7 ms·

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

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.
    - krapp 8y ago
      > 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 Wages are not objectively determined on the basis of worker productivity. If that were the case, wages would rise with productivity, but they tend not to. Wages are a cost that employers want to keep as low as possible in all cases - indeed, lower in cases of higher productivity, for a greater return on investment. A stower at Amazon can make their monthly salary for the company in minutes by stowing a couple of XBoxes, yet they'll make the same 12.00/hr over a ten hour shift regardless. The value that an employee brings to a company is always less than their compensation. Never more, and certainly never equal. I'm not certain the actual workforce bears out the premise that a minimum wage definitely prices workers out, since if it did, one would expect none of those jobs to be filled, since no employer should want to pay a minimum wage to fill them.
      - Moodles 8y ago
        I read your post several times and I still don't know what statement of mine you're contesting.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        I think your post is a clear example of why people seem to rage completely inappropriately. I'm sure your example was rhetorical, but do you realize how rhetorical it was? People seem to vastly overestimate how much companies make per item. Amazon's profit margin is currently at record breaking levels -- of 4.79%. It historically averages around 2%. That means on e.g. $300 of product (as a game console costs), they would show an average profit of $6-$14. They need to move hundreds of thousands of dollars of product to pay the yearly salary for a single blue-collar worker. A box mover is making nowhere near his monthly compensation for moving a couple of XBoxes, even we ignore the vast number of other expenses that go into the process and pretend that 100% of the profit from those boxes can go straight to him. As for minimum wage, businesses aren't identical -- even when they are. For instance a McDonald's franchise in one area of a mostly homogenous part of town can end up having a substantially different overall performance than one in a different area in our mostly homogenous town. There's a large number of variables that can be difficult to account for. And of course reality is different businesses operating in different areas in heterogeneous towns. So you don't eliminate all jobs of a given wage level - you just reduce the demand for them by removing all companies that can't afford to pay those wages.
detaro 8y ago
Convincingly wiping out those "isolated incidents" would be a good start. Making sure those can be safely reported, and systemic reasons encouraging them are removed. Low pay is one thing, bad working conditions another, the latter being a lot harder to justify.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Completely agreed about trying to ensure there are as few systemic issues as possible. But on the issue of 'isolated incidents', you have to be realistic. Amazon's size alone would put it as the 31st largest city in the US. And they, like ever more companies, have massive turnover at all levels. Expectation of no isolated incidents is equivalent to expectation of never hiring bad apples -- and that's just impossible. It's impossible even at much smaller companies. The only difference is when Amazon screws up, it makes front page international news, and when e.g. you or I screw up, the response is much more isolated.
  - detaro 8y ago
    Sure, Amazon is also under special scrutiny here, but also has to my knowledge never made a strong public statement admitting any of this ever happened and how it has been corrected. They certainly look like they don't particularly care.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Let's say you're Jeff Bezos, and you genuinely and completely care about the situation and are doing everything you can to remedy it. I'm not saying he is, but just for the sake of argument. Would you then make that strong public statement? I wouldn't. To explain why, why do you think it is that most of all politicians give non-answers or the most banal safe, focus tested, and inane answers to everything? I mean we elect these people. Do we like that behavior? Well ostensibly no, but consider how we react when a politician does or says anything that might outrage any possible group or segment of society. It spreads like wildfire and we collectively freak out and ensure they're replaced in rapid order by somebody better. Who's that "better" politician? The one who doesn't tell you anything. So while we complain to no end about having lying, duplicitous politicians who never give a straight answer - we ensure that they're the only people that can make it in to office. Back to Amazon. You admit some weakness and acknowledge a problem and assure people you're going to try to focus on doing better. Are people going to positively receive this message, appreciate your forthrightness, and look forward to future developments. Or are they going to focus on the fact that you just acknowledged a very major issue and utilize that to try to generate even more outrage? And should something, completely outside of Amazon's control, some freak incident occur again - will society understand that they can't stop every single thing? Or will people instead use that as "proof" that Amazon was lying all along and use it generate even greater outrage. You see, since one bad happened - they must have been lying all along... And on top of this all, we have no attention span. Remember Equifax? Of course you do, but they've probably already started to slip from your mind and become just another blur in the history of things we were fumingly angry at for a week or two, before something else caught our attention. Amazon acknowledging the issue not only stands to turn against them, but makes even less sense given that the issue will disappear from the public mind imminently - especially with elections just around the corner. Our online behavior is shaping the optimal way for companies to treat us. And I think that we're doing exactly what we do in politics - ensuring nobody but demons can survive, and then complaining when all we have are demons.
TheLegace 8y ago
Being in that position for many years. Its not about they pay so much as its about the pressure to constantly be working in extremely unhealthy physical and mental way. Which takes its toll long term. Something that took me years to recover from and I'm the lucky one. Don't expect people working in factories their entire life to pick up programming/software development because their minds will be warped by the repetitive nature of all these activities, which only reinforce all their problems day to day making life even worse. All they can think about is their problems while they are mindlessly doing repetitive work. If your going to force people to live like that, and it definitely is not a choice anyone makes you might as well give them a little dignity and not treat them like a machine. Don't put insane pressures on them leading them to pee in bottles. The rate thing is evil lets be honest. If you had to program every day certain lines of code and your performance was judged based on that and how long you went to the bathroom you would go nuts too.

