5 ms·

Amazon workers say they’re doing “back-breaking” work without paid time off

27 points by 0xmohit 7y ago

vondur 7y ago
I’m going to guess they work them up to the limit of part time hours. Then you don’t have to pay for health insurance or paid time off. This is very common in the fast food industry.
- mofosyne 7y ago
  But what could we be doing to stop this from happening? Could it be that we need more granular binning of people between part time to full time work, with increasingly increased full time rights?
  - vondur 7y ago
    Well, the most obvious is to have some sort of universal health care coverage that can be separated from your place of employment.
    - beatgammit 7y ago
      I agree with the second part (separate health insurance from employment), but I disagree that we need universal health care. I think we should remove all incentives for employers to offer insurance and require employers to make the cash value of any benefits available to employees upon request (and make that option clear at hiring time). Basically, when your employer shows you a "total compensation" amount, you should be able to get that in your paycheck if you so choose. I also think we should encourage (maybe require) insurance companies to offer long-term contracts at a fixed rate, adjusted only to account for inflation and changing costs (uniform across all customers). We can continue the subsidies for poorer people if we want. This would essentially be a market-driven "universal healthcare", but it's opt-in. Maybe we need universal healthcare, but I feel like that's a bit overkill. I feel like we can ease into it by expanding on the ACA and getting more people to get insurance outside of their employment.
      - brianwawok 7y ago
        A lot of people just don’t pay for insurance given the facts. A Family of 4 in their 40s are in for what, $1800 a month for health insurance? If your total income is $5000 a month you just don’t pay it. You still go to the ER when you get real sick, but you just deal with it then.
    - masonic 7y ago
      No, the most obvious step is to stop giving them your business.
thecleaner 7y ago
Man, Amazon is is one asshole of a company. I wonder what people like Bezos actually thinks about these workers. Whether they are even considered human or not. I guess not.
- madengr 7y ago
  Liabilities in need of replacement by robots.
  - bransonf 7y ago
    Not to defend Amazon here, but if the market demands cheaper products, which necessitates a ton of labor, and laborers are being overworked... Doesn’t replacing them with robots actually sound like a viable solution? The market demands this work, but we recognize it’s unreasonable to subject humans to these conditions.
    - gurumeditations 7y ago
      That depends on if you’re on the side of the capitalist or the side of labor. Capital holders would take that point of view but labor might say capital should make the work more reasonable and hire more labor to make up the difference.
      - beatgammit 7y ago
        Isn't there a third argument in favor of retraining those workers to do less labor intensive jobs? We have plenty of immigrants that would love to have those jobs at those wages, so retraining would be better for both groups, no?
jdkee 7y ago
Why don't the workers unionize? Oh, because Amazon is run by a bunch of amoral people. The leadership is inhumane. https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-revealed-in-leake-1829305201 https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-re... https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277322/amazon-fired-warehouse-worker-staten-island-union https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277322/amazon-fired-warehous... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/how-amazon-is-fighting-back-against-workers-efforts-to-unionize.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/how-amazon-is-fighting-back-...
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Unionizing is the solution to unfair leadership. If the workers are hard to replace, then forming a union will probably work. If they're easy to replace, then they're getting precisely what their labor is worth. Since the wage seems to be higher than minimum wage, there's obviously some value in keeping them, which means a strike may work. Unemployment is very low right now, so I'm sure there are plenty of other jobs available. The fact that people continue to work for Amazon suggests that quitting is worse than continuing to show up at work, so I'm really not sure what people expect. I'm guessing it's just that Amazon is seen as a tech company and therefore is expected to treat their warehouse workers closer to tech employees than warehouse employees?
blacksmith_tb 7y ago
I'm curious how they attract people to work for them, if it's common knowledge they are terrible to work for? Is that there just aren't enough other, better warehouse jobs? The few folks I have known who worked in warehouses (non-AMZN ones) generally didn't like the work, but I didn't hear outright horror stories like these.
- whb07 7y ago
  Because there’s a disconnect in what’s narrated and reality. To a person coming from tech, $15/hr (starting) sounds like a joke but to many that’s a multiple more of what they could get elsewhere (if anything). So say you’re living in outskirts of Atlanta, it’s definitely a better wage than <insert terrible low skilled labor job>. Not to mention there are benefits and better conditions (clean environment, stable job etc). Everyone else is poopooing this from their skewed lenses of a highly paid metropolitan prism.
- Jasper_ 7y ago
  Because it's a job? Most people don't have the leisure to decide who to work for, and when you're at a time-consuming, expensive job, you don't really have the time or freedom to interview around at other places either.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  Because tons of people do difficult and dirty jobs, that is how the world works around you. I'm on 100% side of the workers but people having cozy office jobs are simply disconnected with the reality.
  - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
    Right, but the reporting at least suggests Amazon is worse than comparable back-breaking warehouse work - is it just that shitty treatment by management at other warehouses isn't in the news, or are they actually different?
MiguelFCA 7y ago
Uummm not true....I work at Amazon and I get Paid time off, Unpaid time off, and Vacation hours as well. I mean I even get two 30 min breaks and one of them is paid! The work really isnt bad. when i stow im standing in one spot restocking products.

