6 ms·

A company as big as Amazon doesn't make as much as it does by treating workers fairly. They are the modern day version of old industrial factories. They take do

A company as big as Amazon doesn't make as much as it does by treating workers fairly. They are the modern day version of old industrial factories. They take down and out people who they know they can exploit and push them to their limits. I've seen a few places in the poorer section of states where most of the locals are forced to work in a small number of factories/plants. Even in these cases though, they are at least treated like humans. The atmosphere at some of these Amazon warehouses serves to dehumanize the workers. You are not a person, you are an object that is expected to obey very strict rules like a dog. The management at these warehouses is even worse, because it's often very abusive people who wind up in those positions.

grecy 8y ago
So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? Obviously Amazon make a lot of profit... if we forced them to treat their workers better surely they'd still make a lot of profit... just slightly less.
- LitFan 8y ago
  As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. The issue is that while the average person is lead to believe the notion that they can work hard and make enough to have a comfortable living, they can only afford it at the expense of others. The wealthy will not let that be at their expense - they want it to be at the expense of other poor people. Pitting middle class people against lower class people is a proven tactic, and that's what's happening here. Most products and services provided by companies are subsidized by providing poor working conditions or wages for their employees, in an attempt to maximize profits. If all of those subsidies were to vanish, the standard of living for most lower to middle class people would drop substantially - while the upper class would be unaffected.
  - chii 8y ago
    > most lower to middle class people would drop substantially - while the upper class would be unaffected. which is why taxation needs to be progressive. The rich who have their wealth created by using other people needs to pay a larger proportion of the tax burden to make society more comfortable for everybody. The idea is that with added infrastructure and education and healthcare paid for by the higher taxes, the poor will eventually not be forced into the position of having to slave away.
  - grecy 8y ago
    > If all of those subsidies were to vanish, the standard of living for most lower to middle class people would drop substantially I see so many discussions in US politics that go around and around and bend over backwards to never, ever propose the extremely simple and obvious solution.... (...drum roll...) Companies simply lower profits. Conditions for the workers go up with better conditions & higher pay. The prices of products and services need not change, so consumers are not worse off. It appears that what I'm saying is tantamount to blasphemy in the US, nobody is even willing to suggest lowering corporate profits as one possible option with associated pros and cons.
    - coding123 8y ago
      We just need to phrase it better: the companies that require the US to be more communist will need to pay for that communism, not everyone else.
    - LitFan 8y ago
      Lowering profits means reduced shareholder value and a lower market capitalization. Every company is interested in providing as much value to shareholders as possible. I don't know all the ins and outs, but I believe public trading and shareholders are to blame here. And again - the middle to upper middle class people who rely on returns from their investments in companies to support their standard of living think the company-shareholder relationship is entirely healthy. A shareholder provides no value to the good or service being delivered, they exist only to make profit off a transaction they have no stake in. My views here could be totally off. I welcome discussion on the topic.
      - snarfy 8y ago
        It's not that they are interested in providing as much value possible - they are legally mandated. [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
        aerotwelve 8y ago
  - ardy42 8y ago
    >> So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? > As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. There was no society-level decision made to endorse this kind of treatment.
  - 394549 8y ago
    > As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. The operations of the market, with its vast information asymmetries, does not amount to a "decision" to endorse the particular behaviors of its participants. And even if Amazon's labor practices have been reported somewhere, they haven't been reported everywhere, and it's not like Amazon is up front with its customers about its shoddy treatment of its workers. I have a lot of confidence that many of Amazon's labor practices would be banned if they were put up for a straight-up national referendum.
    - LitFan 8y ago
      You and your sibling comment are right - it's too harsh to say that society has decided they're okay with this treatment. However, I believe people need to be more aware of the decisions they make daily. Rather than passively supporting Amazon because it's the most convenient or cheapest option, investigate why they might be able to offer their service at a rate other companies in their space can't. I don't believe it's right to assume or enforce that companies disclose all of their business practices to their customers. Those practices should be audited by a regulatory body to assess whether they're humane or ethical. > I have a lot of confidence that many of Amazon's labor practices would be banned if they were put up for a straight-up national referendum. On this, I'm sure you're right. Which leads me to an interesting question: Assuming: 1) There are companies engaging in activity the majority of their potential customers would find immoral 2) One of these companies is able to provide a superior product or service at a reduced rate to their competitors 3) Information about these immoral practices is available to those customers (though they have to seek it out) Why do people still support the company? Shouldn't people suspect something is fishy with that company's offering? My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service. That may not be the case. Maybe it's that they don't have the time or capacity to evaluate this for themselves (especially for the number of businesses we all depend on daily). Maybe it's a tragedy of the commons. How can we fix this?
      - 394549 8y ago