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.
  - krapp 8y ago
    > 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 Wages are not objectively determined on the basis of worker productivity. If that were the case, wages would rise with productivity, but they tend not to. Wages are a cost that employers want to keep as low as possible in all cases - indeed, lower in cases of higher productivity, for a greater return on investment. A stower at Amazon can make their monthly salary for the company in minutes by stowing a couple of XBoxes, yet they'll make the same 12.00/hr over a ten hour shift regardless. The value that an employee brings to a company is always less than their compensation. Never more, and certainly never equal. I'm not certain the actual workforce bears out the premise that a minimum wage definitely prices workers out, since if it did, one would expect none of those jobs to be filled, since no employer should want to pay a minimum wage to fill them.
    - Moodles 8y ago
      I read your post several times and I still don't know what statement of mine you're contesting.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I think your post is a clear example of why people seem to rage completely inappropriately. I'm sure your example was rhetorical, but do you realize how rhetorical it was? People seem to vastly overestimate how much companies make per item. Amazon's profit margin is currently at record breaking levels -- of 4.79%. It historically averages around 2%. That means on e.g. $300 of product (as a game console costs), they would show an average profit of $6-$14. They need to move hundreds of thousands of dollars of product to pay the yearly salary for a single blue-collar worker. A box mover is making nowhere near his monthly compensation for moving a couple of XBoxes, even we ignore the vast number of other expenses that go into the process and pretend that 100% of the profit from those boxes can go straight to him. As for minimum wage, businesses aren't identical -- even when they are. For instance a McDonald's franchise in one area of a mostly homogenous part of town can end up having a substantially different overall performance than one in a different area in our mostly homogenous town. There's a large number of variables that can be difficult to account for. And of course reality is different businesses operating in different areas in heterogeneous towns. So you don't eliminate all jobs of a given wage level - you just reduce the demand for them by removing all companies that can't afford to pay those wages.

detaro 8y ago

Convincingly wiping out those "isolated incidents" would be a good start. Making sure those can be safely reported, and systemic reasons encouraging them are removed. Low pay is one thing, bad working conditions another, the latter being a lot harder to justify.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Completely agreed about trying to ensure there are as few systemic issues as possible. But on the issue of 'isolated incidents', you have to be realistic. Amazon's size alone would put it as the 31st largest city in the US. And they, like ever more companies, have massive turnover at all levels. Expectation of no isolated incidents is equivalent to expectation of never hiring bad apples -- and that's just impossible. It's impossible even at much smaller companies. The only difference is when Amazon screws up, it makes front page international news, and when e.g. you or I screw up, the response is much more isolated.
- detaro 8y ago
  Sure, Amazon is also under special scrutiny here, but also has to my knowledge never made a strong public statement admitting any of this ever happened and how it has been corrected. They certainly look like they don't particularly care.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Let's say you're Jeff Bezos, and you genuinely and completely care about the situation and are doing everything you can to remedy it. I'm not saying he is, but just for the sake of argument. Would you then make that strong public statement? I wouldn't. To explain why, why do you think it is that most of all politicians give non-answers or the most banal safe, focus tested, and inane answers to everything? I mean we elect these people. Do we like that behavior? Well ostensibly no, but consider how we react when a politician does or says anything that might outrage any possible group or segment of society. It spreads like wildfire and we collectively freak out and ensure they're replaced in rapid order by somebody better. Who's that "better" politician? The one who doesn't tell you anything. So while we complain to no end about having lying, duplicitous politicians who never give a straight answer - we ensure that they're the only people that can make it in to office. Back to Amazon. You admit some weakness and acknowledge a problem and assure people you're going to try to focus on doing better. Are people going to positively receive this message, appreciate your forthrightness, and look forward to future developments. Or are they going to focus on the fact that you just acknowledged a very major issue and utilize that to try to generate even more outrage? And should something, completely outside of Amazon's control, some freak incident occur again - will society understand that they can't stop every single thing? Or will people instead use that as "proof" that Amazon was lying all along and use it generate even greater outrage. You see, since one bad happened - they must have been lying all along... And on top of this all, we have no attention span. Remember Equifax? Of course you do, but they've probably already started to slip from your mind and become just another blur in the history of things we were fumingly angry at for a week or two, before something else caught our attention. Amazon acknowledging the issue not only stands to turn against them, but makes even less sense given that the issue will disappear from the public mind imminently - especially with elections just around the corner. Our online behavior is shaping the optimal way for companies to treat us. And I think that we're doing exactly what we do in politics - ensuring nobody but demons can survive, and then complaining when all we have are demons.

TheLegace 8y ago

Being in that position for many years. Its not about they pay so much as its about the pressure to constantly be working in extremely unhealthy physical and mental way. Which takes its toll long term. Something that took me years to recover from and I'm the lucky one. Don't expect people working in factories their entire life to pick up programming/software development because their minds will be warped by the repetitive nature of all these activities, which only reinforce all their problems day to day making life even worse. All they can think about is their problems while they are mindlessly doing repetitive work. If your going to force people to live like that, and it definitely is not a choice anyone makes you might as well give them a little dignity and not treat them like a machine. Don't put insane pressures on them leading them to pee in bottles. The rate thing is evil lets be honest. If you had to program every day certain lines of code and your performance was judged based on that and how long you went to the bathroom you would go nuts too.