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Speaking as someone who lives adjacent to Bessemer but who does not work at Amazon, you need to understand that Bessemer is a dying city, a slum. These were the

Speaking as someone who lives adjacent to Bessemer but who does not work at Amazon, you need to understand that Bessemer is a dying city, a slum. These were the best paying jobs that many of these workers had had in their entire lives, it is no wonder that a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them.

fartcannon 6y ago
What a tragic way to frame it. The USA (and all the world governments) need to take care of it's poor people better so they don't have to choose indentured servitude over poverty. Edit: Added the bit about all the world governments
- afiori 6y ago
  Yang had a nice plan for that :(
  - mixedCase 6y ago
    And no sustainable way to fund it.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      I don't get how people keep saying this. A UBI is effectively a tax credit. You fund it with higher nominal rates. These mostly cancel out for working people, netting to zero in the middle. People at the top pay on net so that people at the bottom receive on net. It's completely sustainable and is effectively just a simplification and improvement of the status quo of having unemployment insurance and a bunch of means-tested benefits for low income people, but without the poverty traps, perverse incentives and excessive bureaucracy.
      - brippalcharrid 6y ago
        Are you sure this is realistic, or would it end up being a net negative for people earning above $20k-$25k? There are a lot of people who are opting out of paid employment, one way or another, under the current model.
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        The people at the top will move to a tax haven.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        The nice thing about a UBI is that it's still progressive even if funded by a flat tax, like VAT, because with the UBI it's still a net transfer to lower income people. How are the people at the top going to avoid VAT? By moving all their customers to a tax haven? Also, in this context "the top" is anything above the middle. Are lawyers and petroleum engineers going to move to a tax haven?
        dllthomas 6y ago
        > The nice thing about a UBI is that it's still progressive even if funded by a flat tax. I think this takes more thought. I agree that we want a progressive curve, and that UBI-with-a-flat-tax gives us a progressive curve, but I don't think we've established that it gives us the curve we want. Moving from the ideal curve to the (potentially) less than ideal curve for the sake of easier enforcement may still be worth it, and may still produce a system that we'd prefer to the current one, but we have to actually establish that.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        UBI-with-a-flat-tax gives a very nice curve, and on top of that you can make it arbitrarily more or less progressive by adjusting the amount of the UBI. A larger UBI with a higher flat tax rate is more progressive. It's mostly just not that compatible with confiscatory-level taxes on very high income people, but the cause of the trouble there was never really the taxes (once they were paying the same rates as ordinary people). The problem there is regulatory capture and inadequate antitrust enforcement leading to abusive consolidated corporate empires.
        dllthomas 6y ago
        > UBI-with-a-flat-tax gives a very nice curve It gives a family of curves, and as you say you have a knob you can turn... I don't have a strong opinion about exactly what shape the curve should have, but I do have a strong opinion that it's probably important and I've noticed a tendency (first in myself!) for UBI proponents to be satisfied having checked the "it's a progressive curve" box without having looked carefully at whether it can produce the particular progressive curve we (more broadly) want. Edited to add: I suppose if we do find that we need people to be taking home marginally more for the first N dollars earned, we could add a rebate based on reported income. Small fraud ("I reported a little more than I actually made") winds up pretty bounded in the amount it can walk off with; larger fraud ("I invented 500 people who are reporting income") isn't that much bigger a concern than it would already be with a UBI since the maximum rebate is probably much smaller than the stipend that would otherwise be expected. Note that I'm not calling for this, just exploring the space.
      - mixedCase 6y ago
        a) Crunch the numbers, find out how much you need. If you don't have exact, precise numbers and a precise plan on how to get to that number, the idea is worth nothing since you don't even have a starting point to analyze viability. People who have run the numbers tend to realize how inviable it is. Those who don't, also think you can just endlessly print money or just tax people more until you get to the happy number. Which leads to b) b) Observe the real world, see what happens when you "just increase tax rate". You'll find that very often when you increase taxes you actually end up collecting less, as more people decide to illegally dodge taxes or simply close up shop. Given a country's economic output, laws, culture and a thousand other factors, there's a hidden function that determines the maximum tax rate you can employ where anything more than that is counter-productive with both short-term and long-term results, the latter often including reputational damage that can be nigh impossible to repair, soft-capping your economy far below what it could've been. See: Laffer Curve, and the shining example that is Argentina.
        lazide 6y ago
        Definitely have seen and experienced the same thing - but hey, if we succeed in banning cash, no one can dodge taxes? It also removes a huge relief valve for large segments of the population to survive that can’t meet the bar demanded of the ‘normal’ workers.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > Crunch the numbers, find out how much you need. If you don't have exact, precise numbers and a precise plan on how to get to that number, the idea is worth nothing since you don't even have a starting point to analyze viability. Mean personal income in the US is ~$54,000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAPAINUSA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAPAINUSA646N For a $12,000 UBI that would yield a flat tax rate of ~22%. In real life it's more complicated than that, but not so much more complicated that the number is going to be off by an order of magnitude. It's completely viable. People are already paying nominal rates that high. > Observe the real world, see what happens when you "just increase tax rate". You'll find that very often when you increase taxes you actually end up collecting less, as more people decide to illegally dodge taxes or simply close up shop. The primary causes of this are that higher taxes give people less money to spend which hurts the economy and that higher marginal rates deter working. A UBI is a transfer payment, so on net nobody has any less money to spend and in practice people with less money would have slightly more and those people are more likely to spend it. So this factor goes in favor of economic growth. Meanwhile half the point of the UBI is to get rid of the crazy marginal rate cliffs created by means-tested benefits programs. The status quo deters work more than a UBI would, e.g. you lose unemployment if you take a job. Terrible incentives that would go away.
    - bit_logic 6y ago
      Are you just saying that or did you look at his proposed plan? It included VAT and other ways to make it sustainable.
      - Ericson2314 6y ago
        And hard to evade too!
- kukx 6y ago
  The people need to take care of themselves first, then their family, then their immediate surrounding, then their region and their country. Reversing the dependency on a large scale is not sustainable. Someone's right is someone else responsibility, for someone to receive money, someone else has to provide it. The government is a middleman in this transaction that wastes a substantial share of the value in the process.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    The problem with the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” thinking is that it ignores being born into the problem. Sure, some people can work their way out of a rut that their parents were in, but the majority can’t.
    - fartcannon 6y ago
      Not just that, but if we rank everyone, some people will inevitably be worse than others. Should those at the bottom be condemned to poverty?
      - suprfsat 6y ago
        That's pretty much the main political divide in our country. Should poor people have it better off, or worse off?
        SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
        That is an argument and such bad spirit. The actual discussion is about the degree of which government should handle re-distributing wealth to the lower class and to what degree the middle and upper class is responsible. The “divide” is that politicians on both sides who’s actions don’t always match their stated positions.
        clevergadget 6y ago
        yeah as long as they keep the conversation on the extremes they never have to give up anything. If you ask them to give up a 4th car for someone to have food then they are evil for saying no. So they say "Oh we have to give up EVERYTHING and live in the DIRT because of your RADICAL EXTREMISM!"
- flavius29663 6y ago
  $15 an hour is more than you can get in almost any place in Europe or the world for unskilled labor, what are you talking about?
  - specialist 6y ago
    Why are you comparing absolute dollar amounts? Is the cost of living the same every where?
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Cost of living in the middle of nowhere in the US is almost certainly less than nearly anywhere in Western Europe. The media home value in Bessemer is like $90,000.