        > Why do people still support the company? Shouldn't people suspect something is fishy with that company's offering? > My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service. That may not be the case. I think a lot of people do not have the kind of personalities that drive them to get to the bottom of things. They didn't turn a blind eye, they just never looked beyond the surface in the first place. If pressed to explain how Amazon does what it does, they'll probably hand-wave that they're a tech company that uses magic computer innovation to out-compete old-fashioned dinosaurs. > How can we fix this? I don't know, but probably the first step is a lot of awareness-raising in ways that can emotionally grab the attention of the common man. Closely related is to also raise awareness of more ethical competitors, like Costco and others. The second step is to somehow defeat the layers of pro-business propaganda and political polarization it's associated with in order to motivate real legislative action. That's a problem I have no idea how to solve.
  - aeternus 8y ago
    If the majority of the profit really is made by the 'subsidy' or delta between what companies can get away paying vs. the value provided by the low-skill worker, then it would be easy for other companies to come in and take advantage of that margin. Arbitrage should drive down the gap. Few want to consider the more likely harsh truth: The overall value produced by some low-skilled workers may be insufficient to justify even minimum wage. If that's the case, then no amount of legislation around working conditions will help since it makes more economic sense for companies to invest in automation than human capital.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  >So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? Because we live in this fantasy land of the [dead] 'American Dream', where if you work hard, absolutely bust your ass and kill yourself for 70 years, you'll get to be Jeff Bezos too. If you're complaining about your job, just get a new one, or pull your boot straps up and accept it, it's that easy. We're constantly told to suck it up and accept it. We're constantly told that these businesses are job creators and should be praised for it and when we criticize them, it's not their fault, it's the workers. We don't criticize because we can lose our job and it's extremely easy to get into homelessness now, or default on the enormous amounts of credit everyone has. The propaganda and indoctrination start from birth and is built into society. The atmosphere changed from workers having control, to businesses having full control. Businesses can't exist without workers, so workers should have control. Anyone who says workers shouldn't have control is a shareholder or business owner. To change things will take a lot of work, and possibly a major fast economic decline. People have ignored the economic decline of the working class since the late 60's, early 70's. Mainstream media and newspapers work to suppress any workers movements and tell you how great everything is (Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent goes over how this works).
  - tengbretson 8y ago
    > Because we live in this fantasy land of the [dead] 'American Dream', where if you work hard, absolutely bust your ass and kill yourself for 70 years, you'll get to be Jeff Bezos too. This never has and never will be the American Dream. The American Dream isn't a rags to riches fairy tale. The American Dream is about inter-generational class mobility. If you bust your tail all your life, you can raise your children's quality of life to a higher standard than your own. That's all its ever been and its alive and well today.
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      >The American Dream is about inter-generational class mobility. If you bust your tail all your life, you can raise your children's quality of life to a higher standard than your own. Nope. You're just proving my point too. Thanks. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/americans-overestimate-social-mobility-in-their-country https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...
- sorenjan 8y ago
  It comes down to what kind of freedom you want. Freedom for companies and their owners to treat employees however they want, or freedom for all citizens to make a living without being mistreated. It's the same thing with health care, freedom to not pay for others than yourself, or freedom to not have to worry about sudden large expenses and personal bankruptcy in case of sickness or injury.
- TimPC 8y ago
  I think the problem is Amazon makes a lot of Revenue at very small margins so they have built a culture around squeezing out every last drop of margin they can. Historically they've had a lot of negative profit years and some very tiny % profit on very high revenue. Not every large company is like this.
- war1025 8y ago
  I think the problem is working-class people are sufficiently our of sight, out of mind for the comfortable upper-middle-class people with enough sway to actually change things. When you reduce people to numbers and abstract ideas, you can treat them pretty poorly and still sleep at night.
amyjess 8y ago
Amazon's treatment of sick people is horrifying: https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/harassing-the-sick https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/harassing... I have an online friend who used to work for an Amazon fulfillment center. I say "used to", because she got fired. For being sick. She got food poisoning one day and had to take a week off. When she got sick, she put in a request via MyLeave. Two or three months later, Amazon retroactively denied her request and fired her because she went negative on UPT. That's right, months. As far as she knew, everything was going well, and all of a sudden she was called into HR and unceremoniously dumped because Amazon decided months after the fact to deny her sick leave.
- majewsky 8y ago
  To me (as a European), the concept of "denying sick leave" is just bizarre to begin with. When I present a sick note from my doctor, there is literally nothing that the employer can do about it.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    > my doctor This is also a missing piece for many, many people in the U.S.
  - chrisbennet 8y ago
    I wonder if the people working in these warehouses can even afford to go to the doctor to get the note in the first place.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Ricardus 8y ago
I live a few miles from a Walmart distribution warehouse, and had a good friend who worked there. It really started to affect his health. The working conditions are horrible, and the culture promoted is toxic and demeaning. The money was a little above average for the area, but that's about the only thing positive he could say about it. When he left, his migraines went away.
- badpun 8y ago
  Tough physical labor is not for everyone. For example, I would not last 6 months in a construction job (I easily get colds when I work outside). As long as the majority of people working in that warehouse are ok, then maybe your friend was just not suited for the job.
  - Ricardus 8y ago
    This is not just about tough working conditions. It's about the way management treats employees, and encourages employees to crap on other employees for small gains. Google "I was a distribution warehouse wage slave" and read that article. It will get you a better idea of what I am talking about.

