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Good! > [Employee:] "They talk to you like you’re a robot." Freudian slips. > She said she’s insulted by the company’s "power hours" in which employees are p

• steve19 8y ago
  Why is it disgusting? In a lot of job people are expected to rush to get things done. I know a lawyer who was fired because she didn't get a payment executed by 5pm (it ended up costing someone a lot of money)
  • krapp 8y ago
    Lawyers are compensated better for their time than Amazon warehouse workers. The raffle tickets aren't for, you know, a performance bonus or anything of value, it's just a cheap gimmick.
    • songshu 8y ago
      Also the reason lawyers make so much is that they have the best trade unions ever. There’s a reason you can’t buy legal services from Walmart.
      • jstanley 8y ago
        No, the reason lawyers make so much is that they have knowledge and skills that are in high demand and that most people don't have. Software developers don't have any trade union at all, and we're paid well. The reason you can't buy legal services from Walmart is the same reason you can't buy software development from Walmart. It's just not their business.
        • badpun 8y ago
          In Poland, lawyers got deunionized to a large degree around 10 years ago, and the result is that most lawyers with private practices are no longer making great money, or are plain struggling. The only ones who make a very good living are those in niche specialisations, handling corporate interests.
          • arethuza 8y ago
            In the UK at least, a lot of lawyers (particularly partners of small firms) make a lot less money than people might think.
        • songshu 8y ago
          Can you imagine how much more software developers would earn if we were unionized as lawyers are? If you couldn't practice without a license? If you needed to go school for $$$ before being licensed?
      • icebraining 8y ago
        > There’s a reason you can’t buy legal services from Walmart. Well, actually... "The Law Store offers fast, face­-to­-face legal services in convenient Walmart locations."
        • songshu 8y ago
          I looked briefly and, correct me if you know better, but I believe The Law Store is a business partner of Walmart rather than being owned by it. So when you pay them you are not paying Walmart shareholders but its owners (who are lawyers)
          • icebraining 8y ago
            Yeah, fair enough :) I wasn't making a serious rebuttal, sorry for not being clear.
      • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        Lawyers typically don't make all that much money until they a bunch of years and experience under their belt. You're not paying for legal representation. You're paying for all the time and effort the lawyer spend establishing their professional reputation. You or I would get laughed out of court. A professional lawyer could show up, say the same things and get taken seriously.
  • dgzl 8y ago
    I agree with your sentiment, but I can see how this would be different. A lawyer has a career of very unique hard work that requires much self discipline, but success brings great rewards. I imagine a fulfillment center probably feels somewhat like a a cage, where "working harder" just means running the hamster wheel faster. Relatively mundane work doesn't get any more interesting the faster you do it.
  • chimprich 8y ago
    It's disgusting because it's undignified. Workers should receive a decent wage for work performed, not pressured to perform as fast as possible for gimmicks in an ever quicker race to the bottom to see who can wreck their health the fastest. It's not as if Amazon can't afford to provide decent working conditions.
    • time-domain0 8y ago
      Amazon UK had bathrooms outside of airport-style security where workers had to regularly pee in soda bottles because their minimum performance goals didn't allow time for the distant odyssey and security theater required for a bathroom break.
      • shubb 8y ago
        So power hours are actually the hour before lunch, and everyone is running around because they are desperately trying to hold it in?
    • orbifold 8y ago
      They literally can’t afford it, they have razor thin margins. Their business model depends on inhumane working conditions, which is why I would be glad to see them go (not that this will happen, but at least in Germany they have received some pushback against their practices)
      • krapp 8y ago
        They raised base pay across the entire network just to avoid bad PR. I suspect Amazon could find the money if they wanted to.
        • onetimemanytime 8y ago
          >>I suspect Amazon could find the money if they wanted to. Or they can close down the shop if they can't find the money to do the right /required thing.
  • geezerjay 8y ago
    > Why is it disgusting? They're being treated like dogs, pressured to perform tricks in exchange of a treat. I mean, move fast to receive raffle tickets? Seriously?
    • prepend 8y ago
      This seems pretty reductive of all labor since we perform tricks (show up to work) in exchange for treats (wages). The context of this practice matters quite a bit, but it’s hard to say that work incentive programs are undignified because dogs get treats for tasks.
      • geezerjay 8y ago
        Working is not a trick and earning your livelihood is not a treat. A lousy raffle isn't even a form of income.
