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California bill passes, giving Amazon workers power to fight speed quotas

225 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

nikkinana 5y ago
Now unionize!
coding123 5y ago
It's so weird that this is even needed. I mean didn't they already have laws that requires breaks, etc... Leave it to Amazon to come up with a legal or computational strategy to work around the existing laws.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  It turns out that it is not enough to pass a law; it must be enforced, and it must be enforced even-handedly.
  - throwaway14356 5y ago
    yes, waste of money without. They are probably big enough to merrit permanent inspectors on the floor. Lets give them a quota in attention points to point out - or be fired.
  - shados 5y ago
    America is amazing at passing feel good laws without thinking about the enforcement logistics.
    - kwhitefoot 5y ago
      The US is not alone in that. Laws should always include a cost benefit analysis and a declaration saying how they will be enforced and how they will be financed.
      - shados 5y ago
        You're so right. Reminds me of when people were claiming ADA exemptions for masks, as a "loophole". Then folks involved in the ADA point out it wasn't a loophole, because it was illegal to claim an exemption if you have a real condition. Except the way laws like the ADA and HIPAA are written, it's literally impossible in most cases to check if someone is lying or not. So unless you're ready to literally gamble on your guts feeling (they can't sue you for discrimination if it was indeed false, but you have no way to check!), you couldn't do anything. But hey, it's against the law, so I'm sure people won't lie.
- tyingq 5y ago
  Seems like the laws that require breaks don't preclude setting piecework quotas that make them impossible to use. See https://www.scribd.com/document/407590982/Amazon-Terminations#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/407590982/Amazon-Termination... Scroll down to "The system also tracks an associates time off task" It basically admits that "time off task" doesn't automatically account for bathroom breaks. You have to ask a manager to include each one, during the conversation where you're being scolded for high "time off task"! The wording in this section is Amazon's wording, too. Oof. Edit: After a bit of searching, there don't appear to be any federal laws requiring breaks in the US, and there are many states that don't have any either. Breaks: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/rest-periods https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/rest-periods Meals: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks
  - jonshariat 5y ago
    Nurses also have this problem. On a busy floor, they rarely get to use their breaks or have to quickly scarf down some food and run back.
    - thebradbain 5y ago
      (Not all, but many) Nurses/Doctors are exempt employees though, which has its own set of rules. Warehouse workers aren't, generally
      - bluedino 5y ago
        Most nurses are hourly.
        tssva 5y ago
        Hourly employees can be exempt.
    - chefandy 5y ago
      When I was working in restaurants a decade ago, getting breaks was the exception rather than the norm.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lhorie 5y ago
  Regulations about breaks don't really cover this situation. The gist, as I understand, is that Amazon requires workers to meet very specific productivity metrics such that the employment becomes a trade-off between efficiency and employee well-being. My understanding is that there isn't anything in the books that quantify exactly what's the minimum acceptable amount of "slacking off" an employee is allowed to engage in (I'm using the term "slacking off" loosely here to mean anything that isn't strictly actively engaging 100% in whatever is considered "productive"). In other words, there's nothing that specifically says "employers can't get you into hot water because you walked too slow from this shelf to that shelf" The thing I constantly find weird about California regulation these days is how short sighted and micro-managey it all is. This one clearly is explicitly targeted at Amazon, the AB5/Prop 22 pair is specifically targeted at Uber/Lyft, etc. It strikes me as a deep lack of understanding about how policy making is supposed to work. Ideally, policy is supposed to be something you get experts to research holistically, present data on and implement based on certain expectations of how pros and cons are supposed to play out. California policy making looks to me more like a reactive game of whack-a-mole, trying to put out whatever is the fire du jour with hacks and bandaids and hoping the new rules don't cause any collateral damage.
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    All the experts are bought and paid for by someone these days though. Who exactly are you supposed to be asking about something like this? And if you look at Universities, well good luck. They have a known ideological bent that would cause recommendations that are skewed the other way.