grecy 8y ago

So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? Obviously Amazon make a lot of profit... if we forced them to treat their workers better surely they'd still make a lot of profit... just slightly less.

LitFan 8y ago
As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. The issue is that while the average person is lead to believe the notion that they can work hard and make enough to have a comfortable living, they can only afford it at the expense of others. The wealthy will not let that be at their expense - they want it to be at the expense of other poor people. Pitting middle class people against lower class people is a proven tactic, and that's what's happening here. Most products and services provided by companies are subsidized by providing poor working conditions or wages for their employees, in an attempt to maximize profits. If all of those subsidies were to vanish, the standard of living for most lower to middle class people would drop substantially - while the upper class would be unaffected.
- chii 8y ago
  > most lower to middle class people would drop substantially - while the upper class would be unaffected. which is why taxation needs to be progressive. The rich who have their wealth created by using other people needs to pay a larger proportion of the tax burden to make society more comfortable for everybody. The idea is that with added infrastructure and education and healthcare paid for by the higher taxes, the poor will eventually not be forced into the position of having to slave away.
- grecy 8y ago
  > If all of those subsidies were to vanish, the standard of living for most lower to middle class people would drop substantially I see so many discussions in US politics that go around and around and bend over backwards to never, ever propose the extremely simple and obvious solution.... (...drum roll...) Companies simply lower profits. Conditions for the workers go up with better conditions & higher pay. The prices of products and services need not change, so consumers are not worse off. It appears that what I'm saying is tantamount to blasphemy in the US, nobody is even willing to suggest lowering corporate profits as one possible option with associated pros and cons.
  - coding123 8y ago
    We just need to phrase it better: the companies that require the US to be more communist will need to pay for that communism, not everyone else.
  - LitFan 8y ago
    Lowering profits means reduced shareholder value and a lower market capitalization. Every company is interested in providing as much value to shareholders as possible. I don't know all the ins and outs, but I believe public trading and shareholders are to blame here. And again - the middle to upper middle class people who rely on returns from their investments in companies to support their standard of living think the company-shareholder relationship is entirely healthy. A shareholder provides no value to the good or service being delivered, they exist only to make profit off a transaction they have no stake in. My views here could be totally off. I welcome discussion on the topic.
    - snarfy 8y ago
      It's not that they are interested in providing as much value possible - they are legally mandated. [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
      - aerotwelve 8y ago
- ardy42 8y ago
  >> So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? > As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. There was no society-level decision made to endorse this kind of treatment.
- 394549 8y ago
  > As a society we've decided that we do, because we are. The shoddy treatment of Amazon's employees has been publicized repeatedly for years. The operations of the market, with its vast information asymmetries, does not amount to a "decision" to endorse the particular behaviors of its participants. And even if Amazon's labor practices have been reported somewhere, they haven't been reported everywhere, and it's not like Amazon is up front with its customers about its shoddy treatment of its workers. I have a lot of confidence that many of Amazon's labor practices would be banned if they were put up for a straight-up national referendum.
  - LitFan 8y ago
    You and your sibling comment are right - it's too harsh to say that society has decided they're okay with this treatment. However, I believe people need to be more aware of the decisions they make daily. Rather than passively supporting Amazon because it's the most convenient or cheapest option, investigate why they might be able to offer their service at a rate other companies in their space can't. I don't believe it's right to assume or enforce that companies disclose all of their business practices to their customers. Those practices should be audited by a regulatory body to assess whether they're humane or ethical. > I have a lot of confidence that many of Amazon's labor practices would be banned if they were put up for a straight-up national referendum. On this, I'm sure you're right. Which leads me to an interesting question: Assuming: 1) There are companies engaging in activity the majority of their potential customers would find immoral 2) One of these companies is able to provide a superior product or service at a reduced rate to their competitors 3) Information about these immoral practices is available to those customers (though they have to seek it out) Why do people still support the company? Shouldn't people suspect something is fishy with that company's offering? My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service. That may not be the case. Maybe it's that they don't have the time or capacity to evaluate this for themselves (especially for the number of businesses we all depend on daily). Maybe it's a tragedy of the commons. How can we fix this?