      - specialist 6y ago
        Go on... Food? Health care? Transportation?
        DC1350 6y ago
        Food and housing is extremely cheap in America. Americans have an extremely low cost of living and low taxes compared to every other wealthy country. Also higher wages for similar jobs.
        astrange 6y ago
        One reason everyone thinks it's bad is journalists are 1. naturally neurotic people 2. all have student debt 3. all live in expensive cities like NYC and 4. their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago. Similar for some other activist classes, though not all.
        astrange 6y ago
        > their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago has fewer people and they earn less, not fewer people who earn less.
- ActorNightly 6y ago
  USA needs better education so that people understand economics and labor markets, so they wont calling paid positions indentured servitude.
  - diag 6y ago
    How long do you think people will survive if they aren't working? Not calling employment servitude is dishonest.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      By that definition, who on this entire planet is not an indentured servant?
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    I imagine GP is being facetious
  - fartcannon 6y ago
    I'm from Canada, but certainly education on economics would be amazingly helpful, I agree.
  - psychometry 6y ago
    We need better education so that people stop voting against their own self-interest, in union elections and generally.
    - gruez 6y ago
      ...or maybe they just have differences in opinion to you?
      - claudiawerner 6y ago
        That's entirely possible, and very likely. However, that does not do away with rationality completely. For some given situations, with data on the situation and a set of options, we can deduce pretty quickly what is rational to do, what is right to do, and what is in one's interest to do. This is how we (and that includes me and you) are able to criticize people on those grounds all the time. If someone is poor and has a choice between buying a stereo system and saving the money in a high-interest bank account, I doubt you'd have any problem saying that it's in their self interest to do one of those options and not the other. Economists talk about the principles of economic rationality all the time. So yeah, you can have your own opinion. That doesn't mean that the opinion is beyond criticism, nor does it mean it's a rational thought out opinion from all points of view, considering all the facts.
- dominotw 6y ago
  > The USA (and all the world governments) need to take care of it's poor people better I believe The USA spends most on social welfare than any other country.
  - metters 6y ago
    You believe so, but at least Wikipedia says the US are 22nd per capita (which is more relevant than the total spending) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_...
    - dominotw 6y ago
      > Wikipedia says the US are 22nd per capita I see USA at 10 in per capita section in your wiki link.
      - weaksauce 6y ago
        so either way the us is not at position number 1... at that point it doesn't matter.
        dominotw 6y ago
        ok
      - metters 5y ago
        You are right, I have made a mistake there. The USA are 10th in spending per capita and 22nd in spending in percentage of the GDP.
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    The amount of money spent doesn't mean anything. The US also pays insane amounts for their health system but the result is a system that's far more expensive than in other countries.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  I agree though. If we ever want to have a chance at closing the gap between low and middle classes, then we need a basic income for people making under a certain income. Taking away the hardships of deciding whether to put gas in your car or get groceries isn't a decision someone should have to make. An extra $500-1K per month for those people would make a world of difference and ease a lot of those everyday decisions. The utopia would be having low income housing running on solar with affordable EV's for people under a certain income level as well. Combined with a basic income, it would certainly make a huge decrease in poverty and allow these people to bootstrap themselves into the middle class. EDIT: for poor math skills. lol
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    Can I ask where you heard that we could have given every person in the country a million each? I've seen that quoted all over the place, and can't figure out why, given that it's off by a factor of about a hundred.
  - repsilat 6y ago
    > could've given every person in the country a million dollars each That'd be $329 trillion[1], which is on the order of 100x what we spent. 1: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%241+million%2Fperson+*+population+of+UsA https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%241+million%2Fperson+...
  - ptomato 6y ago
    > we just had several trillion dollar stimulus bills that could've given every person in the country a million dollars damn, didn't know covid killed 99% of the US population. rough.
  - geitir 6y ago
    That's completely incorrect. If you take the us population over 18, that is 209 million. If we assumed 5% are wealthy, that's 198 million who would need to get 1 million dollars. If you multiply 1 million by 198 million, you 198 trillion dollars.
  - FredPret 6y ago
- macrowhat 6y ago
  Wikipedia: Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person (an indenture) agrees to work without salary for a specific number of years for eventual compensation or debt repayment. "Without salary" "WITHOUT SALARY" And no, the government isn't your nanny. What a bunch of leftist doo-doo. Learn a bit about how horrible unions were in the 70s, and maybe I'll be convinced that "education" is actually a pathway to knowing what's best for yourself (as others suggest) They make the right choice.
  - durkie 6y ago
    if you're worried about how bad certain organizations were in the 70s i've got bad news for you about corporations
    - macrowhat 6y ago
      Just get the hell out of my country
- xwolfi 6y ago
  Well reality so far is that things will stay unbalanced for a while. I come from a shit city in France, a former textile powerhouse that lost everthing after the war when it became automated abroad and we couldnt compete. And I moved to Hong Kong years ago. Well... between this city and my new one, there's such an imbalance, I think I wish a few companies were trying to enslave people back home to teach them something else than shooting heroin and cheating on social insurance... And the French gov cant fix it, they can't make people clever and useful just with money and will...
- rogerdickey 6y ago
  Where does the money come from? What would the unskilled labor produce?
- rmk 6y ago
  Most rich countries take good care of their poor. In the US, most states will pay for food, heating, sometimes even internet access, not to mention healthcare, if you are poor. Indigent children also have separate healthcare programs targeted towards them and receive free lunches at school to encourage them to concentrate on school. Furthermore, there is also Unemployment Insurance which provides for months of basic income if you become unemployed. Finally, there is disability payments. This is the situation where you are severely disabled and can't work, in which case, the government will pay you a basic income for the rest of your life. Most of these programs are well-run and disburse money efficiently. Fraud to get disability payments is very high. People who are unable to rejoin the job market sometimes make the difficult decision to connive with sympathetic doctors to get this. But once you do this, you can never go back to work in any official capacity. This is the one case where people who are chronically unemployed give up and become wards of the state. So the 'desperately poor' are actually taken care of in some fashion in the US. The problem is that the people who are the 'working poor' often get shafted. These are the janitors who are working all hours of the day, the baggers at the grocery store, the short order cooks, the security people who patrol industrial and residential facilities, etc. Even though their children are eligible for all the benefits above in many cases, it's still difficult to raise a family if there is one breadwinner who makes minimum wage. These people are not eligible for many benefits programs and also do not generally get healthcare from their employers (employers deliberately keep hours/week down to avoid this expense). The problem is, 'taking care' of these people is very hard: they are the majority of the workforce, and I suspect that there is not enough money to fund programs for these people because of the sheer size of this workforce. Also remember that this group oftentimes does not have powerful unions (many subgroups do), which means politicians do not have to listen to them.
MattGaiser 6y ago
One person earning $15 Amazon in Bessemer is solidly middle class for that town. https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/07/22/worst-cities-to-live-in-every-state-4/2/ https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/07/22/worst-cities...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bradj 6y ago
  Just as comparison, an entry level firefighter in Bessemer makes about $12/hour starting out. https://www.pbjcal.org/documents/salary/03BS/firefighter.pdf https://www.pbjcal.org/documents/salary/03BS/firefighter.pdf
- temp8964 6y ago
  Imagining a federal $15 minimum wage will easily level up everyone in the town to middle class... (sarcasm)
- TurkishPoptart 6y ago
  Rightly so, but the issue is that the conditions pertaining to work in an Amazon warehouse do not lend themselves to being the kind of work one can do for decades+. People burn out, their legs grow week, and they get no insurance benefits for physical therapy, and that sort of thing. It's just not a sustainable job for most people, sadly.
