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Is it not crazy that is has to come down to a Supreme Court case for Jeff Bezos and Amazon to treat their employees fairly? This isn't a company that's on a si

Is it not crazy that is has to come down to a Supreme Court case for Jeff Bezos and Amazon to treat their employees fairly? This isn't a company that's on a sink or swim margin where this will collapse the company. Not when they're fine stocking all the break rooms in corporate offices with starbucks and AWS people get shelves full snacks all day. But give an hourly employee a little more money to accommodate their self enforced security is a line too far. If you're an Amazon corporate employee, you support these decisions by working there.

notyourwork 7y ago
Snacks and coffee are laughable costs compared to salaries.
- chabes 7y ago
  This isn’t about salaries, or about Amazon not being able to afford to do the right thing. Amazon has a surplus of money.. enough to buy other large corporations, like Whole Foods. And Jeff Bezos has so much money, he literally doesn’t know what to do with it. Amazon will pay billions in legal costs before ever considering costs that actually benefit the workers.
  - gbronner 7y ago
    True story: Friend saw Jeff Bezos waiting in line for 20 minutes for a pizza. He could have paid for an uber copter to drop one on him, or offered 10k to each of the people in front of him. He didn't. He has principles, and the principle is that you work for money and then use it to buy things that you care about.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      Er, how would any of the behaviors he didn't take that you refer to violate that principle? I mean, if he cares about getting pizza, either of those would have been consistent with it. You've got an example of a choice and a principle, but the choice is in no way illustrative of the principle any more than any alternative choice, including paying gunmen to murder everyone in line in front of him, would be.
bluedevilzn 7y ago
Amazon corporate offices are extremely cheap. Absolutely shitty coffee and enough snacks for 10 people in an office floor that sits 100. It's pretty much a factory for software developers. A live-able salary is the only perk of being an Amazon corporate employee.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > A live-able salary is the only perk of being an Amazon corporate employee. Yes, that is how employment works, and the compensation is better than livable for those who would make that elsewhere. After you are a toddler, and once you are rich, do you need permission to buy snacks?
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    Spending token amounts and effort doing small things to make things nice is often taken as a sign that staff are valued. If work has shitty coffee I can of course bring my own but the kind of people that buy shitty coffee are often stingy in other ways that are more meaningful like raises. It might well be a good indication to look elsewhere.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      If you have the luxury to think about that, you can choose not to work for Amazon in R&D. I know people who used to work for Amazon and left because they didn't like that aspect, but isn't that Amazon's problem more than anything? Or is it even a problem? Maybe Amazon deliberately puts on their best Ebenezer Scrooge to weed out people with too much taste and not enough nose-to-grindstone. You guys clearly think more about what messages the workplace is sending you than maybe Amazon wants their employees to. ;- )
      - soledades 7y ago
        Exactly, Amazon would prefer employees that don't actually think too much about the company.
jon-wood 7y ago
I disagree with this decision, but Amazon are fairly well known for being one of the few big tech startups that don't have fully stocked snack supplies on every floor, and expecting staff to pay for those out of their own pocket. In all the Amazon offices I've gone to the only thing being given out for free is borderline acceptable coffee, hot water, tea bags, and milk.
- notyourwork 7y ago
  Some have a bit more than the basics you describe but generally you are correct.
- gbronner 7y ago
  Same with banks. Jeff worked in finance first. Personally, I'd rather have more money than more snacks.
Brain_Thief 7y ago
I agree with the sentiment of your post and similarly find it shocking that anyone could defend a gargantuan corporation like Amazon refusing to provide their workers with reasonable wages to support quality lives. It's worth noting that anyone who cares about this should refrain from purchasing things from the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world. The only thing these trans-human entities care about is money - that's IT. The only language they speak is money, and they will destroy the world, their human employees, and anything else that comes between them and their goal of capturing 100% of all economic power. The only thing to do is to stop feeding the beast. Don't buy shit from mega corps - no matter how convenient it is. It's unnecessary and directly helps propagate a system where sociopathic political-economic agents repress living standards for the vast majority of people so that a shockingly small number can be wealthier than kings.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >find it shocking that anyone could defend a gargantuan corporation like Amazon refusing to provide their workers with reasonable wages to support quality lives. Amazon starts at more than double federal minimum wage... it took me a decade to make 15 dollars an hour at my job...
  - Brain_Thief 7y ago
    I'm sorry that reaching what many believe should be a minimum level of income took such a prolonged period for you and I hope that moving forward you experience an easier time growing your income. Based on the tone of your response, I take it that you are not supportive of my criticism of Amazon et al. A question for you: do you wish for other people (including yourself in the future, your possible children, or your friends and family) to have to struggle to make an amount of money that can support their basic needs? The fact of the matter is that the current federal minimum wage is completely insufficient to meet the needs of a person attempting to make it in the modern world - even 2X the federal minimum is incredibly low given the uncertainties around health care and higher education / job training. When a series of corporations are vacuuming up an overwhelming majority of all productivity gains and the top 0.01% are becoming wealthier than historical princes, it is very valid and important to level a critical eye at the fairness of the situation so that we can all improve together and not have our societal progress retarded by sociopathy and greed.
StreamBright 7y ago
I do not know where you get these ideas from. Working for Amazon as a white collar guy also nothing like working for Google or any other company in California. The save money on you wherever they can. This includes getting shitty used laptops as your first device, not having extra monitors, working on a door desk, and so on. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/how-a-door-became-a-desk-and-a-symbol-of-amazon https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/how-a-door-be...
mlindner 7y ago
> If you're an Amazon corporate employee, you support these decisions by working there. It's better than supporting mass surveillance by working at Google or Facebook I'd think, if you compare to the alternative FAANG companies.