  - tdeck 5y ago
    Well, in terms of AB5 the federal government tried to head this one off with broad legislation 83 years ago. The Fair Labor Standards Act defines an "employ" as "to suffer or permit to work" specifically because they understood that employers would try to classify workers as anything other than an employee in order to get around the law. It doesn't seem to have worked out that way, so there's an argument for being a bit more specific. (I learned about this from this excellent podcast: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/to-suffer-or-permit-to-work/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/to-suff...) I think the underlying problem is that these employers have disproportionate power, influence, and resources, along with endless creativity. If they can't get the government fully on their side every time, they'd rather it be dysfunctional.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  Pretty rich when Jeff Bezos is attacking SpaceX on the grounds that Musk doesn't respect the law. Like, he's not wrong, but that's solid "takes one to know one" territory right there.
lovich 5y ago
How does flagging or making a comment dead work in hn? I thought it occurred after many downvotes but I managed to check this thread <60 seconds after ‘Nikki nana posted >Now unionize! And the comment is already [dead]. That feels like it could only happen if there were bots downvoting instantly
- Nicksil 5y ago
  I think it's an automatic thing if the user is banned or suspended; like a shadow ban. So, there may very well not have been a number of down-voters and was simply dead from the start.
- eganist 5y ago
  That just means they're shadowbanned, as I understand it. And that tracks with all their other comments being dead. Flagged to death will say both flagged and dead.
  - adwn 5y ago
    > That just means they're shadowbanned, as I understand it. And for good reason, judging by their other comments.
- bhhaskin 5y ago
  Also keep in mind that a two word comment doesn't really add to the conversation. Low effort comments tend to be down voted.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  There’s a “comments” link in the header that shows the newest comments across all stories. People could be refreshing that and acting on comments without checking every individual story. This could be a good way to help moderate a lot of low quality comments, but the people doing it might not have all the context.
- kodah 5y ago
  That probably means that they have been banned which starts their post at -4 karma and requires vouching in order to list publicly. This only happens for repeated bad behavior.
giantg2 5y ago
They'll just do away with hard quotas and tell them they are "slow" or "could be doing more". This is what happens at my company since they aren't allowed to count story points, but they just do it behind the scenes anyways.
- grafelic 5y ago
  No big surprise really that scrum would be misused like this. It is the perfect recipe for micromanagement. Disgusting none the less.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > could be doing more ... no matter how much time you spend in meetings.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Unless one lives at the office, they could always do more.
    - Razengan 5y ago
      Until the universe approaches heat death, one could always do more.
    - abenga 5y ago
      Don't most of us live at the office these days?
- q1w2 5y ago
  In higher level tech jobs, we struggle to find good metrics to measure performance, and then in jobs where it's easy to measure performance with a clear metric - using it is controversial. Maybe the lesson is that when a metric becomes tangible, expectations to meet/exceed those metrics becomes an all-encompassing aspect of the job.
- tmountain 5y ago
  When a metric used for planning is conflated with performance measurement, it immediately loses all meaning.
thescriptkiddie 5y ago
Now unionize!
google234123 5y ago
I’m not sure the California government ever acts in good faith in these matters and the public overwhelmingly is with me: see AB5.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  The public would vote for indentured servitude if it kept their Amazon retail and Uber services cheap (and in California, they did, with Prop 22 [1]). That’s why it’s important to have checks and balances to prevent the tyranny of the majority [2]. The public voting themselves overly generous government benefits is no different than the public voting themselves consumer excess on the backs of gig workers. Sure, unions have problems and labor rights are inconvenient for businesses. At the end of the day, people deserve dignity and a less miserable work experience than they getting today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
  - richwater 5y ago
    Lol tyranny of the majority keeps Uber cheap? You know drivers can just stop working if they don't like the wage right?
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I've lived long enough to quickly suss out humans with a lack of empathy and life experience. The life experience I can forgive, the lack of empathy I cannot. I hope you embrace the opportunity to grow as a human.
      - google234123 5y ago
        The essence of democracy is majority rule... Anyway, you are missing some empathy with other humans right to choose where and how they work.