  - khc 6y ago
    is it different from manufacturing work or work in service industry?
    - macintux 6y ago
      Amazon is infamous for absolutely driving their warehouse employees into the ground. I suspect manufacturing is somewhat less casual about their employees’ health because much of it is unionized, and training is more difficult. Warehouse workers are considered disposable. And the service industry is light years easier than warehouse work, at least based on my time in both.
ystad 6y ago
It's exploitation- people are attracted by $15/hour work. Unfortunately, the work in unsustainable on your body. Eventually you go on disability. This seems to be biggest complaint [1] 1 - 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...
stefan_ 6y ago
All the while, the hand was spending many multiples of their yearly income on telling them all the things they would have to go without when paying $500 in dues yearly. America is utterly rotten.
- anchpop 6y ago
  Are you saying the campaign cost multiples of their yearly labor expenditure, or the whole plan multiples of the yearly pay for one employee? If it’s the latter I don’t see how it makes them rotten. That’s an incredibly small expenditure, much less than would be paid in dues for instance
Diederich 6y ago
Wow, you're not kidding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer,_Alabama#Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer,_Alabama#Economy "Crime increased following the rise in unemployment and social disruption from the decline of manufacturing industries in the area. As of 2019 Bessemer ranks first in terms of violent crimes for US cities with 25,000 or more people." Population has fallen from its peak in 1970 of 33k to 26k today. Thanks for the reference. EDIT: Also home to the world's oldest chicken, who lived 16 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_(chicken) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_(chicken)
- kpennell 6y ago
  thx for the chicken edit
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - echelon 6y ago
    A surprisingly detailed Wikipedia article. Random internet serendipity, shift in topic and mood. We live in such an interesting and strange universe.
  - labster 6y ago
    What the cluck?
- kryogen1c 6y ago
  > Also home to the world's oldest chicken, who lived 16 years frowns in Colorado https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
  - Bluestein 6y ago
    I hereby humbly move to make Matilda the Chicken (or Mike, the Headless) the oficial Amazon mascot. Votes welcome :) Funny enough, I have no heavenly idea how, I had actually run into the article on poor Mike before.- Further edit: Come to think, poor Mike the "headless" would be a great mascot for -at least- AWS, for obvious, ssh-related reasons :)
onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
What would Amazon do if they did Unionize? Move the warehouse?
- bena 6y ago
  Possible. As others have noted, WalMart has done similar things. I think a retail/warehouse workers' union only really works if it's a national sort with local chapters so that a company can't hire except through a union. I'm not saying such a situation isn't rife with its own problems, but as long as these unions are essentially on a per-location basis, a company with the resources can always close one location and open up down the street to avoid the union.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Unions need several things to work: two of the big ones are a job such that you cannot replace someone easily; and a sense that "we are all in it together". If you don't have the first it is easy to replace anyone striking, and the union doesn't have power. If you don't have the second the better employees will want more money and so they won't work with the lesser ones In retail it is generally easy to replace people. It only takes a few minutes of training and the new person will figure it out. In retail there are a lot of different jobs. People who can do more (and have been around longer) are worth more. Many of the jobs do have metrics that can be measured to say who is better. While the pay this results in isn't much more, it is enough. That isn't to say you need the above to have a union. There are counter examples that work, but they are less powerful than unions that have those factors because they find it harder to get everyone to stand together. As such retail unions have trouble working. It is too easy to hire someone else if they go on strike.
- jandrese 6y ago
  Yes. This is why unions have to be big to be effective. The union has to be big enough to cover anywhere the company might be able to move to. This is why the Teamsters work so well, you can't outsource US trucking to Namibia. This is also why the UAW started dying once containerized shipping made it practical to move factories overseas.
2bitencryption 6y ago
This may be a bit of an ignorant question, but... Are "dying cities/slums" a purely American phenomenon, in terms of rich first-world countries? Is there similarly a "rust belt" in Germany, of cities that had an economic collapse after manufacturing died out? Are there rich European countries with flailing cities that devolve into crime and poverty? Does Europe have its own Bessemers, Detroits? (though I do hear Detroit isn't as bad as it's made out to be)
- Lammy 6y ago
  America's "Rust Belt" cities all tend to have one thing in common: a large black population that originally migrated there in the 20th century for industrial jobs that largely no longer exist. Think Detroit with the auto industry. Camden NJ with New York Ship, Victor, and Campbell's Soup. Gary Indiana with US Steel, etc etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)#First_Great_Migration_(1910%E2%80%931940) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_Ameri...
  - cat199 6y ago
    > America's "Rust Belt" cities all tend to have one thing in common Not anti union, but these also had high union activity, which some explain as a cause of their 'rustification' as companies moved production elsewhere (like Alabama) to avoid.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      Not even Alabama but overseas where not only is there no union, but companies can get away with paying starvation wages to effective slaves. How an American is going to compete with a guy willing to work for $0.50/day on an 18 hour shift 7 days a week is a mystery. He doesn't even ask for healthcare, and when he dies of exhaustion there are hundreds more waiting to take his place because that's a huge amount of money for them. One of the few things I think Trump got right is when he brought tariffs back. If you want companies to keep jobs in the US you have to make the labor cost just as much no matter where you find it. Otherwise it is just a race to the bottom.
slantedview 6y ago
> These were the best paying jobs that many of these workers had had in their entire lives Until they get hurt on the job and Amazon fires them for failure to show up to work: https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-crisis/ https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-cri...
asdff 6y ago
Amazon moving into these impovershed areas, becoming the majority employer, and having absolute influence over the local governance and electorate they themselves employ makes these places de facto a company town. Brilliant move, totally evil genius move, but brilliant.
- johncessna 6y ago
  That's what they did in Seattle.
- musingsole 6y ago
  Carpetbaggers carpetbagging is a story as old as time. At least they're creating jobs and distributing money into the community. It's not like there's a long list of others who would willingly pick up the slack if they went elsewhere.
- gruez 6y ago
  So let me get this straight: companies shouldn't be investing money into revitalizing impoverished areas?
  - tablespoon 6y ago
    > So let me get this straight: companies shouldn't be investing money into revitalizing impoverished areas? No, they should do so, just not be so exploitative about it (e.g. deliberately going into areas full of desperate people, for the reason of using that desperation to exert maximum control with minimum accountability).
    - mariksolo 6y ago
      So your issue is specifically with the mindset of the company, not the actions themselves? Why would a company ever do anything out of the goodness of their hearts? Shouldn't we just be looking at the result of them following market incentives?
      - 6y ago
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
What exactly would the retribution from Amazon look like, had this passed? They can't pick up the fulfillment center and move it somewhere else (without inconvenience, time, and expense, of course). They will need workers willing to travel to Bessemer for work, which presumably are people who live near or adjacent to Bessemer.
- slantedview 6y ago
  You're right, but obviously the fear of retribution was enough to influence the vote.
- sct202 6y ago
  They could suck up the losses of closing a 1 year old warehouse to send a signal. Walmart has claimed unfixable plumbing problems at union stores and closed them in the past.
  - psds2 6y ago
    They also stopped selling fresh meat through a butcher window all across the US when the butchers unionized.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      If in their judgment, it became not in their best interests economically for them to continue doing it, what else would have them do?
      - ec109685 6y ago
        That’s why you need strong labor laws as a balance.
fredstarr 6y ago
Reasonable point of view. However, have you asked why Bessemer is a dying city and/or a slum? Was it always a slum? Were there no businesses there since it was founded and incorporated? And if it was such a hell hole, why did Amazon choose to open a warehouse there? Out of the goodness of their hearts? We need to ask questions as to why Amazon had to become a "savior" for the City of Bessemer. Not just focusing on effects but looking into causes too!
