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I'm under the assumption they are doing everything they can to figure out how to automate the whole warehouse before they run out of people. if not, perhaps a U
by hourislate 5y ago
I'm under the assumption they are doing everything they can to figure out how to automate the whole warehouse before they run out of people. if not, perhaps a Union can save them by creating an environment where workers aren't driven like some beast working a field. The reality is that is there main advantage, working people close to death. Walmart looks like a great place when you consider how AMZN treats their employees.
- staticautomatic 5y agoSome beast working a field would be treated quite well. If you’re a subsistence farmer who relies on an animal for ploughing and it gets injured because you drive it too hard, you’re totally screwed.
- atatatat 5y agoAnd yet...people bought new horses after doing this, regularly.
- olliej 5y agoNot the subsistence ones
- Retric 5y agoActual substance farming doesn’t get to use beasts of burden. Farmers need trade with an outside source to get new horses after the old one dies. However, a farm at break even can be paying for needed supplies like horses, which is in effect subsistence farming because there is no long term surplus.
- Emma_Goldman 5y agoThat's the point, they're treated as a locus of labour power and nothing more. Workers are hired solely to drain as much labour power from them as possible, a condition of which is obviously giving them the rudimentary means of reproduction. Keep in mind your argument applies equally to chattel slaves, in fact even more so: for they were owneed, whereas Amazon merely rents its labour, and in case of ill-health can easily replace them. I don't think slaves were, by any meaningful standard, 'treated quite well' - and neither do I think most Amazon workers are.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- staticautomatic 5y agoNo, my point is that this analogy conveys something other than what the author intended to convey.
- Emma_Goldman 5y agoThat Amazon doesn't work its employees to the literal point of death, only up to the point at which they are unable to continue to work? There are many gradations of suffering and torment up to that limit, that are more than sufficient to wreck someone's life.
- staticautomatic 5y agoNo, that farmers don’t work their animals to the point that they’re unable to work.
- Emma_Goldman 5y agoI don't know if you're being deliberately obtuse, because that's exactly what I said in my last comment. I'm arguing that 'not exploiting a sentient being under one's control to the point of death' is a low standard consistent with all kinds of terrors. I'm assuming you weren't just randomly throwing your comment into the cybervoid. The person to whom you responded said that Amazon employees might prefer a company where 'workers aren't driven like some beast working a field' - implying that they are treated as such at Amazon. You suggested that beasts aren't treated so badly by their masters, which following the analogy, suggests that Amazon workers aren't treated so badly. I'm countering that suggestion.
- staticautomatic 5y agoI’m making a point about the parent’s use of the analogy, not yours.
- pjc50 5y agoImmediately reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_(Animal_Farm) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_(Animal_Farm) , the horse in Orwell's analogy for Stalinism.
- newsclues 5y agoThey bought kiva robotics years ago
- bostonsre 5y agoI've heard Walmart warehouses are also incredibly bad to work in. They are just less adept at scaling micromanagement well. I'm sure they absolutely would push workers harder if they knew how. Their management is just as soulless as Amazon's.