazon also seems to continue to dismiss as if it’s immune to the long-term impacts.
As long as people continue to move their shopping online, I'm convinced no maltreatment of employees considered to be "working class" will stop people from making their purchases, especially with the convenience and price.
Amazing considering the backlash against Uber for sexual harassment of female upper-middle to upper class white collar workers. Almost destroyed the company in the US. But the persistent abuse of thousands of working people - NOTHING!
Amazon pays their workers 60% more than Walmart and almost double of other grocery stores. The working conditions are better, and they are hiring like crazy.
There are a lot of short sellers around and not all news pieces are factual.
Look for amazon job applications sites to see the reality vs other companies and then make up your mind.
People are acting like these are coal mine workers. After reading about their high starting wage and decent benefits, it's hard to make an argument that they are mistreated.
Given how Amazon interviews, how obstinate they are against relaxing their standards, and how slow and inefficient their HR systems are in general, I wish management good luck with replacing these workers with scabs.
An unemployment rate of 15% cuts both ways. Mass walkouts and mass resignations are still disruptive especially if it takes time to onboard new employees.
How does a high unemployment rate cut both ways? Seems like it only favors the employer — they'll have an easier time hiring new employees, and employees will have a harder time finding other jobs.
Is there a way in which a high unemployment rate gives the employees leverage? I can see walkouts happening right now because Amazon employees know the company is under scrutiny and therefore less likely to fire them. But I doubt many people will 'put their money where their mouth is' and actually resign when the economy is doing poorly and there are very few jobs (and lots of job seekers).
How long do you think it would take for Amazon to make 1500 new engineers productive during a pandemic? Amazon's not gonna fire anyone if they aren't forced to for money reasons.
The headline talks about protest treatment of warehouse workers but the actual article talks also about other things like climate criss. I'm a bit surprised since Bezos' annual letter that was published yesterday was heavily focused on these things.
These types of activists try to tie all these issues together using a lot of mental gymnastics, to try and build a coalition or to leverage the motivation behind one cause (like climate) to support another cause (like unionization). It's illogical, but it is a strategy commonly used because it is effective, even if disingenuous.
I disagree that it works. Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter are two movements that lost most of their power and presence due to muddling their core message.
As an important aside, I'm sure everyone has noticed that grocery store clerks aren't allowed to wear masks in practice. I'm sure everyone has noticed quite a few other jobs where this is so. It seems endangering the lives of certain kinds of workers is nearly universal. Not to excuse them but I imagine Amazon has a lot of company in this[1]. I am very glad at least Amazon employeesare doing something about it.
Readit News
Glad to see some people sticking up for each other in these times especially.
Obviously warehouse work isn't glamorous and they are under a lot of pressure and there's nothing wrong with increased scrutiny on how they are treated, but it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are treated like slaves.
It was a fantastic job relative to my other options. I got paid 2x minimum wage and lots of overtime. The job rocked compared to the retail jobs that were my other option.
It's pretty easy to shit on a job like that, and the pay, when you're making well into 6 figures and have a comfy office job with free snacks.
And the "good wages for low qualifications" argument is equally exhausting. Money shouldn't be some universal justification for overlooking poor workplace conditions and unethical treatment of human beings.
Quite the understatement
Try saying that when you're the one who's not even given time to attend to bodily functions during the workday.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Deleted Comment
Amazon was able to hire over 100k employees in the last month. They did that by providing the best possible choice for those people -- the people wanted to work there.
Sure, all for transparency, but let's be real. This job is a lot better than flipping burgers or mowing a road ditch. People are still lining up to work at Amazon.
It's easy to be like, "Hey look at the big evil company!" but the truth of the matter is Amazon is one of the best places for low-skilled workers to find employment.
I also do not believe that there were no changes made at Amazon's warehouses in response to the coronavirus. Their blog mentions many of these changes and the seem reasonable and practical: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/how-amazon-priorit.... Obviously, there are limits to what a company can do with a physical operation like this. There are limits to the distancing that can be practiced. Equipment like PPEs are facing huge shortages right now and so obviously it isn't reasonable to expect that Amazon magically can summon up hundreds of thousands of N95 masks that should likely be going to healthcare workers first.
Ultimately, if people don't want to take the risk of working during this time, that's up to them - they are free to leave voluntarily. All this outrage seems falsely amplified, and it comes off as opportunistic activism to leverage this crisis to push a nakedly leftist political agenda.