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  Bessemer appears to be in the outskirts of Birmingham. Seems like a reasonable place to put a fulfillment center: land is cheaper than somewhere more central (but a warehouse doesn't need to be located on expensive, high demand, centrally located land). It's also probably a reasonable commute distance for many in the Birmingham metro area.
  - fredstarr 5y ago
    Definitely... and I'm sure that there are many other cities in Alabama just like Bessemer. My comment isn't about Amazon specifically as much as the fact that there are so many cities all over this country (supposedly the wealthiest in human history) that have fallen into so much disrepair and so much distress that they need companies like Amazon to come "save" them. We need to ask why is all I'm saying.
charlescearl 6y ago
As someone whose great uncles worked in the steel factories nearby, whose parents before that labored in the cotton fields, I can also testify the multi-century efforts of Black workers who fought the “hands that was fedding them”. America's Johannesburg [1] and Hammer and Hoe [2] for reference. [1] https://ugapress.org/book/9780820356273/americas-johannesburg/ https://ugapress.org/book/9780820356273/americas-johannesbur... [2] https://uncpress.org/book/9781469625485/hammer-and-hoe/ https://uncpress.org/book/9781469625485/hammer-and-hoe/
- lupire 6y ago
  That gets harder as capital gets easier to move.
andrei_says_ 6y ago
The hand feeds them in exchange of their work. It’s not some benevolent entity providing out of goodness. They voted to allow the “hand” to maximize exploitation without restraint.
nimbius 6y ago
>a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them. How did we as a nation go from the land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, to "beg for scraps or you will starve."
- paxys 6y ago
  > land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage All of this has always been propaganda, nothing more. The average unskilled worker has never had a good life in America.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Has the average unskilled worker "had a good life" at any time or place in the Earth's history?
  - astrange 6y ago
    It was pretty good in the postwar era if they were white, since the average worker came back from the war on the GI Bill and got free education and subsidized suburb buildouts.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Black people might object to the US once being "land of the free." In fact, almost every unskilled worker might.
- yeetman21 6y ago
  who the fuck is begging for scraps. with 15$ an hour they are living like kings in their hometown, above the median income
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    No one is living like kings on $15 per hour anywhere in the US. Unless your definition of kings includes lack of retirement security, income security, health security, and working back breaking shift work at odd hours. They will especially be vulnerable in their 50 to 65 years, when they will become unemployable for manual labor work. They'll be able to put a roof over their head, and not worry about their kids' next meal or maybe even their kid breaking their arm. But they're not going to advance to the next rung of the socioeconomic ladder.
Shivetya 6y ago
I am asking for it but what the hell. I was a union member back in the last 1980s through 1990s early. I was in a low skilled job where we paid our dues and got exactly nothing for it. Oh we had a wonderful contract that specified it all. It was great for basically keeping anyone new boxed in. Each quarter if we were lucky we got a visit by our local union rep in her Mercedes which cost more than many of us made a year. So I am so not a big union supporter and lean against them. On another personal note, they spent decades harassing my uncles, now cousins industrial roofing business calling OSHA and other inspectors out to where even the OSHA representatives joked about it. It became a coffee break for them. All this over a company with less than thirty people at max. So while they may have some application on higher paid jobs when you are low wage there isn't much they do for you other than suck two hours of wages or more from you each month. People here glorify unions have no experience with them at the level that would have been seen in Amazon. They have these grandiose ideas how everyone benefits. Oh don't get me wrong, you are likely to get some changes that are beneficial, but in the end you are still exactly where you are before but now its all in nice pretty print writing which spells out exactly how you aren't going anywhere fast. Oh, don't forget the monthly payout (could be weekly in some places) and don't expect much if you ever actually reach strike stage.
- uoaei 6y ago
  This is what happens when union reps are in bed with the company they're supposedly holding to account. It happens because of corruption and nepotism, not because of unionization. I might recommend to watch Waiting For Lefty to understand the distinction.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  Unions also start boxing out new experienced employees. The railroads have no way to bring in experienced workers from other industries because everyone is mandated a certain starting wage by the union...entry level wages ($50k) plus overtime. Looks exactly like regulatory capture.
  - temp667 6y ago
    You see this in a lot of industries that are unionized, if you move across the country or have a life change and are in a unionized environment you can be screwed by a) losing seniority and b) comp can drop. Had a friend who was a pilot. Personal situation - moved, wanted to live in base rather than deadhead yadda yadda - you start off at ground zero at the new airline - literally next to guys with no time on type (and you could have thousands of hours on type - which is years of work).
kodah 6y ago
I've lived periods of life in different cultures, income levels, etc... It's interesting how people see things in such a binary sense (eg: x is good while y is bad, universally). Everyone does it and it presents itself differently in each perspective, but it's been an interesting watch. As I've grown older I've tried to resist the urge to marry myself to these stark beliefs. Following this thread there's a lot of good information on what those competing perspectives actually entail. In my current area, which is mostly liberals of varying degrees, unions are almost universally championed. If you ask about the downsides or present an example of how they can be bad you can face people who think you're some kind of oppressor, or that you must be conservative. Where I'm from, which is mostly various flavors of conservativism the mention of unions causes similar outrage but in the other direction. If you mention how a union could be useful or various implementations that are non-stock (such as unions that don't try to practice authoritarian control over pay and just maintain representation for working conditions) then you'll be demonized for being a socialist. I used to think, "these are bad people of varying variety" but I've come to understand they're just people without experience in each other's geography and problem set, so it becomes easier to speak dogmatically. Sometimes a union can be good, sometimes it can be bad, sometimes it's a bit of both pending nuance and implementation details, but at the end of the day this is a truth: the only people whose opinion matters is the people whose lives it will directly affect.
- FredPret 6y ago
  Ah, nuanced centrism. The golden midway. This is where progress is made.
jandrese 6y ago
I had a feeling most people were looking at this as a vote for yes is a vote to close the warehouse. They would never see the benefit of the union because Amazon would just close the whole place down before they let other distribution centers see what a union can do.
snarf21 6y ago
"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" - Upton Sinclair
dTal 6y ago
Perhaps they read the cautionary tale of "Why there is no moloch13": https://everything2.com/title/Why+there+is+no+moloch13 https://everything2.com/title/Why+there+is+no+moloch13
lmilcin 6y ago
I wonder how much of this is strategy. Find a dying city with huge unemployment. No problem finding workers for a factory where most employees don't require anything more than ability to walk and read.
- lupire 6y ago
  That's a complicated way of saying "open shop where labor is cheap". This why we need national and international coordination on minimum wage and minimum work environment laws.
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    I think Amazon fulfillment centers are a special case. Most people working there either move packages around or drive a truck. At least that is my understanding, somebody with better/first hand knowledge would be welcome to share. Normally having a huge employer would be a boon to the city, but most of these people are going to be working for close to minimum wage and Amazon most likely negotiated with the city so they don't have to pay a dime.
    - astrange 6y ago
      Amazon pays significantly over minimum wage in Alabama, since they don't have one and use the federal $7. This is Amazon's advantage over smaller companies - they're more efficient and so they can afford to pay more.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    There will never be international cooperation on labor laws. Countries have too much to gain from allowing companies to open sweatshops.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cosmodisk 6y ago
Comments like yours remind me that I shouldn't jump to conclusion and ask 'why' instead before making an opinion on a matter. Thanks.
iamleppert 6y ago
That Union couldn’t manage to get the starting wage for their members to $15. I think that says it all about how ineffective they are as an organization.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
That's even more depressing then that they are accepting what the corporation wants to give them.