        • prepend 8y ago
          Working is a series of tricks that I would never do unless I got a bunch of treats. And a raffle is literally a form of income since it has value and is taxed as income. Perhaps you mean getting a raffle ticket and losing isn’t income.
    • AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
      > pressured to perform tricks in exchange of a treat. You've just described my whole life...
  • simias 8y ago
    The gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening. You can rationalize it any way you want but more and more people are shocked by the obscenity to have people like Jeff Bezos sleep on mattresses filled with dollar bills while the people working for his company are paid crap wages for an exhausting and unfulfilling job. I'm not saying that Bezos and the people packing goods in a warehouse should be paid equally but the absolutely obvious unfairness of the modern capitalist economy is simply unbearable for more and more people. The fact that many people still don't seem to have any issue with having somebody earn effectively a thousand times more money than their employees is absolutely baffling. And then they go around shopping for tax rebates for their new headquarters. Everything is fine people, the system is working. IMO this (and global warming) are going to be the downfall of capitalism. There's too much greed. Too many rich people complaining about taxes while people sleep in the streets. As a result people will turn more and more towards populists as they feel betrayed by the elites. That's how you end up with Trump, Bolsonaro, the populist government in Italy and the current protests in France. People know that they are getting shafted.
  • internet_user 8y ago
    pretty sure lawyers don't work for raffle tickets.
• aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
  >power hours The proven solution is to rename "power hours" to "hackathons".
  • amf12 8y ago
    > rename "power hours" to "hackathons". The key word here is "pressured". There is no pressure to perform or participate in a hackathon. You can work on your own pace, or choose to dropout. Almost all of the people who participate do so because of their interest and not to win a trophy or some cash.
    • aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
      >There is no pressure to perform or participate in a hackathon I guess you haven't had the pleasure of participating in monthly workplace "hackathons". Of course participation is optional, but it can look good on your promotion case wink-wink nudge-nudge.
      • maxxxxx 8y ago
        They tried to do a hackathon at my company but after initial interest a lot of people dropped out so in the end it was cancelled. I think hackathons could be fun but they should either be done independently from a company or do something that's not of any direct value to the company but something fun.
      • adetrest 8y ago
        The trick is to not care about internal promotion. You can also get promoted as you change jobs.
        • aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
          Indeed as an engineer this is the best course of action in our industry.
  • simias 8y ago
    There's definitely a parallel but I don't think you can put on the same level the sort of pressure unskilled and low-wage workers get in Amazon warehouses to the stress we get as skilled workers in the software industry. We are (on average) much better paid, we can (usually) find an other job easily and overall we (generally) have a much better quality of life. My brother worked in one of these warehouses (not for Amazon, but more or less the same crap) and frankly I think it's a bit obscene to compare this situation to software engineering. It's exhausting, it's boring, it's unfulfilling, the turnover rate is huge, you can't really socialize with your coworkers (partly because they change so fast, but also because you have no time and you're often competing with each other). I'm sure in the near future the vast majority of these jobs will be replaced by machines though. It's a bad thing for employment but I don't think I'll be sad to see them go. Let the machines to the boring work then take the wealth generated and redistribute it to the population to do actually interesting things! Technology should free the people, not enslave it to machines.
• time-domain0 8y ago
  It's capitalism: cannibalize and sell-out the commonwealth, extract monies to the detriment of externalities borne by citizens on the vague, unfulfilled promises of jobs and tax paying workers because corporations own the political class. Welfare for the rich, crushing austerity and paycheck-to-paycheck 3 jobs/sleepless "trickledown" lies for everyone else. Income inequality is so obscene that it's far worse than the Gilded Age. Watch this infographic chart video showing the current distribution: https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM
  • jopsen 8y ago
    Capitalism doesn't have to cannibalize. Often it works to everyone's benefit. Unions is also a legitimate force in capitalism. In many ways it could be good for Amazon. If gives them a way to deal evenly with their employees. Of course, a union has to recognize that it's not blindly serving its members, if it drives companies out of business. Like hindering technological advancement by refusing automation.
    • geezerjay 8y ago
      > Unions is also a legitimate force in capitalism. In many ways it could be good for Amazon. If gives them a way to deal evenly with their employees. This. Capitalism is all about freedom of association. Unions only start to become incompatible with capitalism if they start to force themselves as a monopoly to control who may or may not work for a company.
      • cmrdporcupine 8y ago
        I like to make the distinction between guilds (limiting access to professions and employers and controlling seniority and positions) and unions (collective bargaining). In most western countries the line between the two is heavily blurred, to the detriment of the union movement which has suffered heavily over the last 40 years.
