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This is such absurd hyperbole. You would think Amazon is running American slave camps and kidnapping workers. By almost any account Amazon pays well and has g

by cwhiz 6y ago

This is such absurd hyperbole. You would think Amazon is running American slave camps and kidnapping workers. By almost any account Amazon pays well and has good benefits.

krapp 6y ago
Amazon also just got caught stealing millions of dollars in tips from drivers they're also being sued for paying less than minimum wage. Amazon would absolutely burn their entire infrastructure to the ground, salt the earth and piss on the ashes before giving an inch of power to their employees that they couldn't take a mile of back at their leisure, a power dynamic which unions would deny them. That's just who they are. But yes, the benefits are nice.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Do you not understand the difference between the claims you’ve just made and “unable to stay in business without violating basic human rights?”
  - krapp 6y ago
    Yes I do, I don't believe Amazon violates basic human rights, at least not on a regular basis, but their business model depends on having the option of getting as close to doing so as the law and market will allow when business needs demand it. And like any large company, they will break laws and occasionally people if the cost/benefit analysis works in their favor.
    - SonicSoul 6y ago
      You are reducing employee mistreatment to a removed from reality statistic. As if staying close to not breaking the law is some kind of Bible scripture that makes it all ok. Lots of horrible things were legal in history and are legal today. Just because a company wants to “survive” doesn’t mean we can’t point out the things that are wrong and push for change. If you want to be cynical why not go the other way and say who cares if Amazon survives. Let someone else fill in that role that will prioritize their people. It’s easy to talk about statistics when you’re not the one at the bottom of this thing you’re so eloquently dismissing
      - krapp 6y ago
        >You are reducing employee mistreatment to a removed from reality statistic. As if staying close to not breaking the law is some kind of Bible scripture that makes it all ok. No, I'm arguing that corporations aren't moralistic entities, but legalistic entities, and will make decisions based on profit risk versus legal risk instead of morality versus immorality. I never said I thought it was ok. Amazon pays better than many jobs in their market, and they have a generous health and insurance package. They constantly give training and tutorials about wellness and safety, and they're fastidious about following regulations, sometimes to a Kafkaesque degree. And when no one is looking they'll push you in front of a bus to get to a dime on the sidewalk. >It’s easy to talk about statistics when you’re not the one at the bottom of this thing you’re so eloquently dismissing I'm closer to the bottom than you might think. Not everyone here is a SV bubble baby making six figures.
        rualca 6y ago
        > No, I'm arguing that corporations aren't moralistic entities But they are, aren't they? Don't you understand that corporations are a bunch of person organized into a hierarchy? Why would anyone claim that people working within a hierarchy are free to make any immoral decision because they manage some people but answer to other? At most, you're only arguing that some hierarchies refuse to respect morals or legalities because no one is held accountable and were found to have zero consequences.
    - browningstreet 6y ago
      That which they can get away with is the precedent for the new normal, aka acceptable. Companies like Amazon and Facebook re-write the norms of individual consumer and worker dignities in their favor, and then push to make them global. Because people will dismiss objections to these changes as contrivances.
    - rualca 6y ago
      > Yes I do, I don't believe Amazon violates basic human rights, at least not on a regular basis (...) Isn't the propensity to violate basic human rights in such a casual and nonchalant way albeit not systematic... Extremely damning and concerning? I mean, what is there to say about the sentence "I know they commit crimes that hurt people and society, but not on a regular basis"
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - krapp 6y ago
        >Isn't the propensity to violate basic human rights in such a casual and nonchalant way albeit not systematic... Extremely damning and concerning? Absolutely, and Amazon has some blood on their hands in that regard. But let's not forget that in a capitalist society, incentives start with the consumer. The market doesn't fit for employee quality of life, but consumer quality of life. If people cared as much about labor rights in the US as they do getting their stuff a day earlier and a dollar cheaper, their wallets and their votes would speak for themselves. >I mean, what is there to say about the sentence "I know they commit crimes that hurt people and society, but not on a regular basis" You want to know what I really think? Agriculture and service industries depend on the maintenance of a permanent illegal labor underclass, militias wielding machetes and AK-47s conscript slaves for the mines that supply the world with gemstones and components for the electronics, and those electronics are assembled by children in factories that have no labor laws, but plenty of nets to catch suicides. Every branch of the entertainment industry is lubricated by