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> Amazon is infamous for creating horrible working conditions in their shipping centers Has anyone actually done a fair comparison of Amazon warehouse working

> Amazon is infamous for creating horrible working conditions in their shipping centers Has anyone actually done a fair comparison of Amazon warehouse working conditions with those of other warehouses? Other than the presence of robots to help our their workers, nothing I've seen and read about strikes me as being out of line with any other warehouse. Or are they just the ones getting the flack because they are the largest and most visible?

negrit 7y ago
It's not a race to the bottom.
- krapp 7y ago
  The incentives of capitalism suggest otherwise.
badwolf 7y ago
This has been my thought every time something like this comes up. Nobody ever cares about Johnny's Distribution Center and their paying minimum wage with poor working conditions. Amazon meanwhile is a big easy target. Similar to folks on HN every time someone discovers that the Facebook SDK exists in <random app> while generally ignoring every other tracker and app that is possibly much more nefarious... Bobs Tracking App™ doesn't make headlines like "Facebook is stealing your data"
onli 7y ago
You don't need a fair comparison to read articles like https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-wo... and decide that this is not acceptable. Other warehouses being equally bad - which I doubt - doesn't fly for a company that is that profitable, big and popular. Being large and visible might be a part of it, but their system being unnecessary cruel in the first place is reason enough.
- true_religion 7y ago
  Fair comparison doesn’t matter if we are proposing changing labor laws to solve the issue. A law would apply to all parties, including ones we don’t hear about in the news. However, many people want Amazon to unilaterally change its labour practices. It’s not fair that they do this, while competing with Walmart the largest company in the world, if Walmart doesn’t need to change merely because they have better PR. My cynical mind suspects Walmart has better PR merely because it’s part of an establish oligarchy who knows which hands to grease, and owns the media companies.
  - onli 7y ago
    Hard to write this without using too inflammatory language. It's not an either or, a society can criticize bad conditions while being unable to provide labor protection laws. It says something about the country that is unable to do so, it might say something about the power of global enterprises if it happens in multiple countries, and it definitely says a lot about the importance of unions, how much their diminished power is felt now. That's not limited to one country - but leads a bit far away from this specific french court decision. On the other hand, all of these contexts play into conflicts like this one.
- BiosElement 7y ago
  Which you doubt? Cool, talk to any Kroger warehouse worker. That position is well known to pay 'ok', but will burn you out with awful conditions within a few months. Sounds a lot like Amazon doesn't it. Don't underestimate just how many jobs countries have to maintain our standards of living.

negrit 7y ago

It's not a race to the bottom.

krapp 7y ago
The incentives of capitalism suggest otherwise.

badwolf 7y ago

This has been my thought every time something like this comes up. Nobody ever cares about Johnny's Distribution Center and their paying minimum wage with poor working conditions. Amazon meanwhile is a big easy target. Similar to folks on HN every time someone discovers that the Facebook SDK exists in <random app> while generally ignoring every other tracker and app that is possibly much more nefarious... Bobs Tracking App™ doesn't make headlines like "Facebook is stealing your data"

onli 7y ago

You don't need a fair comparison to read articles like https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-wo... and decide that this is not acceptable. Other warehouses being equally bad - which I doubt - doesn't fly for a company that is that profitable, big and popular. Being large and visible might be a part of it, but their system being unnecessary cruel in the first place is reason enough.

true_religion 7y ago
Fair comparison doesn’t matter if we are proposing changing labor laws to solve the issue. A law would apply to all parties, including ones we don’t hear about in the news. However, many people want Amazon to unilaterally change its labour practices. It’s not fair that they do this, while competing with Walmart the largest company in the world, if Walmart doesn’t need to change merely because they have better PR. My cynical mind suspects Walmart has better PR merely because it’s part of an establish oligarchy who knows which hands to grease, and owns the media companies.
- onli 7y ago
  Hard to write this without using too inflammatory language. It's not an either or, a society can criticize bad conditions while being unable to provide labor protection laws. It says something about the country that is unable to do so, it might say something about the power of global enterprises if it happens in multiple countries, and it definitely says a lot about the importance of unions, how much their diminished power is felt now. That's not limited to one country - but leads a bit far away from this specific french court decision. On the other hand, all of these contexts play into conflicts like this one.
BiosElement 7y ago
Which you doubt? Cool, talk to any Kroger warehouse worker. That position is well known to pay 'ok', but will burn you out with awful conditions within a few months. Sounds a lot like Amazon doesn't it. Don't underestimate just how many jobs countries have to maintain our standards of living.