Until the end of April, when the $2 per hour "bonus" goes away.
>I also do not believe that there were no changes made at Amazon's warehouses in response to the coronavirus.
It does appear that employees are not being punished for things like adequately washing their hands or getting sick for the time being. They were being punished for these things at the start of the year, and that blog makes it sound like they will be punished for them again when the pandemic is over.
That may be true, though I suspect it's equally plausible that this outrage is indicative of a nakedly capitalistic agenda promoted by Amazon's competitors via proxies. I don't see any reason why it can't be both.
Edit: To clarify, I should have ended my statement with "...why it can't be both, in addition to legitimate concerns."
Small outlets rely on distributors that rely on warehouse workers and pickers.
Just about everything people use, eat, ride, drive, or wear relies on warehouse workers.
Most non-Amazon warehouse workers are treated worse and paid less than Amazon employees.
If you hate Amazon so be it, but hating them for the way they treat their warehouse workers and pickers is not rational unless you hate just about every modern business equally.
It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the full right to control what happens on their resources.
At the same time, I find that deleting the an email after it has been sent by the sender unknown to the sender to be a kind of gaslighting, and dystopian. Having a policy to not organize using work resources might be harsh, but at least it is more transparent as in the proverbial line is drawn in the proverbial sand.
So they need to nut up and shut up. If you can't be trusted to let your laborer's organize in good faith, they have no ground on which to stand when the bill comes for a second labor specific communication network comes due.
All that waste they could avoid by just being decent disinterested network operators. Sad really.
I love when people tell me they didnt get my email, that means it worked!
I personally think email is equivalent to an office bulletin board. What NLRB has said about that is you simply can't be DISCRIMINATORY on non-work issues. So if you can post on a bulletin board about sponsoring you in a Charity Fun Run, then you can post about union activity. If the employer only allows work-related things, then it's fine for them to not allow union activity.
It's against Amazon's interests to have this organization happen in a parallel, side channel instead. But they seem to be pushing this action in that direction.
It's not like these people would walk out if an email would make their point just as well.
Incidentally paid sick leave, which warehouse workers don't have and this protest is in favor of, is estimated to actually save money, not cost it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5649342/
As best I can tell, there's evidence that everything these workers are advocating for would have no effect on or better for the company long term through people liking the brand more reducing hiring and training costs by increasing worker retention, reducing the lost of productivity associated with sick workers getting other workers sick, etc.
https://medium.com/@amazonemployeesclimatejustice/amazon-sic...
But I guess some people think well paid executives always know better then regular employees.
Personally if I had a say at Amazon, I'd suggest given the 47.3B they had in cash on hand as of nov of last year and how they've been raking it in since people have begun sheltering in place that they at least could afford to experiment.
This is similar to the Google walkout, what difference does it make if you leave work for one day, when everyone knows you're going to be at work the following day?
If you do work at one of these companies, I would love to hear from you, I don't mean to be snarky/rude, but I sincerely don't see how walking out is helpful to anyone.
I can’t help but wonder if it will someday implode from the terrible, unsustainable conditions their workers seem to be facing — even prior to the pandemic, but exacerbated by it — and Amazon’s complete dismissal of it.
And this isn’t even including the increasingly poor state of consumer trust in reviews, third party resellers, counterfeit products, and the myriad of ways resellers can game the system. All of which Amazon also seems to continue to dismiss as if it’s immune to the long-term impacts.
Amazing considering the backlash against Uber for sexual harassment of female upper-middle to upper class white collar workers. Almost destroyed the company in the US. But the persistent abuse of thousands of working people - NOTHING!
There are a lot of short sellers around and not all news pieces are factual.
Look for amazon job applications sites to see the reality vs other companies and then make up your mind.
Is there a way in which a high unemployment rate gives the employees leverage? I can see walkouts happening right now because Amazon employees know the company is under scrutiny and therefore less likely to fire them. But I doubt many people will 'put their money where their mouth is' and actually resign when the economy is doing poorly and there are very few jobs (and lots of job seekers).
I agree that the pandemic cuts both ways though!
If everyone had your sentiment, instead of the courage to do things like this, people would still be working 7 days a week, alongside their children.
[1]https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-worker-at...