  • thanatropism 8y ago
    Income inequality is not the issue here or in the Gilded Age. It's monopoly power. Of course, in the Gilded Age monopoly power was enabled and defended by capital concentration. Not so now: global interest rates are at a historical low, often pushing the negative barrier, and capital is so swamped that its owners are begging any fool with anything that call itself an idea to take it. The microeconomic issue in each case is increasing returns to scale, which builds huge protective moats around the big industrial players. But now increasing returns to scale are enabled by nearly-free technology - industrial production in the gilded age required expensive and heavily patented machinery, while now every relevant tool is at hand, either for $0 or for peanuts. It's not "monopoly capital" as made famous by American marxists such as Paul Sweezy. It's quickly drifting away from "capitalism" as defined by K. Marx himself. We need to understand the differences if we're going to protect and improve the lives of those less empowered to escape drudgery and the rat race.
• watty 8y ago
  I admit I haven't read the article but what's disgusting about incentivizing employee efficiency with prizes? What's weird to me is that these people aren't forced to work there. They're working there because it's their BEST option.
  • adrianN 8y ago
    Unions form to prevent a race to the bottom. Individual employees have no power at all, so employers can keep pushing them. Changing jobs is not frictionless, even in a good job market. Most people who work in low-paying positions can't afford to miss a few months of pay because they quit their job to look for something better. Since people have to work to survive, especially in the US with its poor social safety net, you get situations where people are forced to take a job no matter how exploitative it is.
    • AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
      Individual employees have a power of moving to another employer. There are professions when skill transfer is problematic, like a railroad engineer, but warehouse worker is not one of them. It is indeed not frictionless and requires some effort, but it's certainly doable.
      • SolaceQuantum 8y ago
        > It is indeed not frictionless and requires some effort, but it's certainly doable. You've just explained why this power isn't realistic to invoke. If you're a warehouse worker, can you afford the unemployment time long enough to find another job? Can your family?
        • AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
          I think yelling "I quit!" and slamming the door happens only in movies. In real life most people first secure a new job and then resign from their current position. To answer your question: no, my family cannot afford me not working for half a year as well. I believe this is the case for most of people not living with parents.
• onetimemanytime 8y ago
  >>so the resolution Amazon is getting at probably is probably “you’re fired.” I remember reading that are a gazillion rules and regulations on attempted unionization, so "you're fired" might not be it.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • msrpotus 8y ago
    Oh, Amazon won’t explicitly say they’re being fired for trying to unionize. There’ll be some cover story that the workers violated some rule no one ever heard of and everyone else ignored, too.
    • AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
      Sounds like an employment attorney's dream.
  • maxlybbert 8y ago
    New York City is an expensive place for a warehouse. I believe it only exists so Amazon can offer same day delivery to millions of people. I have no idea how valuable that is to Amazon, but it’s apparently valuable enough that they already accept incredibly high costs. They may just accept the union as one of those costs. But I understand that it’s possible to put a passage in the employee handbook that “if you belong to a union, the following does not apply to you; check your union agreement for details,” and to offer some benefits, such as profit-sharing, only to nonunion employees. Since labor law is complex, I don’t know what limits exist on that approach.
    • jsjohnst 8y ago
      Amazon has two warehouses that I know of in NYC. One is next to the Empire State Building, the other is in Brooklyn along the East River. They are both “Prime Now” facilities with the option to have stuff delivered in under an hour. Prime Now isn’t only in NYC, they have it in about 25 cities in the US currently. It’s not the best known of Amazon services oddly, probably partly due to the separate app. Edit: Guess the number is closer to 75 now. It originally started in NYC several years ago, but has rapidly expanded now. See the cities list by clicking on the “see all cities” link below where you can enter your zip code here: https://primenow.amazon.com/storefront https://primenow.amazon.com/storefront
• platz 8y ago
  > directly to their management team keep everything private do not collaborate
• Jgrubb 8y ago
  If you want to hear a really sad, frustrating story about this - > let the local governments race each other with tax breaks and other ‘incentives’, the winner gets a negligible shot at profits. I highly recommend the latest Reply All - https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-pleasant#episode-player https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-ple.... It's about that town in Wisconsin that "won" the new Foxconn factory.
• behringer 8y ago
  I can guarantee you amazon would not only fire these workers, but would close down the entire warehouse if needed