5 ms·

I've read similar articles so many times but they all lack one thing - solutions. Seriously, what should we do about it? Yeah, I agree that workers shouldn't b

I've read similar articles so many times but they all lack one thing - solutions. Seriously, what should we do about it? Yeah, I agree that workers shouldn't be working so hard that they can't even go to the bathroom. Would we have a better world if Amazon didn't exist? I personally doubt it. So, it's not Amazon per se, it is the system, isn't? So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? How do we minimize the suffering of these people? Or is it actually working pretty well and we should accept that some people will struggle badly no matter what the system is?

lazyjones 5y ago
> How do we make it better? You could, for example, offer these workers better jobs. Can you?
- whitepaint 5y ago
  Who should? And why should they (what incentives they'd have to do it)?
ganzuul 5y ago
> Seriously, what should we do about it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative Perhaps one can replace the legal contracts involved in this with algorithms to achieve the necessary scale.
- whitepaint 5y ago
  So, make it a law that if you hire a person they'd have a stake in a company automatically? No one is stopping anyone to create worker cooperatives.
  - solveit 5y ago
    Indeed. Worker cooperatives don't often take off because they're a bad idea. A company going under can be devastating for your career. If you have a significant stake in your company, you'll be broke as well as unemployed. People should diversify whenever they can and forcing people to hold a stake in their companies is a terrible idea.
TFYS 5y ago
The solution is to go beyond a competition based society. No matter how good the people running these companies are or want to be, competition will force their hand to create things like this. If it's not them, it'll be someone else. I'm sure we could find a way to encourage innovation without this competitive system.
- whitepaint 5y ago
  > I'm sure we could find a way to encourage innovation without this competitive system. It sounds perfect. But how would we achieve it? Rewrite laws that prohibits private property and free enterprise?
  - TFYS 5y ago
    Is ownership the thing that motivates people to innovate? I don't think so. People don't innovate because they may get to own a company, they innovate because they get an idea and implementing that idea successfully may get them a big reward. I don't think ownership or competition is necessary for this process. There's plenty of innovation without competition or ownership inside companies already. Workers innovate to get a reward in the form of a promotion and/or raise, not because they're expecting to own something or because they're competing against someone. One idea could be to collectively pool money to give as rewards to anyone who improves society in a way that people think is worth rewarding. To prevent corruption this process should be transparent and democratic (preferably direct democracy).
    - whitepaint 5y ago
      Would Bill Gates try so hard with Microsoft if his biggest possible reward would have been what citizens decide to collectively reward him with?
      - TFYS 5y ago
        Why not? He would have another idea and try to get another reward for that. If it's the biggest possible reward that you can get, and you have an idea, why wouldn't you try to implement it? The rewards for a successful business 50 years ago were much smaller than they are today, yet people still created businesses, because it was the best reward you could get. They didn't have an idea and abandon it because the biggest possible reward was 1 million instead of 100. Biggest possible rewards 50 years from now could be much bigger, so why do people innovate now?
jseban 5y ago
Here's my suggestion: change from an 8 hour work day into a 6 hour work day. Pretty simple really, I don't think we need to uproot society here...
- whitepaint 5y ago
  So make it illegal to work for more than 6 hours? What if I actually want to work more and agree with a company to do so and get paid for it?
  - jseban 5y ago
    Whatever rules exist at the moment, just decrease the time by 25%. Not sure exactly how to make such a change though, probably hard, just suggesting a solution like was asked for
    - solveit 5y ago
      > Not sure exactly how to make such a change though, probably hard, just suggesting a solution like was asked for Might I gently point out that the difficulty of the problem is all political. The easiest "solution" is of course to take all the wealth that exists in the world and fairly distribute it while keeping everyone working as effectively as they are now. Now obviously that idea isn't anywhere near being a solution. Neither is your idea.
      - jseban 5y ago
