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I worked as a union picker for a warehouse in 2001 - I was just there until I went to college, but if I had stayed for a year the 12.50 an hour I was making wou

I worked as a union picker for a warehouse in 2001 - I was just there until I went to college, but if I had stayed for a year the 12.50 an hour I was making would have been raised to 16.50, and subject to raises as I stayed longer. Nearly 20 years later, and under a tighter labor market, amazon has raised the minimum for pickers to $15 an hour. It's great that this guy likes his job, but I have no doubt that amazon has been a suppressive force on waged labor.

throwawayjava 7y ago
Anecdotal, but I have a pretty good before/after view on a community that got an Amazon fulfillment center. As far as I can tell, there hasn't been much impact on wages in either direction in that particular local labor market. Without strong unions, the labor market keeps warehouse wages at "just high enough that you can have a slightly better life than what you could get working in the service industry". There's always excess supply because warehouse work -- although physically demanding -- is relatively accessible.
tw2019072089237 7y ago
Meanwhile, over 6 years ago, when the economy had barely even started bouncing back, Walmart was paying me—and other newish employees with short tenure—over $17/hr for this type of work. But look at mainstream attitudes towards the two companies and try measuring opinion about willingness to say something like "I bought it at Walmart" vs "I bought it from Amazon". There's more, though. And I write all this as a pro-social, anti-libertarian leftist: The obsession with trying to "help" the workers in these jobs—and in industries like Uber—mirrors a lot of the arguments you'll see in the pro-life vs pro-choice debate. People are fond of pointing out that conservatives care disproportionately about unborn fetuses when measured against how willing conservatives are to let infants be thrown to the wolves after birth. I see the public outcry that something has to be done about these companies (so as to help their workers, but comparatively little care for what's in store for those workers after the movement's immediate goals are met) as the left's own paradox (to call it by a charitable term; "hypocrisy" if you're less worried about hurting anyone's feelings). Shouldn't be surprising. Most "opinion" is accounted for as a bunch of dumb trends and fashion and idpol talking points more than it is arrived at by thoughtful consideration.
- dang 7y ago
  Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but do need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- objectivetruth 7y ago
  Uh, what's the paradox? What pro-labor leftists are yelling "We only care about the minimum wage! We don't care about any other worker issues, nor structural economic and societal issues such as automation!" Also don't see a ton of "pro-social, anti-libertarian leftists" defending Walmart's labor practices with outrageous anecdata and dismissively saying "idpol" but I'll charitably presume you're just a sincere outlier and not something more ominous. EDIT: just saw dang's comment and I think I was baited by a troll, but I'll leave my comment as-is.

throwawayjava 7y ago

Anecdotal, but I have a pretty good before/after view on a community that got an Amazon fulfillment center. As far as I can tell, there hasn't been much impact on wages in either direction in that particular local labor market. Without strong unions, the labor market keeps warehouse wages at "just high enough that you can have a slightly better life than what you could get working in the service industry". There's always excess supply because warehouse work -- although physically demanding -- is relatively accessible.

tw2019072089237 7y ago

Meanwhile, over 6 years ago, when the economy had barely even started bouncing back, Walmart was paying me—and other newish employees with short tenure—over $17/hr for this type of work. But look at mainstream attitudes towards the two companies and try measuring opinion about willingness to say something like "I bought it at Walmart" vs "I bought it from Amazon". There's more, though. And I write all this as a pro-social, anti-libertarian leftist: The obsession with trying to "help" the workers in these jobs—and in industries like Uber—mirrors a lot of the arguments you'll see in the pro-life vs pro-choice debate. People are fond of pointing out that conservatives care disproportionately about unborn fetuses when measured against how willing conservatives are to let infants be thrown to the wolves after birth. I see the public outcry that something has to be done about these companies (so as to help their workers, but comparatively little care for what's in store for those workers after the movement's immediate goals are met) as the left's own paradox (to call it by a charitable term; "hypocrisy" if you're less worried about hurting anyone's feelings). Shouldn't be surprising. Most "opinion" is accounted for as a bunch of dumb trends and fashion and idpol talking points more than it is arrived at by thoughtful consideration.

dang 7y ago
Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but do need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
objectivetruth 7y ago
Uh, what's the paradox? What pro-labor leftists are yelling "We only care about the minimum wage! We don't care about any other worker issues, nor structural economic and societal issues such as automation!" Also don't see a ton of "pro-social, anti-libertarian leftists" defending Walmart's labor practices with outrageous anecdata and dismissively saying "idpol" but I'll charitably presume you're just a sincere outlier and not something more ominous. EDIT: just saw dang's comment and I think I was baited by a troll, but I'll leave my comment as-is.