4 ms·

The answer lies in unequal bargaining power, public shaming/awareness is the best we can do. There's the added irony of Mr. Bezos publicly the richest man in t

by sireat 8y ago

The answer lies in unequal bargaining power, public shaming/awareness is the best we can do. There's the added irony of Mr. Bezos publicly the richest man in the world having his workers hold their pee. Amazon will not care about its least protected workers until Amazon feels the backlash in lowered sales. If your locality has Amazon warehouse as the largest employer your options are quite limited. It is similar to having a coal mine in 19th century(or recycling center in 21st century China) being the largest employer. Nice to have a job at first, but black lung is not so nice after a while. The conditions do not have to be that bad, Costco has proven that. Other FAANGs get less flack in this regard because they outsource all the menial/routine jobs(Facebook and Google outsource a lot of horrible MTurk like jobs) and they do not need as many of them. PS I had 2 friends who worked at the Amazon UK Warehouse a few years back. They only lasted 6 months before the repetitive injuries took their toll. And it was pretty much impossible to have a day off.

Moodles 8y ago
> If your locality has Amazon warehouse as the largest employer your options are quite limited. As the only employer, right? (Of the kind that doesn't ask for much different qualifications ofc.) Not largest. And in practice I'm skeptical of how often this is the really case. My brother isn't particularly specifically qualified in any trade but even he had options once he started working. And even then in this hypothetical town where Amazon is the only employer, you could say well, of all the rich companies at least Amazon is giving jobs to people. What's everyone else doing? Aren't they more morally culpable? Does any company even owe anyone a job anyways? It seems to me that the government should do more to help these people have more of a fighting chance of bargaining in the world by training them in schools, etc. > Other FAANGs get less flack in this regard because they outsource all the menial/routine jobs(Facebook and Google outsource a lot of horrible MTurk like jobs) > Amazon will not care about its least protected workers until Amazon feels the backlash in lowered sales. Truth.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
What do people actually propose as an alternative? By all accounts it seems like the media examples of things such as 'peeing in bottles' are extremely isolated incidents and not representative of normal working conditions. Anywhere that has hundreds of thousands of employees - you're going to be able to find some crazy isolated anecdotes. The labor we're talking about is literally moving boxes. How much should a box mover get paid? The US GDP per capita is currently around $53k. Our box movers get about $13/hour which is $26k in wages alone. Imagine we went to some sort of dystopic economy where we took every single penny anybody made producing anything in this country and split it up according to what some person or group felt was 'fair'. How much should a box mover get? That they already get a 50% share is phenomenal in my opinion. The mine analogy fails to consider that we're inching ever closer to a 0% unemployment rate. We're currently in a labor market, which is probably a big part of the reason why you can get $13/hour for moving boxes. And moving boxes isn't going to hurt you. Give me two people - one that moves boxes 8 hours a day and one that sits in a chair staring at a screen for 8 hours a day, and I'd give you big odds that 20 years out that box mover is going to be in far better shape, all other things being equal. Those first months and maybe even years though are going to be tough, especially for people with soft bodies.
- krapp 8y ago
  >The labor we're talking about is literally moving boxes. How much should a box mover get paid? The thing is, there is the value of a job to the employer, and the value of employment to the employee. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a full time employee, at the very least, to be paid a living wage. Someone willing to commit that much of their life to a company should be compensated enough to allow them to house and feed themselves. Even if they're just "moving boxes."
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Think about what you're doing. I am asking for specific ideas and numbers, and you're responding with homily. This is what I mean. You can't just critique and moralize without offering specific workable solutions. The system we have is not great. Who wouldn't want a world where everybody could just have more or less whatever they want, live extremely comfortably, and for it to all be completely sustainable? But that's also not realistic. That's why I bring up the GDP and what it actually means. GDP is literally the market rate of every single good and service produced in this nation. And that only equals out to $50k per person. Our wealth really is in complete spite of our economy -- that's without even getting into the fact that the GDP is currently at record levels. Various areas have tried now increasing the minimum wage to a level approaching $15 with results that have been, at best, 'mixed'. The point is that you cannot simply ignore economic realities when trying to create a better life for people. This is specifically why social economic systems have been tried numerous times, yet they seem to invariably result in literal starvation. They're well intentioned, but out of touch with reality - and the consequences for putting homily above reality tend to be a brief period of feel good, followed by devastation.
    - Moodles 8y ago
      Indeed some would argue that a minimum wage can be quite damaging: for those in society who are unproductive so as not to be worth $x an hour, a minimum wage of >= $x actually definitely excludes them from the workforce. They’re even more damned than before. Now I’m not sure either way if a minimum wage of 0 or $x is a good idea, but I would generally go with whatever the evidence suggestions (and I havn’t looked into it). What I find really bizarre is why yours and mine comments are being downvotes so much. Are we not contributing to the discussion? Bit of an echo chamber around here.