        I don't understand what you're trying to say, the work day has already been successfully shortened to 8 hours, so why couldn't it be further shortened? Seems like a natural progression as technology improves, and this solution is extremely simple and also fair. What you are suggesting I can't even understand because of how vague and impossible complex it is to even start to define what it would mean to fairly distribute all wealth the wealth in the world.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Honestly, I think the only solution is, to make it easier to start a small business, and help and encourage people to start them, and then fix the tax policy, so companies as amazon would pay the same effective tax rates as a mom-and-pop bakery. Amazon needs workers, workers need jobs. If you increase the number of jobs and decrease the number of unemployed, people can say "no" to shitty jobs. This is currently happening in parts of USA, due to people moving around, some illegals leaving and new standards, where shitty employers are forced to close down, because they cannot get workers, and competent workers moving "up". And getting workers is easy... just offer a better working enviroment for more money than their current workplace is offering, and you've got one.
- whitepaint 5y ago
  I like your reply. I have a question though, how do we fix the tax policy and how do we make it easier to start a small business?
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Tax policy, i have no idea... there was a newsstory here about a globally minimum 15% income tax here, that would probably solve many things. I'm not a tax lawyer, but "there surely has to be a way" (hopefully) to collect tax where the money is earned, and not where it's "moved". I'm not sure about US laws, but here in slovenia, there are a bunch of bureaucratic requirements, things that need to be paid, taxes that have to be paid, even if you just started a business and literally earned zero money. Taxes, pension and health insurance are theoretically defined as percentages of earned money, but have hard minimum set in, so if you earn very little money the first few months, they can be higher than the money earned. Just to start a business, you have to register it's location, and if you live in an apartment building, you need permission from all your neighbours (even if you're a programmer, or even a construction worker (= don't work at home)), and one grumpy neighbour means you need to rent out a place. Permits for regulated businesses are also expensive. There is also no "soft-start" for going to unemployment to a business owner... if you're unemployed, you get some money (social benefits). Want to start a business.. let's say translation (just need a laptop), you immediately lose all benefits, and have to pay ~400eur per month minimum for health and pension insurance, even if you earned zero money that month. Fail, and want to close the business? You might not even get unemployment/social benefits, because you didn't get fired but closed it yourself. Want to do a one-time job (eg. unemployed and someone wants to pay you to paint their house)... impossible to do here. I've been watching louis rossman a lot, and he has more us-specifc complaints: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oDjSoic9Zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oDjSoic9Zk
Zardoz84 5y ago
simply, make the workers the owners of the company
- whitepaint 5y ago
  If I have a company that hires software developers, we should abolish the signed contracts, and all of them should get an equal stake in the company? And we should make it a law so that happens for all companies?
MikeUt 5y ago
How quickly we forget. This is not the first time workers have faced inhumane working conditions. Unions worked as a solution before - why wouldn't they work again?
- whitepaint 5y ago
  Can't they already organize and associate with unions but choose not to?
  - padthai 5y ago
    Some of them do not want to know anything about unions, this is a common opinion among the American public. Other would like, or even try. But Amazon management, an enormous American corporations, are determined to not allow to do so. Amazon warehouse workers are, generally, not a particularly wealthy or powerful segment of the society.
    - whitepaint 5y ago
      What is the solution? Make unions mandatory?
      - MikeUt 5y ago
        The solution is winning hearts and minds to convince workers to organize. In the past, corporate propaganda and improving living conditions convinced many that unions were a net negative. As conditions change, so too can those convictions. But I don't think mandatory unions are a solution. Unions would have to be very popular for such legislation to pass. But if they were so popular, they would no longer need compulsory membership. In general it is unions and organized labor that push legislation meant to help workers, so starting with legislation instead is putting the cart before the horse.
5fnheluzdj 5y ago
The growth-based system did quite well on average and it might be only the effects we have to address. One way to see it is that there is a mismatch between human capabilities and the systems requirements. We're already working on enhancing humans and creating better human replacements. Humans should be able to work on robots instead of working as robots. Until we made the transition, the system needs careful adjustment via i.e regulations and massive educational investments to minimize the pains for humans.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hnra 5y ago
> So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? One of the interesting solutions I have heard: Board-level representation of workers. Currently all board members represent shareholders, and unsurprisingly the company is willing to sacrifice workers to satisfy shareholders. Make it so a third, or half the board has to be elected by workers.

