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Good. Speaking as a foreigner, it's unbelievable what gets tolerated in supposedly the richest country the world has ever known. I'm sure the company can agree

• moocowtruck 6y ago
  I ask every amazon delivery person that comes to my house how they like working for amazon, I've not got one single negative remark! Amazon delivers on time mostly and even through weather. USPS on the other hand which has multiple unions, don't delivery if there's a dusting of snow on my drive even though their motto says that doesn't stop them... I've also asked many usps employee's what they think of their job, and overwhelmingly they are bad reviews... ?_? I am curious the outcome of a unionized amazon will be, but I sure hope there's a competitor that can swoop in and still deliver to me in a timely fashion
  • qntty 6y ago
    Alternative interpretation: unionized employees feel more secure in their job and therefore will be more honest when random people ask them about it. Or maybe they didn't even know where to start. The only people I've ever heard have no complaints about their job were people who had so many complaints that they put on an easy-going front to avoid dumping their problems on someone who's trying to make small talk. It's like when you're teaching and the students don't understand a thing you said, they'll have no questions. It's always the kids who understood 75% of what you said who has a question. One of the goals of every liberation movement (labor, feminism, racial justice, etc.) is making people aware of their shared struggle and it's causes. The Teamsters are far from radical but the fact that things can even be negotiated at all has a way of making people aware that decisions of management are not forces of nature.
    • deleted 6y ago
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  • SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    I've never once told a customer at any job that I worked at that I dislike my job because while I didn't like my job, I needed my job and didn't want anything to put that in jeopardy, like my boss finding out I told someone I don't like my job.
  • ramphastidae 6y ago
    Why would those workers have any incentive to tell you the truth? Esp. since you were probably recording them with a doorbell surveillance device owned by their employer as you asked ...
  • kar5pt 6y ago
    The people doing deliveries aren't the ones working in the warehouses (which are unionizing). Most of the delivery drivers work for third party contractors. If the warehouse workers were happy with the status quo, why would they be trying to unionize in the first place?
  • Taylor_OD 6y ago
    You've got to be a paid shill or blissfully ignoring. If you were making a low wage and easily replaceable would you bitch about your job to random people who asked you if you liked it or smile and say its great?
  • vangelis 6y ago
    I imagine you'd find something similar if you asked Uber drivers about job satisfaction. Wouldn't want to get dinged.
• AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  > the richest country the world May be it's not a coincidence?
  • bbddg 6y ago
    Well how would you explain any of the Nordic countries if you thought there was a connection between GDP and Unionization? Norway has 70% of their workers covered by a Union contract and has a higher GDP per capita than the US. Along with some of the lowest levels of inequality of any nation.
    • AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
      Who knows. May be that's because Norway has a higher average IQ [1]. May be that's because Norway has a lower cultural diversity index [2]. May be cold climate is the factor: those who didn't work froze to death way before industrial era. [1] https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...
      • bbddg 6y ago
        Okay so now it doesn't have to do with unions but with IQ and "cultural diversity"? Why is the US so rich if it has so much cultural diversity unlike Norway then?
        • AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
          Well... Another possible reason is that there are unions and then there are unions. The same way as bringing democracy to Libya does not magically make it prosperous [1]. https://www.statista.com/statistics/455600/gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-libya/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/455600/gross-domestic-pr...
          • bbddg 6y ago
• seibelj 6y ago
  Speaking as an American, I’m proud that Amazon is one of the greatest success stories of the last 25 years, and it’s one of the many tech companies that have emerged only in America. Europe hasn’t produced a single large tech company despite similar population size and an even better educated work force. Maybe foreign countries should learn why America continues to create superstar firms in every industry.
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  • robert_foss 6y ago
    I think innovation based on providing minimum wage jobs is not much of innovation, it is a story as old as humanity. The case is even worse for the low salaried work force of the gig economy where a job no longer even qualifies you for 'job' benefits. If you think other regions aren't producing value in the tech ecosystem, nationalism is getting in the way of your eye.
    • credit_guy 6y ago
      > minimum wage jobs Amazon wages are $15/h or more, more than double the Federal minimum wage of $7.25/h.
      • robert_foss 6y ago
        Would you be able to make a living on 15eur/m? If you live in America I would sincerely like to know the answer.