fartcannon 6y ago

What a tragic way to frame it. The USA (and all the world governments) need to take care of it's poor people better so they don't have to choose indentured servitude over poverty. Edit: Added the bit about all the world governments

afiori 6y ago
Yang had a nice plan for that :(
- mixedCase 6y ago
  And no sustainable way to fund it.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    I don't get how people keep saying this. A UBI is effectively a tax credit. You fund it with higher nominal rates. These mostly cancel out for working people, netting to zero in the middle. People at the top pay on net so that people at the bottom receive on net. It's completely sustainable and is effectively just a simplification and improvement of the status quo of having unemployment insurance and a bunch of means-tested benefits for low income people, but without the poverty traps, perverse incentives and excessive bureaucracy.
    - brippalcharrid 6y ago
      Are you sure this is realistic, or would it end up being a net negative for people earning above $20k-$25k? There are a lot of people who are opting out of paid employment, one way or another, under the current model.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      The people at the top will move to a tax haven.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        The nice thing about a UBI is that it's still progressive even if funded by a flat tax, like VAT, because with the UBI it's still a net transfer to lower income people. How are the people at the top going to avoid VAT? By moving all their customers to a tax haven? Also, in this context "the top" is anything above the middle. Are lawyers and petroleum engineers going to move to a tax haven?
        dllthomas 6y ago
        > The nice thing about a UBI is that it's still progressive even if funded by a flat tax. I think this takes more thought. I agree that we want a progressive curve, and that UBI-with-a-flat-tax gives us a progressive curve, but I don't think we've established that it gives us the curve we want. Moving from the ideal curve to the (potentially) less than ideal curve for the sake of easier enforcement may still be worth it, and may still produce a system that we'd prefer to the current one, but we have to actually establish that.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        UBI-with-a-flat-tax gives a very nice curve, and on top of that you can make it arbitrarily more or less progressive by adjusting the amount of the UBI. A larger UBI with a higher flat tax rate is more progressive. It's mostly just not that compatible with confiscatory-level taxes on very high income people, but the cause of the trouble there was never really the taxes (once they were paying the same rates as ordinary people). The problem there is regulatory capture and inadequate antitrust enforcement leading to abusive consolidated corporate empires.
        dllthomas 6y ago
        > UBI-with-a-flat-tax gives a very nice curve It gives a family of curves, and as you say you have a knob you can turn... I don't have a strong opinion about exactly what shape the curve should have, but I do have a strong opinion that it's probably important and I've noticed a tendency (first in myself!) for UBI proponents to be satisfied having checked the "it's a progressive curve" box without having looked carefully at whether it can produce the particular progressive curve we (more broadly) want. Edited to add: I suppose if we do find that we need people to be taking home marginally more for the first N dollars earned, we could add a rebate based on reported income. Small fraud ("I reported a little more than I actually made") winds up pretty bounded in the amount it can walk off with; larger fraud ("I invented 500 people who are reporting income") isn't that much bigger a concern than it would already be with a UBI since the maximum rebate is probably much smaller than the stipend that would otherwise be expected. Note that I'm not calling for this, just exploring the space.
    - mixedCase 6y ago
      a) Crunch the numbers, find out how much you need. If you don't have exact, precise numbers and a precise plan on how to get to that number, the idea is worth nothing since you don't even have a starting point to analyze viability. People who have run the numbers tend to realize how inviable it is. Those who don't, also think you can just endlessly print money or just tax people more until you get to the happy number. Which leads to b) b) Observe the real world, see what happens when you "just increase tax rate". You'll find that very often when you increase taxes you actually end up collecting less, as more people decide to illegally dodge taxes or simply close up shop. Given a country's economic output, laws, culture and a thousand other factors, there's a hidden function that determines the maximum tax rate you can employ where anything more than that is counter-productive with both short-term and long-term results, the latter often including reputational damage that can be nigh impossible to repair, soft-capping your economy far below what it could've been. See: Laffer Curve, and the shining example that is Argentina.
      - lazide 6y ago
        Definitely have seen and experienced the same thing - but hey, if we succeed in banning cash, no one can dodge taxes? It also removes a huge relief valve for large segments of the population to survive that can’t meet the bar demanded of the ‘normal’ workers.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > Crunch the numbers, find out how much you need. If you don't have exact, precise numbers and a precise plan on how to get to that number, the idea is worth nothing since you don't even have a starting point to analyze viability. Mean personal income in the US is ~$54,000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAPAINUSA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAPAINUSA646N For a $12,000 UBI that would yield a flat tax rate of ~22%. In real life it's more complicated than that, but not so much more complicated that the number is going to be off by an order of magnitude. It's completely viable. People are already paying nominal rates that high. > Observe the real world, see what happens when you "just increase tax rate". You'll find that very often when you increase taxes you actually end up collecting less, as more people decide to illegally dodge taxes or simply close up shop. The primary causes of this are that higher taxes give people less money to spend which hurts the economy and that higher marginal rates deter working. A UBI is a transfer payment, so on net nobody has any less money to spend and in practice people with less money would have slightly more and those people are more likely to spend it. So this factor goes in favor of economic growth. Meanwhile half the point of the UBI is to get rid of the crazy marginal rate cliffs created by means-tested benefits programs. The status quo deters work more than a UBI would, e.g. you lose unemployment if you take a job. Terrible incentives that would go away.
  - bit_logic 6y ago
    Are you just saying that or did you look at his proposed plan? It included VAT and other ways to make it sustainable.
    - Ericson2314 6y ago
      And hard to evade too!
kukx 6y ago
The people need to take care of themselves first, then their family, then their immediate surrounding, then their region and their country. Reversing the dependency on a large scale is not sustainable. Someone's right is someone else responsibility, for someone to receive money, someone else has to provide it. The government is a middleman in this transaction that wastes a substantial share of the value in the process.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The problem with the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” thinking is that it ignores being born into the problem. Sure, some people can work their way out of a rut that their parents were in, but the majority can’t.
  - fartcannon 6y ago
    Not just that, but if we rank everyone, some people will inevitably be worse than others. Should those at the bottom be condemned to poverty?
    - suprfsat 6y ago
      That's pretty much the main political divide in our country. Should poor people have it better off, or worse off?
      - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
        That is an argument and such bad spirit. The actual discussion is about the degree of which government should handle re-distributing wealth to the lower class and to what degree the middle and upper class is responsible. The “divide” is that politicians on both sides who’s actions don’t always match their stated positions.
        clevergadget 6y ago
        yeah as long as they keep the conversation on the extremes they never have to give up anything. If you ask them to give up a 4th car for someone to have food then they are evil for saying no. So they say "Oh we have to give up EVERYTHING and live in the DIRT because of your RADICAL EXTREMISM!"
flavius29663 6y ago
$15 an hour is more than you can get in almost any place in Europe or the world for unskilled labor, what are you talking about?
- specialist 6y ago