27 points by 0xmohit 7y ago

I’m going to guess they work them up to the limit of part time hours. Then you don’t have to pay for health insurance or paid time off. This is very common in the fast food industry.

mofosyne 7y ago
But what could we be doing to stop this from happening? Could it be that we need more granular binning of people between part time to full time work, with increasingly increased full time rights?
- vondur 7y ago
  Well, the most obvious is to have some sort of universal health care coverage that can be separated from your place of employment.
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    I agree with the second part (separate health insurance from employment), but I disagree that we need universal health care. I think we should remove all incentives for employers to offer insurance and require employers to make the cash value of any benefits available to employees upon request (and make that option clear at hiring time). Basically, when your employer shows you a "total compensation" amount, you should be able to get that in your paycheck if you so choose. I also think we should encourage (maybe require) insurance companies to offer long-term contracts at a fixed rate, adjusted only to account for inflation and changing costs (uniform across all customers). We can continue the subsidies for poorer people if we want. This would essentially be a market-driven "universal healthcare", but it's opt-in. Maybe we need universal healthcare, but I feel like that's a bit overkill. I feel like we can ease into it by expanding on the ACA and getting more people to get insurance outside of their employment.
    - brianwawok 7y ago
      A lot of people just don’t pay for insurance given the facts. A Family of 4 in their 40s are in for what, $1800 a month for health insurance? If your total income is $5000 a month you just don’t pay it. You still go to the ER when you get real sick, but you just deal with it then.
  - masonic 7y ago
    No, the most obvious step is to stop giving them your business.

thecleaner 7y ago

Man, Amazon is is one asshole of a company. I wonder what people like Bezos actually thinks about these workers. Whether they are even considered human or not. I guess not.

madengr 7y ago
Liabilities in need of replacement by robots.
- bransonf 7y ago
  Not to defend Amazon here, but if the market demands cheaper products, which necessitates a ton of labor, and laborers are being overworked... Doesn’t replacing them with robots actually sound like a viable solution? The market demands this work, but we recognize it’s unreasonable to subject humans to these conditions.
  - gurumeditations 7y ago
    That depends on if you’re on the side of the capitalist or the side of labor. Capital holders would take that point of view but labor might say capital should make the work more reasonable and hire more labor to make up the difference.
    - beatgammit 7y ago
      Isn't there a third argument in favor of retraining those workers to do less labor intensive jobs? We have plenty of immigrants that would love to have those jobs at those wages, so retraining would be better for both groups, no?

jdkee 7y ago

Why don't the workers unionize? Oh, because Amazon is run by a bunch of amoral people. The leadership is inhumane. https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-revealed-in-leake-1829305201 https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-re... https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277322/amazon-fired-warehouse-worker-staten-island-union https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277322/amazon-fired-warehous... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/how-amazon-is-fighting-back-against-workers-efforts-to-unionize.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/how-amazon-is-fighting-back-...

beatgammit 7y ago
Unionizing is the solution to unfair leadership. If the workers are hard to replace, then forming a union will probably work. If they're easy to replace, then they're getting precisely what their labor is worth. Since the wage seems to be higher than minimum wage, there's obviously some value in keeping them, which means a strike may work. Unemployment is very low right now, so I'm sure there are plenty of other jobs available. The fact that people continue to work for Amazon suggests that quitting is worse than continuing to show up at work, so I'm really not sure what people expect. I'm guessing it's just that Amazon is seen as a tech company and therefore is expected to treat their warehouse workers closer to tech employees than warehouse employees?

blacksmith_tb 7y ago

I'm curious how they attract people to work for them, if it's common knowledge they are terrible to work for? Is that there just aren't enough other, better warehouse jobs? The few folks I have known who worked in warehouses (non-AMZN ones) generally didn't like the work, but I didn't hear outright horror stories like these.

whb07 7y ago
Because there’s a disconnect in what’s narrated and reality. To a person coming from tech, $15/hr (starting) sounds like a joke but to many that’s a multiple more of what they could get elsewhere (if anything). So say you’re living in outskirts of Atlanta, it’s definitely a better wage than <insert terrible low skilled labor job>. Not to mention there are benefits and better conditions (clean environment, stable job etc). Everyone else is poopooing this from their skewed lenses of a highly paid metropolitan prism.
Jasper_ 7y ago
Because it's a job? Most people don't have the leisure to decide who to work for, and when you're at a time-consuming, expensive job, you don't really have the time or freedom to interview around at other places either.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
Because tons of people do difficult and dirty jobs, that is how the world works around you. I'm on 100% side of the workers but people having cozy office jobs are simply disconnected with the reality.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Right, but the reporting at least suggests Amazon is worse than comparable back-breaking warehouse work - is it just that shitty treatment by management at other warehouses isn't in the news, or are they actually different?

MiguelFCA 7y ago

Uummm not true....I work at Amazon and I get Paid time off, Unpaid time off, and Vacation hours as well. I mean I even get two 30 min breaks and one of them is paid! The work really isnt bad. when i stow im standing in one spot restocking products.