    - 394549 8y ago
      > Why do people still support the company? Shouldn't people suspect something is fishy with that company's offering? > My assumption to begin with is that consumers were turning a blind eye in order to keep using the service. That may not be the case. I think a lot of people do not have the kind of personalities that drive them to get to the bottom of things. They didn't turn a blind eye, they just never looked beyond the surface in the first place. If pressed to explain how Amazon does what it does, they'll probably hand-wave that they're a tech company that uses magic computer innovation to out-compete old-fashioned dinosaurs. > How can we fix this? I don't know, but probably the first step is a lot of awareness-raising in ways that can emotionally grab the attention of the common man. Closely related is to also raise awareness of more ethical competitors, like Costco and others. The second step is to somehow defeat the layers of pro-business propaganda and political polarization it's associated with in order to motivate real legislative action. That's a problem I have no idea how to solve.
- aeternus 8y ago
  If the majority of the profit really is made by the 'subsidy' or delta between what companies can get away paying vs. the value provided by the low-skill worker, then it would be easy for other companies to come in and take advantage of that margin. Arbitrage should drive down the gap. Few want to consider the more likely harsh truth: The overall value produced by some low-skilled workers may be insufficient to justify even minimum wage. If that's the case, then no amount of legislation around working conditions will help since it makes more economic sense for companies to invest in automation than human capital.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
>So the question we have to ask is do we want to live in a society where this treatment is legal? Because we live in this fantasy land of the [dead] 'American Dream', where if you work hard, absolutely bust your ass and kill yourself for 70 years, you'll get to be Jeff Bezos too. If you're complaining about your job, just get a new one, or pull your boot straps up and accept it, it's that easy. We're constantly told to suck it up and accept it. We're constantly told that these businesses are job creators and should be praised for it and when we criticize them, it's not their fault, it's the workers. We don't criticize because we can lose our job and it's extremely easy to get into homelessness now, or default on the enormous amounts of credit everyone has. The propaganda and indoctrination start from birth and is built into society. The atmosphere changed from workers having control, to businesses having full control. Businesses can't exist without workers, so workers should have control. Anyone who says workers shouldn't have control is a shareholder or business owner. To change things will take a lot of work, and possibly a major fast economic decline. People have ignored the economic decline of the working class since the late 60's, early 70's. Mainstream media and newspapers work to suppress any workers movements and tell you how great everything is (Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent goes over how this works).
- tengbretson 8y ago
  > Because we live in this fantasy land of the [dead] 'American Dream', where if you work hard, absolutely bust your ass and kill yourself for 70 years, you'll get to be Jeff Bezos too. This never has and never will be the American Dream. The American Dream isn't a rags to riches fairy tale. The American Dream is about inter-generational class mobility. If you bust your tail all your life, you can raise your children's quality of life to a higher standard than your own. That's all its ever been and its alive and well today.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    >The American Dream is about inter-generational class mobility. If you bust your tail all your life, you can raise your children's quality of life to a higher standard than your own. Nope. You're just proving my point too. Thanks. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/americans-overestimate-social-mobility-in-their-country https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...
sorenjan 8y ago
It comes down to what kind of freedom you want. Freedom for companies and their owners to treat employees however they want, or freedom for all citizens to make a living without being mistreated. It's the same thing with health care, freedom to not pay for others than yourself, or freedom to not have to worry about sudden large expenses and personal bankruptcy in case of sickness or injury.
TimPC 8y ago
I think the problem is Amazon makes a lot of Revenue at very small margins so they have built a culture around squeezing out every last drop of margin they can. Historically they've had a lot of negative profit years and some very tiny % profit on very high revenue. Not every large company is like this.
war1025 8y ago
I think the problem is working-class people are sufficiently our of sight, out of mind for the comfortable upper-middle-class people with enough sway to actually change things. When you reduce people to numbers and abstract ideas, you can treat them pretty poorly and still sleep at night.