  Why are you comparing absolute dollar amounts? Is the cost of living the same every where?
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Cost of living in the middle of nowhere in the US is almost certainly less than nearly anywhere in Western Europe. The media home value in Bessemer is like $90,000.
    - specialist 6y ago
      Go on... Food? Health care? Transportation?
      - DC1350 6y ago
        Food and housing is extremely cheap in America. Americans have an extremely low cost of living and low taxes compared to every other wealthy country. Also higher wages for similar jobs.
        astrange 6y ago
        One reason everyone thinks it's bad is journalists are 1. naturally neurotic people 2. all have student debt 3. all live in expensive cities like NYC and 4. their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago. Similar for some other activist classes, though not all.
        astrange 6y ago
        > their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago has fewer people and they earn less, not fewer people who earn less.
ActorNightly 6y ago
USA needs better education so that people understand economics and labor markets, so they wont calling paid positions indentured servitude.
- diag 6y ago
  How long do you think people will survive if they aren't working? Not calling employment servitude is dishonest.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    By that definition, who on this entire planet is not an indentured servant?
- tomc1985 6y ago
  I imagine GP is being facetious
- fartcannon 6y ago
  I'm from Canada, but certainly education on economics would be amazingly helpful, I agree.
- psychometry 6y ago
  We need better education so that people stop voting against their own self-interest, in union elections and generally.
  - gruez 6y ago
    ...or maybe they just have differences in opinion to you?
    - claudiawerner 6y ago
      That's entirely possible, and very likely. However, that does not do away with rationality completely. For some given situations, with data on the situation and a set of options, we can deduce pretty quickly what is rational to do, what is right to do, and what is in one's interest to do. This is how we (and that includes me and you) are able to criticize people on those grounds all the time. If someone is poor and has a choice between buying a stereo system and saving the money in a high-interest bank account, I doubt you'd have any problem saying that it's in their self interest to do one of those options and not the other. Economists talk about the principles of economic rationality all the time. So yeah, you can have your own opinion. That doesn't mean that the opinion is beyond criticism, nor does it mean it's a rational thought out opinion from all points of view, considering all the facts.
dominotw 6y ago
> The USA (and all the world governments) need to take care of it's poor people better I believe The USA spends most on social welfare than any other country.
- metters 6y ago
  You believe so, but at least Wikipedia says the US are 22nd per capita (which is more relevant than the total spending) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_...
  - dominotw 6y ago
    > Wikipedia says the US are 22nd per capita I see USA at 10 in per capita section in your wiki link.
    - weaksauce 6y ago
      so either way the us is not at position number 1... at that point it doesn't matter.
      - dominotw 6y ago
        ok
    - metters 5y ago
      You are right, I have made a mistake there. The USA are 10th in spending per capita and 22nd in spending in percentage of the GDP.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  The amount of money spent doesn't mean anything. The US also pays insane amounts for their health system but the result is a system that's far more expensive than in other countries.
at-fates-hands 6y ago
I agree though. If we ever want to have a chance at closing the gap between low and middle classes, then we need a basic income for people making under a certain income. Taking away the hardships of deciding whether to put gas in your car or get groceries isn't a decision someone should have to make. An extra $500-1K per month for those people would make a world of difference and ease a lot of those everyday decisions. The utopia would be having low income housing running on solar with affordable EV's for people under a certain income level as well. Combined with a basic income, it would certainly make a huge decrease in poverty and allow these people to bootstrap themselves into the middle class. EDIT: for poor math skills. lol
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Can I ask where you heard that we could have given every person in the country a million each? I've seen that quoted all over the place, and can't figure out why, given that it's off by a factor of about a hundred.
- repsilat 6y ago
  > could've given every person in the country a million dollars each That'd be $329 trillion[1], which is on the order of 100x what we spent. 1: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%241+million%2Fperson+*+population+of+UsA https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%241+million%2Fperson+...
- ptomato 6y ago
  > we just had several trillion dollar stimulus bills that could've given every person in the country a million dollars damn, didn't know covid killed 99% of the US population. rough.
- geitir 6y ago
  That's completely incorrect. If you take the us population over 18, that is 209 million. If we assumed 5% are wealthy, that's 198 million who would need to get 1 million dollars. If you multiply 1 million by 198 million, you 198 trillion dollars.
- FredPret 6y ago
macrowhat 6y ago
Wikipedia: Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person (an indenture) agrees to work without salary for a specific number of years for eventual compensation or debt repayment. "Without salary" "WITHOUT SALARY" And no, the government isn't your nanny. What a bunch of leftist doo-doo. Learn a bit about how horrible unions were in the 70s, and maybe I'll be convinced that "education" is actually a pathway to knowing what's best for yourself (as others suggest) They make the right choice.
- durkie 6y ago
  if you're worried about how bad certain organizations were in the 70s i've got bad news for you about corporations
  - macrowhat 6y ago
    Just get the hell out of my country
xwolfi 6y ago
Well reality so far is that things will stay unbalanced for a while. I come from a shit city in France, a former textile powerhouse that lost everthing after the war when it became automated abroad and we couldnt compete. And I moved to Hong Kong years ago. Well... between this city and my new one, there's such an imbalance, I think I wish a few companies were trying to enslave people back home to teach them something else than shooting heroin and cheating on social insurance... And the French gov cant fix it, they can't make people clever and useful just with money and will...
rogerdickey 6y ago
Where does the money come from? What would the unskilled labor produce?
rmk 6y ago
Most rich countries take good care of their poor. In the US, most states will pay for food, heating, sometimes even internet access, not to mention healthcare, if you are poor. Indigent children also have separate healthcare programs targeted towards them and receive free lunches at school to encourage them to concentrate on school. Furthermore, there is also Unemployment Insurance which provides for months of basic income if you become unemployed. Finally, there is disability payments. This is the situation where you are severely disabled and can't work, in which case, the government will pay you a basic income for the rest of your life. Most of these programs are well-run and disburse money efficiently. Fraud to get disability payments is very high. People who are unable to rejoin the job market sometimes make the difficult decision to connive with sympathetic doctors to get this. But once you do this, you can never go back to work in any official capacity. This is the one case where people who are chronically unemployed give up and become wards of the state. So the 'desperately poor' are actually taken care of in some fashion in the US. The problem is that the people who are the 'working poor' often get shafted. These are the janitors who are working all hours of the day, the baggers at the grocery store, the short order cooks, the security people who patrol industrial and residential facilities, etc. Even though their children are eligible for all the benefits above in many cases, it's still difficult to raise a family if there is one breadwinner who makes minimum wage. These people are not eligible for many benefits programs and also do not generally get healthcare from their employers (employers deliberately keep hours/week down to avoid this expense). The problem is, 'taking care' of these people is very hard: they are the majority of the workforce, and I suspect that there is not enough money to fund programs for these people because of the sheer size of this workforce. Also remember that this group oftentimes does not have powerful unions (many subgroups do), which means politicians do not have to listen to them.