prostitution and pedophilia. The tech industry exploits neurodivergent people and grinds temp workers and foreign labor into dust to make billionaires out of whatever sociopath can best figure out how to consume the minds, lives and freedoms of the public this week, and it will fight to the death to preserve the ego of a single pedophile apologist and serial harasser rather than be corrupted by the influence of women, people of color and any other marginalized group that would dare take offense, because its puerile morals were founded on and have never matured beyond 4chan. And then there's the stuff governments get into, legally and with public consent. And then there's the illegal stuff they get away with. And then there's Maude. What is there to say? For the most part, we're ok with all of it, because we have to be. We wanted these evils, we created them, nurtured them and praised the brutal elegance with which they rent the flesh, and now we're all caught inside the belly of Moloch and there's nothing to do in here but complain about the weather. Hot today, isn't it? This comment will probably be flagged, and I'm OK with that. I understand.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    I mean, I think being able to use a bathroom is a basic human right.
ToFab123 6y ago
Yes. With all the stories there has been published over the years about Amazon warehouse working condition "slave camp" is the term that springs to my mind when I hear the word Amazon. Being an Amazon warehouse worker must be hell. That Amazon pays so little in tax only shows, to me, that the company Amazon's only concern is to get money and that they don't care about society or humans.
- Aerroon 6y ago
  >With all the stories there has been published over the years about Amazon warehouse working condition "slave camp" is the term that springs to my mind when I hear the word Amazon. Have you considered that it might be propaganda? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the employees choose to work at Amazon, right? What are the other jobs like, if people still choose Amazon over the alternatives?
  - thisisjustmine 6y ago
    Amazon has been systematically destroying local businesses preventing any alternatives. So low skill workers that used to work for smaller local stores involved in the community now have to work for the replacement. I would bet if there was an alternative people would prefer higher quality of life and pay over the scraps Amazon is willing to share.
    - tracer4201 6y ago
      Which local businesses does Amazon destroy? That’s a pretty wild accusation. I just visited several places last year before COVID. Pretty much all the businesses that hire warehouse skilled workers are still there. As a matter of fact, most of those places still pay the actual federal minimum wage, not $15/hr with benefits. This comment you’ve made is propaganda at best and an intentional lie at worst.
  - eximius 6y ago
    America has been running out of low-skill jobs that pay a livable wage for years.
frongpik 6y ago
A third world country would indeed just run a slave camp. First world countries are more sophisticated and achieve the same result within the legal framework. They do it because they love mental gymnastics. Amazon comes to a 3rd tier town, wipes out competition by undercutting them, becomes the only employer in town and then tells the workers to bend, and they do because Amazon has made sure they have no choice.
- krapp 6y ago
  First world countries simply outsource labor to those third world countries with more "libertarian" ideals.
fuzxi 6y ago
>By almost any account Amazon pays well and has good benefits How do you square this with the huge proportion of their employees who rely on food stamps? [1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-on-food-stamps-2018-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-on-food-sta...
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Amazon can’t control your family situation, and they can’t base pay on it, either. No single adult should be on food stamps with a $15/hour wage.
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    It's kind of shameless, in my opinion: 1) Obama (in the ACA) expands food stamp access by making it available to households with an income of <=133% of the poverty line. 2) food stamp enrollment rises significantly. 3) Progressives, clutching their pearls, cite "high" food stamp enrollment as an indication of the need for more Progressive policies!
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      Amazon warehouse salaries start at $15.25/hr. That is more than double the US Federal minimum wage. ~$31K per year.
    - cwhiz 6y ago
      MIT has a living wage calculator[0], and in most locations in the US $15/hour is a living wage for a single adult. Amazon can't alter their wage scale based on your family situation. They aren't even allowed to ask about your family situation, it's a protected class. [0]: https://livingwage.mit.edu https://livingwage.mit.edu
xnx 6y ago
There's a phenomenon (which must have a name) where large companies are held to a different standard. We see this with: Amazon (there are doubtless jobs with worse conditions). Tesla (quality problems sure, but there's also some real nit-picking). Apple (class-action lawsuits around the most minor defects). Google (unbelievably clean compared to other companies and ad networks that handle personal data)

by cwhiz 6y ago

This is such absurd hyperbole. You would think Amazon is running American slave camps and kidnapping workers. By almost any account Amazon pays well and has good benefits.