lazyjones 5y ago

> How do we make it better? You could, for example, offer these workers better jobs. Can you?

whitepaint 5y ago
Who should? And why should they (what incentives they'd have to do it)?

ganzuul 5y ago

> Seriously, what should we do about it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative Perhaps one can replace the legal contracts involved in this with algorithms to achieve the necessary scale.

whitepaint 5y ago
So, make it a law that if you hire a person they'd have a stake in a company automatically? No one is stopping anyone to create worker cooperatives.
- solveit 5y ago
  Indeed. Worker cooperatives don't often take off because they're a bad idea. A company going under can be devastating for your career. If you have a significant stake in your company, you'll be broke as well as unemployed. People should diversify whenever they can and forcing people to hold a stake in their companies is a terrible idea.

TFYS 5y ago

The solution is to go beyond a competition based society. No matter how good the people running these companies are or want to be, competition will force their hand to create things like this. If it's not them, it'll be someone else. I'm sure we could find a way to encourage innovation without this competitive system.

whitepaint 5y ago
> I'm sure we could find a way to encourage innovation without this competitive system. It sounds perfect. But how would we achieve it? Rewrite laws that prohibits private property and free enterprise?
- TFYS 5y ago
  Is ownership the thing that motivates people to innovate? I don't think so. People don't innovate because they may get to own a company, they innovate because they get an idea and implementing that idea successfully may get them a big reward. I don't think ownership or competition is necessary for this process. There's plenty of innovation without competition or ownership inside companies already. Workers innovate to get a reward in the form of a promotion and/or raise, not because they're expecting to own something or because they're competing against someone. One idea could be to collectively pool money to give as rewards to anyone who improves society in a way that people think is worth rewarding. To prevent corruption this process should be transparent and democratic (preferably direct democracy).
  - whitepaint 5y ago
    Would Bill Gates try so hard with Microsoft if his biggest possible reward would have been what citizens decide to collectively reward him with?
    - TFYS 5y ago
      Why not? He would have another idea and try to get another reward for that. If it's the biggest possible reward that you can get, and you have an idea, why wouldn't you try to implement it? The rewards for a successful business 50 years ago were much smaller than they are today, yet people still created businesses, because it was the best reward you could get. They didn't have an idea and abandon it because the biggest possible reward was 1 million instead of 100. Biggest possible rewards 50 years from now could be much bigger, so why do people innovate now?

jseban 5y ago

Here's my suggestion: change from an 8 hour work day into a 6 hour work day. Pretty simple really, I don't think we need to uproot society here...

whitepaint 5y ago
So make it illegal to work for more than 6 hours? What if I actually want to work more and agree with a company to do so and get paid for it?
- jseban 5y ago
  Whatever rules exist at the moment, just decrease the time by 25%. Not sure exactly how to make such a change though, probably hard, just suggesting a solution like was asked for
  - solveit 5y ago
    > Not sure exactly how to make such a change though, probably hard, just suggesting a solution like was asked for Might I gently point out that the difficulty of the problem is all political. The easiest "solution" is of course to take all the wealth that exists in the world and fairly distribute it while keeping everyone working as effectively as they are now. Now obviously that idea isn't anywhere near being a solution. Neither is your idea.
    - jseban 5y ago
      I don't understand what you're trying to say, the work day has already been successfully shortened to 8 hours, so why couldn't it be further shortened? Seems like a natural progression as technology improves, and this solution is extremely simple and also fair. What you are suggesting I can't even understand because of how vague and impossible complex it is to even start to define what it would mean to fairly distribute all wealth the wealth in the world.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

