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Amazon from Europe's perspective: - IT - an average employer at best including salaries, extremely competitive workplace, offices in most expensive cities, I d

Amazon from Europe's perspective: - IT - an average employer at best including salaries, extremely competitive workplace, offices in most expensive cities, I don't think they offer any equity - warehouses - they were wrecked by German unions and opened 4 warehouses in Poland serving exclusively German market and burdening the brand new EU-funded highways, as if they were shunning from complying with the German labor code and German wages (the market is too lucrative to abandon it)

leetcrew 6y ago
if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?
- durnygbur 6y ago
  > isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? On top of unions and a desperate neighbour, Germany has saturated retail market including world's 5th biggest Schwarz Gruppe who certainly are not happy with a new foreign competitor, but that's a topic for many dissertations.
- jasonv 6y ago
  Reno is in the same spot. The number of Tesla, Walmart and Amazon trucks clogging I-80 at all hours of the day is astonishing. It also clogs the highway and impedes traffic. I wish they could put a toll or ban trucks from 7am to 7pm so people can get over the hill without tracking trains of trucks. Not sure how this could be solved without an effort of some kind, but as far as o can tell, there are zero policies guiding their behavior.
  - athms 6y ago
    I am sure Nevada's lack of income tax and the tax breaks the state gives, plus Reno's proximity to California is the reason logistics is centered there. Reno sells itself as the West Coast shipping hub. Pretty much everything I order from Amazon these days comes from Nevada even though I am in Silicon Valley. I know Amazon has several warehouses in California, but I have never seen any order originate from California. The company probably uses them as local distribution points for its own shipping service.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    Wow I had no idea this was happening. I wonder if taxing the hell out of these trucks would tip the scales toward moving the logistics closer to the destination market, which I presume is the bay area and peripherals.
- anoncake 6y ago
  It's really a problem with the EU. Its member states still compete with each other too much, companies shouldn't be able to shop around for the laxest labour laws like that.
  - kyuudou 6y ago
    I disagree, consumers should be able to decide if they want to buy a product or not and do their due diligence investigating the producer. The countries where labor is cheaper benefit by getting more work and ultimately they uplift themselves. Now, if it comes out that such labor is abused or managed corruptly and so forth, that is a product I will not knowingly or willingly buy.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      In the real world, customers don't actually do that and in fact cannot for everything they buy. Regulation is simply more efficient and effective.
      - kyuudou 6y ago
        >Regulation is simply more efficient and effective. And that efficiency and effectiveness benefit an elite few. If people continue to "wake up" globally, becoming increasingly empowered by technology and democratizing philosophies, they will come to the logical conclusion that they can "vote" with their currency. Companies will definitely fucking pay attention if people stop buying their shit. For example, I've taken the "buy local as possible" ethic to its logical extreme, realizing for example that I have to make compromises for things like consumer electronics. "The real world", as you say. But I think it's defeatist to just buy the cheapest junk you can afford in complete disregard of its means and origin of manufacture unless that's the only solution. Just today, I was shopping around where to buy Sid Meier's Memoirs book since I just learned about it today on HN. I could elect the easy, lazy, one-world-ruled-by-Bezos path and click Amazon to save a few cents and get it delivered a day less, or I could go the slightly less convenient but more positive route of Indiebound.

leetcrew 6y ago

if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?

durnygbur 6y ago
> isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? On top of unions and a desperate neighbour, Germany has saturated retail market including world's 5th biggest Schwarz Gruppe who certainly are not happy with a new foreign competitor, but that's a topic for many dissertations.
jasonv 6y ago
Reno is in the same spot. The number of Tesla, Walmart and Amazon trucks clogging I-80 at all hours of the day is astonishing. It also clogs the highway and impedes traffic. I wish they could put a toll or ban trucks from 7am to 7pm so people can get over the hill without tracking trains of trucks. Not sure how this could be solved without an effort of some kind, but as far as o can tell, there are zero policies guiding their behavior.
- athms 6y ago
  I am sure Nevada's lack of income tax and the tax breaks the state gives, plus Reno's proximity to California is the reason logistics is centered there. Reno sells itself as the West Coast shipping hub. Pretty much everything I order from Amazon these days comes from Nevada even though I am in Silicon Valley. I know Amazon has several warehouses in California, but I have never seen any order originate from California. The company probably uses them as local distribution points for its own shipping service.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Wow I had no idea this was happening. I wonder if taxing the hell out of these trucks would tip the scales toward moving the logistics closer to the destination market, which I presume is the bay area and peripherals.
anoncake 6y ago
It's really a problem with the EU. Its member states still compete with each other too much, companies shouldn't be able to shop around for the laxest labour laws like that.
- kyuudou 6y ago
  I disagree, consumers should be able to decide if they want to buy a product or not and do their due diligence investigating the producer. The countries where labor is cheaper benefit by getting more work and ultimately they uplift themselves. Now, if it comes out that such labor is abused or managed corruptly and so forth, that is a product I will not knowingly or willingly buy.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    In the real world, customers don't actually do that and in fact cannot for everything they buy. Regulation is simply more efficient and effective.
    - kyuudou 6y ago
      >Regulation is simply more efficient and effective. And that efficiency and effectiveness benefit an elite few. If people continue to "wake up" globally, becoming increasingly empowered by technology and democratizing philosophies, they will come to the logical conclusion that they can "vote" with their currency. Companies will definitely fucking pay attention if people stop buying their shit. For example, I've taken the "buy local as possible" ethic to its logical extreme, realizing for example that I have to make compromises for things like consumer electronics. "The real world", as you say. But I think it's defeatist to just buy the cheapest junk you can afford in complete disregard of its means and origin of manufacture unless that's the only solution. Just today, I was shopping around where to buy Sid Meier's Memoirs book since I just learned about it today on HN. I could elect the easy, lazy, one-world-ruled-by-Bezos path and click Amazon to save a few cents and get it delivered a day less, or I could go the slightly less convenient but more positive route of Indiebound.