krapp 6y ago

Amazon also just got caught stealing millions of dollars in tips from drivers they're also being sued for paying less than minimum wage. Amazon would absolutely burn their entire infrastructure to the ground, salt the earth and piss on the ashes before giving an inch of power to their employees that they couldn't take a mile of back at their leisure, a power dynamic which unions would deny them. That's just who they are. But yes, the benefits are nice.

cwhiz 6y ago
Do you not understand the difference between the claims you’ve just made and “unable to stay in business without violating basic human rights?”
- krapp 6y ago
  Yes I do, I don't believe Amazon violates basic human rights, at least not on a regular basis, but their business model depends on having the option of getting as close to doing so as the law and market will allow when business needs demand it. And like any large company, they will break laws and occasionally people if the cost/benefit analysis works in their favor.
  - SonicSoul 6y ago
    You are reducing employee mistreatment to a removed from reality statistic. As if staying close to not breaking the law is some kind of Bible scripture that makes it all ok. Lots of horrible things were legal in history and are legal today. Just because a company wants to “survive” doesn’t mean we can’t point out the things that are wrong and push for change. If you want to be cynical why not go the other way and say who cares if Amazon survives. Let someone else fill in that role that will prioritize their people. It’s easy to talk about statistics when you’re not the one at the bottom of this thing you’re so eloquently dismissing
    - krapp 6y ago
      >You are reducing employee mistreatment to a removed from reality statistic. As if staying close to not breaking the law is some kind of Bible scripture that makes it all ok. No, I'm arguing that corporations aren't moralistic entities, but legalistic entities, and will make decisions based on profit risk versus legal risk instead of morality versus immorality. I never said I thought it was ok. Amazon pays better than many jobs in their market, and they have a generous health and insurance package. They constantly give training and tutorials about wellness and safety, and they're fastidious about following regulations, sometimes to a Kafkaesque degree. And when no one is looking they'll push you in front of a bus to get to a dime on the sidewalk. >It’s easy to talk about statistics when you’re not the one at the bottom of this thing you’re so eloquently dismissing I'm closer to the bottom than you might think. Not everyone here is a SV bubble baby making six figures.
      - rualca 6y ago
        > No, I'm arguing that corporations aren't moralistic entities But they are, aren't they? Don't you understand that corporations are a bunch of person organized into a hierarchy? Why would anyone claim that people working within a hierarchy are free to make any immoral decision because they manage some people but answer to other? At most, you're only arguing that some hierarchies refuse to respect morals or legalities because no one is held accountable and were found to have zero consequences.
  - browningstreet 6y ago
    That which they can get away with is the precedent for the new normal, aka acceptable. Companies like Amazon and Facebook re-write the norms of individual consumer and worker dignities in their favor, and then push to make them global. Because people will dismiss objections to these changes as contrivances.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > Yes I do, I don't believe Amazon violates basic human rights, at least not on a regular basis (...) Isn't the propensity to violate basic human rights in such a casual and nonchalant way albeit not systematic... Extremely damning and concerning? I mean, what is there to say about the sentence "I know they commit crimes that hurt people and society, but not on a regular basis"
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - krapp 6y ago
      >Isn't the propensity to violate basic human rights in such a casual and nonchalant way albeit not systematic... Extremely damning and concerning? Absolutely, and Amazon has some blood on their hands in that regard. But let's not forget that in a capitalist society, incentives start with the consumer. The market doesn't fit for employee quality of life, but consumer quality of life. If people cared as much about labor rights in the US as they do getting their stuff a day earlier and a dollar cheaper, their wallets and their votes would speak for themselves. >I mean, what is there to say about the sentence "I know they commit crimes that hurt people and society, but not on a regular basis" You want to know what I really think? Agriculture and service industries depend on the maintenance of a permanent illegal labor underclass, militias wielding machetes and AK-47s conscript slaves for the mines that supply the world with gemstones and components for the electronics, and those electronics are assembled by children in factories that have no labor laws, but plenty of nets to catch suicides. Every branch of the entertainment industry is lubricated by prostitution and pedophilia. The tech industry exploits neurodivergent people and grinds temp workers and foreign labor into dust to make billionaires out of whatever sociopath can best figure out how to consume the minds, lives and freedoms of the public this week, and it will fight to the death to preserve the ego of a single pedophile apologist and serial harasser rather than be corrupted by the influence of women, people of color and any other marginalized group that would dare take offense, because its puerile morals were founded on and have never matured beyond 4chan. And then there's the stuff governments get into, legally and with public consent. And then there's the illegal stuff they get away with. And then there's Maude. What is there to say? For the most part, we're ok with all of it, because we have to be. We wanted these evils, we created them, nurtured them and praised the brutal elegance with which they rent the flesh, and now we're all caught inside the belly of Moloch and there's nothing to do in here but complain about the weather. Hot today, isn't it? This comment will probably be flagged, and I'm OK with that. I understand.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  I mean, I think being able to use a bathroom is a basic human right.