        • curryst 6y ago
          Perspectives vary. That's what I made on my first job out of college in one of the bigger cities in the Midwest (not Chicago). It was fine for that. I didn't have extravagant tastes, but I didn't penny pinch. I had enough room in my budget that I could have saved probably a few hundred dollars a month. It's worth calling out that my car was paid off (and a Prius so gas/insurance was cheap), and my rent was really low ($300 a month because of arrangement with the landlord). Work also covered almost all of my insurance, which I think is unusual for jobs in those range. If those things weren't true, I probably would have saved little or nothing unless I started cutting back and focusing on buying cheap food to eat instead of just being happy with cooking instead of eating out. Home ownership is possible if you save for years, or if you can get a grant to help with the downpayment (had a friend who did that). It's not pleassant, but it's doable imo. I don't think you could have a family on a single $15/hr income. Even at 2 $15/hr incomes I would think it was hard, but I don't have children so maybe they're cheaper than I think. Although no one has ever said their children were cheaper than they thought.
• sandworm101 6y ago
  >> supposedly the richest country the world has ever known. Which numbers are you looking at? Countries like Norway, Ireland, Qatar or Switzerland normally top the lists of richest countries today let alone ever known. The USA doesn't break the top 10 on the list published by the CIA. Only after removing alleged tax havens might it hit #9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
  • okl 6y ago
    High GDP per capita != rich. How about financial wealth per adult? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
    • sandworm101 6y ago
      Such as median wealth per adult? USA is #22, behind the likes of Spain, Italy, Japan, Canada and Australia. Nobody debates that the US has an elite pool of the super-rich. They do run the show, but that doesn't make the country as a whole very wealthy.
      • tarboreus 6y ago
        It's the richest country in the world by GDP. Possibly also by wealth, though we're in hock, our fixed assets are worth ridiculous amounts. The wealth is extremely poorly spread out, however. So it depends on how you want to slice it.
        • sandworm101 6y ago
          Largest yes, but "richest" suggests some sort of per-person metric. A hypothetical country with ten billion people could have a very large GDP or asset pool while still being very poor.
• zdragnar 6y ago
  Unions in the US might get more support if they stopped behaving like the companies they claim to protect you from.
  • spaetzleesser 6y ago
    It goes both ways. A reasonable union wouldn’t have a chance in the US because employers would run roughshod over them. I think German unions work pretty well because there are laws that give them a guaranteed position so they don’t always have to fight for survival. In the US they constantly have to fight which attracts people with extreme behavior. Being reasonable and moderate doesn’t get rewarded. You could say the same about US politics in general .
    • zdragnar 6y ago
      The SEIU in MN is the go to example around here; they got the government to consider personal care assistants (typically family members) to be considered public employees, automatically taking dues from their Medicaid benefits. To say that that left a bitter taste in people's mouths around here toward them is an understatement.
• runako 6y ago
  A lot of people are confused about the use of the phrase "richest country" so I will offer a definition. It's the country able to write the biggest check for something. Per capita or other distributional measures don't come into the typical usage.
  • sandworm101 6y ago
    Given the budget deadlocks, the government shutdowns, the constant temporary budgets, I'm not sure that I would say that the US is "able" to write a check for much of anything, at least not without a multi-year debate and an election or two to decide the issue.
    • runako 6y ago
      The US Government spent approximately $5 trillion in 2020 and will spend between $5 trillion and $7 trillion in 2021. Roughly $5 trillion of that is committed and generally not up for debate. That's the relevant range.
  • marcusverus 6y ago
    Huh? Among OECD countries, the USA is tops in Household disposable income[0] (which, yes, factors in social benefits like health care) and Household Net worth[1], while being about average in (relative) Household debt[2]. Relative to the vast majority of westerners, the Average American is absolutely killing it. It's a shame that so much rhetorical energy is expended in a constant attempt to gaslight Americans about their financial situation in comparison to the Europeans. The reality is that the average American makes almost 50% more than the average EU resident[0]. [0] https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm#in... [1] https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-net-worth.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-net-worth.htm#indicator-... [2] https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm#indicator-chart
    • runako 6y ago
      You're not disagreeing with my comment? Yes, America is very rich and a lot of Americans do well. But since you posted these links, it's fair to note that they don't rebut some of the common critiques of American wealth: - the OECD wealth figures apply to the average, not median, American. Our wealth is very unevenly distributed, so our average is not a good measure. (Also the $182k figure in the OECD doc is nearly double the $104k US Census counted[1].) - as widely documented elsewhere, American finances are much more precarious due to the design of our labor markets, social safety net, and (especially) healthcare system. Americans in general have more of their financial security at risk at all times than EU residents. And we have to save for more big expenses (like college) than residents of other countries. So having more wealth does not directly translate into more financial security. 1 - https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/wealth/wealth-asset-ownership.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/wealth/wealth-a...