Honestly, I think the only solution is, to make it easier to start a small business, and help and encourage people to start them, and then fix the tax policy, so companies as amazon would pay the same effective tax rates as a mom-and-pop bakery. Amazon needs workers, workers need jobs. If you increase the number of jobs and decrease the number of unemployed, people can say "no" to shitty jobs. This is currently happening in parts of USA, due to people moving around, some illegals leaving and new standards, where shitty employers are forced to close down, because they cannot get workers, and competent workers moving "up". And getting workers is easy... just offer a better working enviroment for more money than their current workplace is offering, and you've got one.

whitepaint 5y ago
I like your reply. I have a question though, how do we fix the tax policy and how do we make it easier to start a small business?
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Tax policy, i have no idea... there was a newsstory here about a globally minimum 15% income tax here, that would probably solve many things. I'm not a tax lawyer, but "there surely has to be a way" (hopefully) to collect tax where the money is earned, and not where it's "moved". I'm not sure about US laws, but here in slovenia, there are a bunch of bureaucratic requirements, things that need to be paid, taxes that have to be paid, even if you just started a business and literally earned zero money. Taxes, pension and health insurance are theoretically defined as percentages of earned money, but have hard minimum set in, so if you earn very little money the first few months, they can be higher than the money earned. Just to start a business, you have to register it's location, and if you live in an apartment building, you need permission from all your neighbours (even if you're a programmer, or even a construction worker (= don't work at home)), and one grumpy neighbour means you need to rent out a place. Permits for regulated businesses are also expensive. There is also no "soft-start" for going to unemployment to a business owner... if you're unemployed, you get some money (social benefits). Want to start a business.. let's say translation (just need a laptop), you immediately lose all benefits, and have to pay ~400eur per month minimum for health and pension insurance, even if you earned zero money that month. Fail, and want to close the business? You might not even get unemployment/social benefits, because you didn't get fired but closed it yourself. Want to do a one-time job (eg. unemployed and someone wants to pay you to paint their house)... impossible to do here. I've been watching louis rossman a lot, and he has more us-specifc complaints: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oDjSoic9Zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oDjSoic9Zk

Zardoz84 5y ago

simply, make the workers the owners of the company

whitepaint 5y ago
If I have a company that hires software developers, we should abolish the signed contracts, and all of them should get an equal stake in the company? And we should make it a law so that happens for all companies?

MikeUt 5y ago

How quickly we forget. This is not the first time workers have faced inhumane working conditions. Unions worked as a solution before - why wouldn't they work again?

whitepaint 5y ago
Can't they already organize and associate with unions but choose not to?
- padthai 5y ago
  Some of them do not want to know anything about unions, this is a common opinion among the American public. Other would like, or even try. But Amazon management, an enormous American corporations, are determined to not allow to do so. Amazon warehouse workers are, generally, not a particularly wealthy or powerful segment of the society.
  - whitepaint 5y ago
    What is the solution? Make unions mandatory?
    - MikeUt 5y ago
      The solution is winning hearts and minds to convince workers to organize. In the past, corporate propaganda and improving living conditions convinced many that unions were a net negative. As conditions change, so too can those convictions. But I don't think mandatory unions are a solution. Unions would have to be very popular for such legislation to pass. But if they were so popular, they would no longer need compulsory membership. In general it is unions and organized labor that push legislation meant to help workers, so starting with legislation instead is putting the cart before the horse.

5fnheluzdj 5y ago

The growth-based system did quite well on average and it might be only the effects we have to address. One way to see it is that there is a mismatch between human capabilities and the systems requirements. We're already working on enhancing humans and creating better human replacements. Humans should be able to work on robots instead of working as robots. Until we made the transition, the system needs careful adjustment via i.e regulations and massive educational investments to minimize the pains for humans.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hnra 5y ago

> So, what are the solutions? How do we make it better? One of the interesting solutions I have heard: Board-level representation of workers. Currently all board members represent shareholders, and unsurprisingly the company is willing to sacrifice workers to satisfy shareholders. Make it so a third, or half the board has to be elected by workers.