MattGaiser 6y ago

One person earning $15 Amazon in Bessemer is solidly middle class for that town. https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/07/22/worst-cities-to-live-in-every-state-4/2/ https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/07/22/worst-cities...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bradj 6y ago
Just as comparison, an entry level firefighter in Bessemer makes about $12/hour starting out. https://www.pbjcal.org/documents/salary/03BS/firefighter.pdf https://www.pbjcal.org/documents/salary/03BS/firefighter.pdf
temp8964 6y ago
Imagining a federal $15 minimum wage will easily level up everyone in the town to middle class... (sarcasm)
TurkishPoptart 6y ago
Rightly so, but the issue is that the conditions pertaining to work in an Amazon warehouse do not lend themselves to being the kind of work one can do for decades+. People burn out, their legs grow week, and they get no insurance benefits for physical therapy, and that sort of thing. It's just not a sustainable job for most people, sadly.
- khc 6y ago
  is it different from manufacturing work or work in service industry?
  - macintux 6y ago
    Amazon is infamous for absolutely driving their warehouse employees into the ground. I suspect manufacturing is somewhat less casual about their employees’ health because much of it is unionized, and training is more difficult. Warehouse workers are considered disposable. And the service industry is light years easier than warehouse work, at least based on my time in both.

ystad 6y ago

It's exploitation- people are attracted by $15/hour work. Unfortunately, the work in unsustainable on your body. Eventually you go on disability. This seems to be biggest complaint [1] 1 - 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...

stefan_ 6y ago

All the while, the hand was spending many multiples of their yearly income on telling them all the things they would have to go without when paying $500 in dues yearly. America is utterly rotten.

anchpop 6y ago
Are you saying the campaign cost multiples of their yearly labor expenditure, or the whole plan multiples of the yearly pay for one employee? If it’s the latter I don’t see how it makes them rotten. That’s an incredibly small expenditure, much less than would be paid in dues for instance

Diederich 6y ago

Wow, you're not kidding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer,_Alabama#Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer,_Alabama#Economy "Crime increased following the rise in unemployment and social disruption from the decline of manufacturing industries in the area. As of 2019 Bessemer ranks first in terms of violent crimes for US cities with 25,000 or more people." Population has fallen from its peak in 1970 of 33k to 26k today. Thanks for the reference. EDIT: Also home to the world's oldest chicken, who lived 16 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_(chicken) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_(chicken)

kpennell 6y ago
thx for the chicken edit
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- echelon 6y ago
  A surprisingly detailed Wikipedia article. Random internet serendipity, shift in topic and mood. We live in such an interesting and strange universe.
- labster 6y ago
  What the cluck?
kryogen1c 6y ago
> Also home to the world's oldest chicken, who lived 16 years frowns in Colorado https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
- Bluestein 6y ago
  I hereby humbly move to make Matilda the Chicken (or Mike, the Headless) the oficial Amazon mascot. Votes welcome :) Funny enough, I have no heavenly idea how, I had actually run into the article on poor Mike before.- Further edit: Come to think, poor Mike the "headless" would be a great mascot for -at least- AWS, for obvious, ssh-related reasons :)

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago

What would Amazon do if they did Unionize? Move the warehouse?

bena 6y ago
Possible. As others have noted, WalMart has done similar things. I think a retail/warehouse workers' union only really works if it's a national sort with local chapters so that a company can't hire except through a union. I'm not saying such a situation isn't rife with its own problems, but as long as these unions are essentially on a per-location basis, a company with the resources can always close one location and open up down the street to avoid the union.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Unions need several things to work: two of the big ones are a job such that you cannot replace someone easily; and a sense that "we are all in it together". If you don't have the first it is easy to replace anyone striking, and the union doesn't have power. If you don't have the second the better employees will want more money and so they won't work with the lesser ones In retail it is generally easy to replace people. It only takes a few minutes of training and the new person will figure it out. In retail there are a lot of different jobs. People who can do more (and have been around longer) are worth more. Many of the jobs do have metrics that can be measured to say who is better. While the pay this results in isn't much more, it is enough. That isn't to say you need the above to have a union. There are counter examples that work, but they are less powerful than unions that have those factors because they find it harder to get everyone to stand together. As such retail unions have trouble working. It is too easy to hire someone else if they go on strike.
jandrese 6y ago
Yes. This is why unions have to be big to be effective. The union has to be big enough to cover anywhere the company might be able to move to. This is why the Teamsters work so well, you can't outsource US trucking to Namibia. This is also why the UAW started dying once containerized shipping made it practical to move factories overseas.

2bitencryption 6y ago

This may be a bit of an ignorant question, but... Are "dying cities/slums" a purely American phenomenon, in terms of rich first-world countries? Is there similarly a "rust belt" in Germany, of cities that had an economic collapse after manufacturing died out? Are there rich European countries with flailing cities that devolve into crime and poverty? Does Europe have its own Bessemers, Detroits? (though I do hear Detroit isn't as bad as it's made out to be)

Lammy 6y ago
America's "Rust Belt" cities all tend to have one thing in common: a large black population that originally migrated there in the 20th century for industrial jobs that largely no longer exist. Think Detroit with the auto industry. Camden NJ with New York Ship, Victor, and Campbell's Soup. Gary Indiana with US Steel, etc etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)#First_Great_Migration_(1910%E2%80%931940) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_Ameri...
- cat199 6y ago
  > America's "Rust Belt" cities all tend to have one thing in common Not anti union, but these also had high union activity, which some explain as a cause of their 'rustification' as companies moved production elsewhere (like Alabama) to avoid.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    Not even Alabama but overseas where not only is there no union, but companies can get away with paying starvation wages to effective slaves. How an American is going to compete with a guy willing to work for $0.50/day on an 18 hour shift 7 days a week is a mystery. He doesn't even ask for healthcare, and when he dies of exhaustion there are hundreds more waiting to take his place because that's a huge amount of money for them. One of the few things I think Trump got right is when he brought tariffs back. If you want companies to keep jobs in the US you have to make the labor cost just as much no matter where you find it. Otherwise it is just a race to the bottom.

slantedview 6y ago

> These were the best paying jobs that many of these workers had had in their entire lives Until they get hurt on the job and Amazon fires them for failure to show up to work: https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-crisis/ https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-cri...

asdff 6y ago

Amazon moving into these impovershed areas, becoming the majority employer, and having absolute influence over the local governance and electorate they themselves employ makes these places de facto a company town. Brilliant move, totally evil genius move, but brilliant.

johncessna 6y ago
That's what they did in Seattle.
musingsole 6y ago
Carpetbaggers carpetbagging is a story as old as time. At least they're creating jobs and distributing money into the community. It's not like there's a long list of others who would willingly pick up the slack if they went elsewhere.
gruez 6y ago
So let me get this straight: companies shouldn't be investing money into revitalizing impoverished areas?
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > So let me get this straight: companies shouldn't be investing money into revitalizing impoverished areas? No, they should do so, just not be so exploitative about it (e.g. deliberately going into areas full of desperate people, for the reason of using that desperation to exert maximum control with minimum accountability).
  - mariksolo 6y ago
    So your issue is specifically with the mindset of the company, not the actions themselves? Why would a company ever do anything out of the goodness of their hearts? Shouldn't we just be looking at the result of them following market incentives?
    - 6y ago

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

What exactly would the retribution from Amazon look like, had this passed? They can't pick up the fulfillment center and move it somewhere else (without inconvenience, time, and expense, of course). They will need workers willing to travel to Bessemer for work, which presumably are people who live near or adjacent to Bessemer.

slantedview 6y ago
You're right, but obviously the fear of retribution was enough to influence the vote.
sct202 6y ago
They could suck up the losses of closing a 1 year old warehouse to send a signal. Walmart has claimed unfixable plumbing problems at union stores and closed them in the past.
- psds2 6y ago
  They also stopped selling fresh meat through a butcher window all across the US when the butchers unionized.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    If in their judgment, it became not in their best interests economically for them to continue doing it, what else would have them do?
    - ec109685 6y ago
      That’s why you need strong labor laws as a balance.

fredstarr 6y ago

Reasonable point of view. However, have you asked why Bessemer is a dying city and/or a slum? Was it always a slum? Were there no businesses there since it was founded and incorporated? And if it was such a hell hole, why did Amazon choose to open a warehouse there? Out of the goodness of their hearts? We need to ask questions as to why Amazon had to become a "savior" for the City of Bessemer. Not just focusing on effects but looking into causes too!