ToFab123 6y ago

Yes. With all the stories there has been published over the years about Amazon warehouse working condition "slave camp" is the term that springs to my mind when I hear the word Amazon. Being an Amazon warehouse worker must be hell. That Amazon pays so little in tax only shows, to me, that the company Amazon's only concern is to get money and that they don't care about society or humans.

Aerroon 6y ago
>With all the stories there has been published over the years about Amazon warehouse working condition "slave camp" is the term that springs to my mind when I hear the word Amazon. Have you considered that it might be propaganda? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the employees choose to work at Amazon, right? What are the other jobs like, if people still choose Amazon over the alternatives?
- thisisjustmine 6y ago
  Amazon has been systematically destroying local businesses preventing any alternatives. So low skill workers that used to work for smaller local stores involved in the community now have to work for the replacement. I would bet if there was an alternative people would prefer higher quality of life and pay over the scraps Amazon is willing to share.
  - tracer4201 6y ago
    Which local businesses does Amazon destroy? That’s a pretty wild accusation. I just visited several places last year before COVID. Pretty much all the businesses that hire warehouse skilled workers are still there. As a matter of fact, most of those places still pay the actual federal minimum wage, not $15/hr with benefits. This comment you’ve made is propaganda at best and an intentional lie at worst.
- eximius 6y ago
  America has been running out of low-skill jobs that pay a livable wage for years.

frongpik 6y ago

A third world country would indeed just run a slave camp. First world countries are more sophisticated and achieve the same result within the legal framework. They do it because they love mental gymnastics. Amazon comes to a 3rd tier town, wipes out competition by undercutting them, becomes the only employer in town and then tells the workers to bend, and they do because Amazon has made sure they have no choice.

krapp 6y ago
First world countries simply outsource labor to those third world countries with more "libertarian" ideals.

fuzxi 6y ago

>By almost any account Amazon pays well and has good benefits How do you square this with the huge proportion of their employees who rely on food stamps? [1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-on-food-stamps-2018-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-on-food-sta...

cwhiz 6y ago
Amazon can’t control your family situation, and they can’t base pay on it, either. No single adult should be on food stamps with a $15/hour wage.
- marcusverus 6y ago
  It's kind of shameless, in my opinion: 1) Obama (in the ACA) expands food stamp access by making it available to households with an income of <=133% of the poverty line. 2) food stamp enrollment rises significantly. 3) Progressives, clutching their pearls, cite "high" food stamp enrollment as an indication of the need for more Progressive policies!
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Amazon warehouse salaries start at $15.25/hr. That is more than double the US Federal minimum wage. ~$31K per year.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    MIT has a living wage calculator[0], and in most locations in the US $15/hour is a living wage for a single adult. Amazon can't alter their wage scale based on your family situation. They aren't even allowed to ask about your family situation, it's a protected class. [0]: https://livingwage.mit.edu https://livingwage.mit.edu

xnx 6y ago

There's a phenomenon (which must have a name) where large companies are held to a different standard. We see this with: Amazon (there are doubtless jobs with worse conditions). Tesla (quality problems sure, but there's also some real nit-picking). Apple (class-action lawsuits around the most minor defects). Google (unbelievably clean compared to other companies and ad networks that handle personal data)