by sireat 8y ago

Moodles 8y ago

> If your locality has Amazon warehouse as the largest employer your options are quite limited. As the only employer, right? (Of the kind that doesn't ask for much different qualifications ofc.) Not largest. And in practice I'm skeptical of how often this is the really case. My brother isn't particularly specifically qualified in any trade but even he had options once he started working. And even then in this hypothetical town where Amazon is the only employer, you could say well, of all the rich companies at least Amazon is giving jobs to people. What's everyone else doing? Aren't they more morally culpable? Does any company even owe anyone a job anyways? It seems to me that the government should do more to help these people have more of a fighting chance of bargaining in the world by training them in schools, etc. > Other FAANGs get less flack in this regard because they outsource all the menial/routine jobs(Facebook and Google outsource a lot of horrible MTurk like jobs) > Amazon will not care about its least protected workers until Amazon feels the backlash in lowered sales. Truth.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

What do people actually propose as an alternative? By all accounts it seems like the media examples of things such as 'peeing in bottles' are extremely isolated incidents and not representative of normal working conditions. Anywhere that has hundreds of thousands of employees - you're going to be able to find some crazy isolated anecdotes. The labor we're talking about is literally moving boxes. How much should a box mover get paid? The US GDP per capita is currently around $53k. Our box movers get about $13/hour which is $26k in wages alone. Imagine we went to some sort of dystopic economy where we took every single penny anybody made producing anything in this country and split it up according to what some person or group felt was 'fair'. How much should a box mover get? That they already get a 50% share is phenomenal in my opinion. The mine analogy fails to consider that we're inching ever closer to a 0% unemployment rate. We're currently in a labor market, which is probably a big part of the reason why you can get $13/hour for moving boxes. And moving boxes isn't going to hurt you. Give me two people - one that moves boxes 8 hours a day and one that sits in a chair staring at a screen for 8 hours a day, and I'd give you big odds that 20 years out that box mover is going to be in far better shape, all other things being equal. Those first months and maybe even years though are going to be tough, especially for people with soft bodies.

krapp 8y ago
>The labor we're talking about is literally moving boxes. How much should a box mover get paid? The thing is, there is the value of a job to the employer, and the value of employment to the employee. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a full time employee, at the very least, to be paid a living wage. Someone willing to commit that much of their life to a company should be compensated enough to allow them to house and feed themselves. Even if they're just "moving boxes."
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Think about what you're doing. I am asking for specific ideas and numbers, and you're responding with homily. This is what I mean. You can't just critique and moralize without offering specific workable solutions. The system we have is not great. Who wouldn't want a world where everybody could just have more or less whatever they want, live extremely comfortably, and for it to all be completely sustainable? But that's also not realistic. That's why I bring up the GDP and what it actually means. GDP is literally the market rate of every single good and service produced in this nation. And that only equals out to $50k per person. Our wealth really is in complete spite of our economy -- that's without even getting into the fact that the GDP is currently at record levels. Various areas have tried now increasing the minimum wage to a level approaching $15 with results that have been, at best, 'mixed'. The point is that you cannot simply ignore economic realities when trying to create a better life for people. This is specifically why social economic systems have been tried numerous times, yet they seem to invariably result in literal starvation. They're well intentioned, but out of touch with reality - and the consequences for putting homily above reality tend to be a brief period of feel good, followed by devastation.
  - Moodles 8y ago
    Indeed some would argue that a minimum wage can be quite damaging: for those in society who are unproductive so as not to be worth $x an hour, a minimum wage of >= $x actually definitely excludes them from the workforce. They’re even more damned than before. Now I’m not sure either way if a minimum wage of 0 or $x is a good idea, but I would generally go with whatever the evidence suggestions (and I havn’t looked into it). What I find really bizarre is why yours and mine comments are being downvotes so much. Are we not contributing to the discussion? Bit of an echo chamber around here.