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Bessemer appears to be in the outskirts of Birmingham. Seems like a reasonable place to put a fulfillment center: land is cheaper than somewhere more central (but a warehouse doesn't need to be located on expensive, high demand, centrally located land). It's also probably a reasonable commute distance for many in the Birmingham metro area.
- fredstarr 5y ago
  Definitely... and I'm sure that there are many other cities in Alabama just like Bessemer. My comment isn't about Amazon specifically as much as the fact that there are so many cities all over this country (supposedly the wealthiest in human history) that have fallen into so much disrepair and so much distress that they need companies like Amazon to come "save" them. We need to ask why is all I'm saying.

charlescearl 6y ago

As someone whose great uncles worked in the steel factories nearby, whose parents before that labored in the cotton fields, I can also testify the multi-century efforts of Black workers who fought the “hands that was fedding them”. America's Johannesburg [1] and Hammer and Hoe [2] for reference. [1] https://ugapress.org/book/9780820356273/americas-johannesburg/ https://ugapress.org/book/9780820356273/americas-johannesbur... [2] https://uncpress.org/book/9781469625485/hammer-and-hoe/ https://uncpress.org/book/9781469625485/hammer-and-hoe/

lupire 6y ago
That gets harder as capital gets easier to move.

andrei_says_ 6y ago

The hand feeds them in exchange of their work. It’s not some benevolent entity providing out of goodness. They voted to allow the “hand” to maximize exploitation without restraint.

nimbius 6y ago

>a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them. How did we as a nation go from the land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, to "beg for scraps or you will starve."

paxys 6y ago
> land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage All of this has always been propaganda, nothing more. The average unskilled worker has never had a good life in America.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Has the average unskilled worker "had a good life" at any time or place in the Earth's history?
- astrange 6y ago
  It was pretty good in the postwar era if they were white, since the average worker came back from the war on the GI Bill and got free education and subsidized suburb buildouts.
colinmhayes 6y ago
Black people might object to the US once being "land of the free." In fact, almost every unskilled worker might.
yeetman21 6y ago
who the fuck is begging for scraps. with 15$ an hour they are living like kings in their hometown, above the median income
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  No one is living like kings on $15 per hour anywhere in the US. Unless your definition of kings includes lack of retirement security, income security, health security, and working back breaking shift work at odd hours. They will especially be vulnerable in their 50 to 65 years, when they will become unemployable for manual labor work. They'll be able to put a roof over their head, and not worry about their kids' next meal or maybe even their kid breaking their arm. But they're not going to advance to the next rung of the socioeconomic ladder.

Shivetya 6y ago

I am asking for it but what the hell. I was a union member back in the last 1980s through 1990s early. I was in a low skilled job where we paid our dues and got exactly nothing for it. Oh we had a wonderful contract that specified it all. It was great for basically keeping anyone new boxed in. Each quarter if we were lucky we got a visit by our local union rep in her Mercedes which cost more than many of us made a year. So I am so not a big union supporter and lean against them. On another personal note, they spent decades harassing my uncles, now cousins industrial roofing business calling OSHA and other inspectors out to where even the OSHA representatives joked about it. It became a coffee break for them. All this over a company with less than thirty people at max. So while they may have some application on higher paid jobs when you are low wage there isn't much they do for you other than suck two hours of wages or more from you each month. People here glorify unions have no experience with them at the level that would have been seen in Amazon. They have these grandiose ideas how everyone benefits. Oh don't get me wrong, you are likely to get some changes that are beneficial, but in the end you are still exactly where you are before but now its all in nice pretty print writing which spells out exactly how you aren't going anywhere fast. Oh, don't forget the monthly payout (could be weekly in some places) and don't expect much if you ever actually reach strike stage.

uoaei 6y ago
This is what happens when union reps are in bed with the company they're supposedly holding to account. It happens because of corruption and nepotism, not because of unionization. I might recommend to watch Waiting For Lefty to understand the distinction.
datavirtue 6y ago
Unions also start boxing out new experienced employees. The railroads have no way to bring in experienced workers from other industries because everyone is mandated a certain starting wage by the union...entry level wages ($50k) plus overtime. Looks exactly like regulatory capture.
- temp667 6y ago
  You see this in a lot of industries that are unionized, if you move across the country or have a life change and are in a unionized environment you can be screwed by a) losing seniority and b) comp can drop. Had a friend who was a pilot. Personal situation - moved, wanted to live in base rather than deadhead yadda yadda - you start off at ground zero at the new airline - literally next to guys with no time on type (and you could have thousands of hours on type - which is years of work).

kodah 6y ago

I've lived periods of life in different cultures, income levels, etc... It's interesting how people see things in such a binary sense (eg: x is good while y is bad, universally). Everyone does it and it presents itself differently in each perspective, but it's been an interesting watch. As I've grown older I've tried to resist the urge to marry myself to these stark beliefs. Following this thread there's a lot of good information on what those competing perspectives actually entail. In my current area, which is mostly liberals of varying degrees, unions are almost universally championed. If you ask about the downsides or present an example of how they can be bad you can face people who think you're some kind of oppressor, or that you must be conservative. Where I'm from, which is mostly various flavors of conservativism the mention of unions causes similar outrage but in the other direction. If you mention how a union could be useful or various implementations that are non-stock (such as unions that don't try to practice authoritarian control over pay and just maintain representation for working conditions) then you'll be demonized for being a socialist. I used to think, "these are bad people of varying variety" but I've come to understand they're just people without experience in each other's geography and problem set, so it becomes easier to speak dogmatically. Sometimes a union can be good, sometimes it can be bad, sometimes it's a bit of both pending nuance and implementation details, but at the end of the day this is a truth: the only people whose opinion matters is the people whose lives it will directly affect.

FredPret 6y ago
Ah, nuanced centrism. The golden midway. This is where progress is made.

jandrese 6y ago

I had a feeling most people were looking at this as a vote for yes is a vote to close the warehouse. They would never see the benefit of the union because Amazon would just close the whole place down before they let other distribution centers see what a union can do.

snarf21 6y ago

"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" - Upton Sinclair

dTal 6y ago

Perhaps they read the cautionary tale of "Why there is no moloch13": https://everything2.com/title/Why+there+is+no+moloch13 https://everything2.com/title/Why+there+is+no+moloch13

lmilcin 6y ago

I wonder how much of this is strategy. Find a dying city with huge unemployment. No problem finding workers for a factory where most employees don't require anything more than ability to walk and read.

lupire 6y ago
That's a complicated way of saying "open shop where labor is cheap". This why we need national and international coordination on minimum wage and minimum work environment laws.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  I think Amazon fulfillment centers are a special case. Most people working there either move packages around or drive a truck. At least that is my understanding, somebody with better/first hand knowledge would be welcome to share. Normally having a huge employer would be a boon to the city, but most of these people are going to be working for close to minimum wage and Amazon most likely negotiated with the city so they don't have to pay a dime.
  - astrange 6y ago
    Amazon pays significantly over minimum wage in Alabama, since they don't have one and use the federal $7. This is Amazon's advantage over smaller companies - they're more efficient and so they can afford to pay more.
- deleted 6y ago
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- colinmhayes 6y ago
  There will never be international cooperation on labor laws. Countries have too much to gain from allowing companies to open sweatshops.

deleted 6y ago

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cosmodisk 6y ago

Comments like yours remind me that I shouldn't jump to conclusion and ask 'why' instead before making an opinion on a matter. Thanks.

iamleppert 6y ago

That Union couldn’t manage to get the starting wage for their members to $15. I think that says it all about how ineffective they are as an organization.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

That's even more depressing then that they are accepting what the corporation wants to give them.