notyourwork 7y ago

Snacks and coffee are laughable costs compared to salaries.

chabes 7y ago
This isn’t about salaries, or about Amazon not being able to afford to do the right thing. Amazon has a surplus of money.. enough to buy other large corporations, like Whole Foods. And Jeff Bezos has so much money, he literally doesn’t know what to do with it. Amazon will pay billions in legal costs before ever considering costs that actually benefit the workers.
- gbronner 7y ago
  True story: Friend saw Jeff Bezos waiting in line for 20 minutes for a pizza. He could have paid for an uber copter to drop one on him, or offered 10k to each of the people in front of him. He didn't. He has principles, and the principle is that you work for money and then use it to buy things that you care about.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Er, how would any of the behaviors he didn't take that you refer to violate that principle? I mean, if he cares about getting pizza, either of those would have been consistent with it. You've got an example of a choice and a principle, but the choice is in no way illustrative of the principle any more than any alternative choice, including paying gunmen to murder everyone in line in front of him, would be.

bluedevilzn 7y ago

Amazon corporate offices are extremely cheap. Absolutely shitty coffee and enough snacks for 10 people in an office floor that sits 100. It's pretty much a factory for software developers. A live-able salary is the only perk of being an Amazon corporate employee.

microcolonel 7y ago
> A live-able salary is the only perk of being an Amazon corporate employee. Yes, that is how employment works, and the compensation is better than livable for those who would make that elsewhere. After you are a toddler, and once you are rich, do you need permission to buy snacks?
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  Spending token amounts and effort doing small things to make things nice is often taken as a sign that staff are valued. If work has shitty coffee I can of course bring my own but the kind of people that buy shitty coffee are often stingy in other ways that are more meaningful like raises. It might well be a good indication to look elsewhere.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    If you have the luxury to think about that, you can choose not to work for Amazon in R&D. I know people who used to work for Amazon and left because they didn't like that aspect, but isn't that Amazon's problem more than anything? Or is it even a problem? Maybe Amazon deliberately puts on their best Ebenezer Scrooge to weed out people with too much taste and not enough nose-to-grindstone. You guys clearly think more about what messages the workplace is sending you than maybe Amazon wants their employees to. ;- )
    - soledades 7y ago
      Exactly, Amazon would prefer employees that don't actually think too much about the company.

jon-wood 7y ago

I disagree with this decision, but Amazon are fairly well known for being one of the few big tech startups that don't have fully stocked snack supplies on every floor, and expecting staff to pay for those out of their own pocket. In all the Amazon offices I've gone to the only thing being given out for free is borderline acceptable coffee, hot water, tea bags, and milk.

notyourwork 7y ago
Some have a bit more than the basics you describe but generally you are correct.
gbronner 7y ago
Same with banks. Jeff worked in finance first. Personally, I'd rather have more money than more snacks.

Brain_Thief 7y ago

I agree with the sentiment of your post and similarly find it shocking that anyone could defend a gargantuan corporation like Amazon refusing to provide their workers with reasonable wages to support quality lives. It's worth noting that anyone who cares about this should refrain from purchasing things from the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world. The only thing these trans-human entities care about is money - that's IT. The only language they speak is money, and they will destroy the world, their human employees, and anything else that comes between them and their goal of capturing 100% of all economic power. The only thing to do is to stop feeding the beast. Don't buy shit from mega corps - no matter how convenient it is. It's unnecessary and directly helps propagate a system where sociopathic political-economic agents repress living standards for the vast majority of people so that a shockingly small number can be wealthier than kings.

ryanmercer 7y ago
>find it shocking that anyone could defend a gargantuan corporation like Amazon refusing to provide their workers with reasonable wages to support quality lives. Amazon starts at more than double federal minimum wage... it took me a decade to make 15 dollars an hour at my job...
- Brain_Thief 7y ago
  I'm sorry that reaching what many believe should be a minimum level of income took such a prolonged period for you and I hope that moving forward you experience an easier time growing your income. Based on the tone of your response, I take it that you are not supportive of my criticism of Amazon et al. A question for you: do you wish for other people (including yourself in the future, your possible children, or your friends and family) to have to struggle to make an amount of money that can support their basic needs? The fact of the matter is that the current federal minimum wage is completely insufficient to meet the needs of a person attempting to make it in the modern world - even 2X the federal minimum is incredibly low given the uncertainties around health care and higher education / job training. When a series of corporations are vacuuming up an overwhelming majority of all productivity gains and the top 0.01% are becoming wealthier than historical princes, it is very valid and important to level a critical eye at the fairness of the situation so that we can all improve together and not have our societal progress retarded by sociopathy and greed.

StreamBright 7y ago

I do not know where you get these ideas from. Working for Amazon as a white collar guy also nothing like working for Google or any other company in California. The save money on you wherever they can. This includes getting shitty used laptops as your first device, not having extra monitors, working on a door desk, and so on. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/how-a-door-became-a-desk-and-a-symbol-of-amazon https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/how-a-door-be...

mlindner 7y ago

> If you're an Amazon corporate employee, you support these decisions by working there. It's better than supporting mass surveillance by working at Google or Facebook I'd think, if you compare to the alternative FAANG companies.