amyjess 8y ago

Amazon's treatment of sick people is horrifying: https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/harassing-the-sick https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/harassing... I have an online friend who used to work for an Amazon fulfillment center. I say "used to", because she got fired. For being sick. She got food poisoning one day and had to take a week off. When she got sick, she put in a request via MyLeave. Two or three months later, Amazon retroactively denied her request and fired her because she went negative on UPT. That's right, months. As far as she knew, everything was going well, and all of a sudden she was called into HR and unceremoniously dumped because Amazon decided months after the fact to deny her sick leave.

majewsky 8y ago
To me (as a European), the concept of "denying sick leave" is just bizarre to begin with. When I present a sick note from my doctor, there is literally nothing that the employer can do about it.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  > my doctor This is also a missing piece for many, many people in the U.S.
- chrisbennet 8y ago
  I wonder if the people working in these warehouses can even afford to go to the doctor to get the note in the first place.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Ricardus 8y ago

I live a few miles from a Walmart distribution warehouse, and had a good friend who worked there. It really started to affect his health. The working conditions are horrible, and the culture promoted is toxic and demeaning. The money was a little above average for the area, but that's about the only thing positive he could say about it. When he left, his migraines went away.

badpun 8y ago
Tough physical labor is not for everyone. For example, I would not last 6 months in a construction job (I easily get colds when I work outside). As long as the majority of people working in that warehouse are ok, then maybe your friend was just not suited for the job.
- Ricardus 8y ago
  This is not just about tough working conditions. It's about the way management treats employees, and encourages employees to crap on other employees for small gains. Google "I was a distribution warehouse wage slave" and read that article. It will get you a better idea of what I am talking about.