4 ms·

A lot of times these people are making well below minimum wage, and even that is a hilariously low number. I want the people delivering my food to be healthy,

by voz_ 7y ago

A lot of times these people are making well below minimum wage, and even that is a hilariously low number. I want the people delivering my food to be healthy, stable, and financially secure. Don't you?

jedberg 7y ago
I think most people want that. But they also want it to be cheap. And those things don't work well together.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
twomoretime 7y ago
>I want the people delivering my food to be healthy, stable, and financially secure. Don't you? Sure, but obviously we also want cheap stuff and free delivery. Particularly in cases of low income/layoffs, since everyone depends on grocery delivery right now.
chrischen 7y ago
Sounds like the government’s job. Isn’t that what minimum wage is for? Kind of cruel to put their livelihoods at the hands of the whim of generous customers.
sneak 7y ago
The people who are in line to take their jobs as-is probably don't want that. They'd prefer that they get fired, so that they can work instead of the people who don't like the job as-is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages Striking generally only works for skilled workers. Unskilled workers going on strike in the middle of some of the highest unemployment figures recently seen is not going to end well for those people. They'll simply be replaced by those who are more hungry. This is not a problem with the workers, or with the employers, or with the current situation: it is a problem inherent to unskilled, undifferentiated labor.
- david_w 7y ago
  I know what you mean and in ordinary times there's a lot to say for this kind of attitude. But just the raw force of supply and demand applied to this situation is amoral and ultimately feeds the anti-capitalist rhetoric. That's bad since capitalism lifts people out of poverty like nothing else. There's lots of truly terrible things that could be allowed to happen "naturally" if we just let anyone work under any conditions for any wages. Then we're China or some really terrible place. But one of the main values of the West is exactly we're NOT China and we don't do ruthless things to people and we don't suffer those things to be done by others. In the end, and make no mistake about it, that's the general neighborhood we're playing in for the moment, a civilization is more than the price of its aluminum or labor or even its stocks. Now is the time when we enact our deepest values.
  - sneak 7y ago
    I'm not sure where I expressed any attitude or opinion in my comment, positive or negative (other than perhaps the "not going to end well for those people" - although I think my opinion that "not end well" is a good description of their likely summary dismissal that would meet broad consensus). Them's just the breaks. It seems you may be advocating for government intervention to prevent these people from being fired and replaced during their strike. Is that what your comment means? Or do you simply expect the employers to meet their demands, and not replace them? I don't think that's very likely, considering the already extremely-high turnover in these unskilled, low-wage positions.
    - david_w 7y ago
      Number 2 - I expect Amazon to meet some of their demands depending on what exactly those demands are and how long the adjustments are demanded to be in effect. I don't expect Amazon to accept this as a union's chance to get its big camel nose under its tent and I hope they don't. I don't expect the government to intervene because that's not their expertise. In short I expect Bezeos to apply the same level of creativity and innovation to his employee's and fellow American's well-being and safety during this crisis as he's applied to the task of creating the greatest buyer/seller/supply chain marketplace the world has ever seen. I expect that and so does everyone else, even if not in those words. Nothing could be clearer than there's a universal and urgent need to identify and then do the decent thing during this emergency.

by voz_ 7y ago

jedberg 7y ago

I think most people want that. But they also want it to be cheap. And those things don't work well together.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

twomoretime 7y ago

>I want the people delivering my food to be healthy, stable, and financially secure. Don't you? Sure, but obviously we also want cheap stuff and free delivery. Particularly in cases of low income/layoffs, since everyone depends on grocery delivery right now.

chrischen 7y ago

Sounds like the government’s job. Isn’t that what minimum wage is for? Kind of cruel to put their livelihoods at the hands of the whim of generous customers.

sneak 7y ago

The people who are in line to take their jobs as-is probably don't want that. They'd prefer that they get fired, so that they can work instead of the people who don't like the job as-is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages Striking generally only works for skilled workers. Unskilled workers going on strike in the middle of some of the highest unemployment figures recently seen is not going to end well for those people. They'll simply be replaced by those who are more hungry. This is not a problem with the workers, or with the employers, or with the current situation: it is a problem inherent to unskilled, undifferentiated labor.

david_w 7y ago
I know what you mean and in ordinary times there's a lot to say for this kind of attitude. But just the raw force of supply and demand applied to this situation is amoral and ultimately feeds the anti-capitalist rhetoric. That's bad since capitalism lifts people out of poverty like nothing else. There's lots of truly terrible things that could be allowed to happen "naturally" if we just let anyone work under any conditions for any wages. Then we're China or some really terrible place. But one of the main values of the West is exactly we're NOT China and we don't do ruthless things to people and we don't suffer those things to be done by others. In the end, and make no mistake about it, that's the general neighborhood we're playing in for the moment, a civilization is more than the price of its aluminum or labor or even its stocks. Now is the time when we enact our deepest values.
- sneak 7y ago
  I'm not sure where I expressed any attitude or opinion in my comment, positive or negative (other than perhaps the "not going to end well for those people" - although I think my opinion that "not end well" is a good description of their likely summary dismissal that would meet broad consensus). Them's just the breaks. It seems you may be advocating for government intervention to prevent these people from being fired and replaced during their strike. Is that what your comment means? Or do you simply expect the employers to meet their demands, and not replace them? I don't think that's very likely, considering the already extremely-high turnover in these unskilled, low-wage positions.
  - david_w 7y ago
    Number 2 - I expect Amazon to meet some of their demands depending on what exactly those demands are and how long the adjustments are demanded to be in effect. I don't expect Amazon to accept this as a union's chance to get its big camel nose under its tent and I hope they don't. I don't expect the government to intervene because that's not their expertise. In short I expect Bezeos to apply the same level of creativity and innovation to his employee's and fellow American's well-being and safety during this crisis as he's applied to the task of creating the greatest buyer/seller/supply chain marketplace the world has ever seen. I expect that and so does everyone else, even if not in those words. Nothing could be clearer than there's a universal and urgent need to identify and then do the decent thing during this emergency.