whyenot 5y ago
What warehouse workers need is a union or some other structure that represents employees and can bargain on their behalf. Yes, there have been a lot of problems with unions, in the US, in the past, but that doesn't mean the need for worker representation has gone away.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/975259434/house-democrats-pass-bill-that-would-protect-worker-organizing-efforts https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/975259434/house-democrats-pas... (House Democrats Pass Bill That Would Protect Worker Organizing Efforts) https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/842 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/842 (H.R.842 - Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021)
- lijogdfljk 5y ago
  It's funny, i find anti-union to be nearly identical to anti-government. It seems there are people who feel any organized entity with power is bad. Be it government, or union - the effect is the same. I can definitely agree that it can be bad, but to me it's the only entity that should be representing me. Corporations will have no incentive aligned with myself. Unions/Governments serve as a way to organize the people at large. Which to me is a wholly good thing. This organization however does not come without risks. I think where we fail as a civilization is recognizing this power dynamic and finding ways to monitor corruption. I want to give a government power, but i also need ways to monitor them. Without know if/when an organization becomes corrupted we have no way of healing, and it will always be doomed to fail in the worst way. I'm very pro-union. However we need to figure out monitoring. In Governments, and Unions. Otherwise in my view it's just a matter of time before they fail.
  - badRNG 5y ago
    > Be it government, or union - the effect is the same. I agree with your desire for oversight and accountability for either, but there is a difference of at least institutional momentum. I don't think anyone would consider institutional momentum of the US government to be aligned with the interests of workers. I think unions have an opportunity to be better and more explicitly aligned with those interests. As an employee previously part of a union, the adversarial relationship between unions and businesses seems to, at the end, strike a balance between the competing interests of the workers and the business. A business without unions can be like a courtroom without public defenders: not a great place to be the little guy.
CameronNemo 5y ago
On the front of this, it seems odd for legislation to target a specific company or a few companies. But as power concentrates in the hands of a few conglomerates, policy will need to be tailored to addressing those conglomerates head on. While universal policy would be nice, it is both impractical to write and easy to avoid.
- tyingq 5y ago
  It is odd that it specifically only applies to "Warehouse Distribution Centers". I imagine the same problems exist in other industries. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB701 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
  - gruez 5y ago
    >It is odd that it specifically only applies to "Warehouse Distribution Centers". It's not odd at all when you consider how long of an exemption list AB-5 came with.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      It ends up either being an inclusion list or an exemption list at some point. I think it's odd to start with only one industry.
- clairity 5y ago
  > "While universal policy would be nice, it is both impractical to write and easy to avoid." rather, every law should scale with (economic and political) power, to create fairer markets, better representation, and more equitability, as conglomerates of any sort should be designed to benefit the public at large, not the principals only. for instance, fines for corporate malfeasance should be much higher proportionally than for small businesses (who have little/no market power). some laws try to approximate this with step functions, often a single cutoff (like "greater than 50 employees"), but those practically invite evasion (e.g., by creating 50-employee subsidiaries).
WaitWaitWha 5y ago
Long term, this accelerates Amazon's robotics development in fulfillment centers.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Which is probably for the best. I'm sure there are more productive or fulfilling things for people to be doing than shuffling boxes around.
  - kukx 5y ago
    If shuffling boxes around gets them the highest pay they can get on the market it just may be the most productive thing they can do! That means being a useful cog in a very effective machine.
    - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
      Unless Amazon can do the same work for less overall cost with robots. I guess my point is that the potential for automation doesn't seem a compelling argument to worsen working conditions
      - kukx 5y ago
        My point is that being a cog in the larger machine may be the most productive thing for a person. Even if it means doing a boring, repetitive job. For example someone shuffling boxes in Amazon may be way more productive than an office worker in some small company.
        McWobbleston 5y ago
        I think it's important to highlight the difference between productive and profitable here. There's likely many things someone could do that's more productive, as in creates a benefit for those around them, but those productive things aren't always paid. What these workers are doing is getting the highest wage they can by engaging in work owners of capital believe will lead to profits from the market
jxramos 5y ago
Don't quotas already exist in other forms of unionized work; like I recall hearing electrical unions have designated time quotas for completing certain jobs? Maybe that memory is off though or inaccurate.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  At least in those instances, the union can negotiate for better (longer) quotas. In Amazon’s case, there’s no union to represent them. There’s the companies (that contract with Amazon) that the drivers work for, but they’re less powerful because there’s another company right next to you.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    In other words, they don't have a cartel/monopoly?
    - cma 5y ago
      Amazon shareholders get stringent minority shareholder protection and legally protected collective voting schemes and can openly collude together against workers. A union gives somewhat similar rights to a similar stakeholder.
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        How can I, and Amazon shareholder, go collude with other Amazon shareholders? Tell me how this is possible. I've never heard of it. You can only collude with someone you were in competition with. Shareholders of the same company by definition cannot collude with each other because they are not competing. Collusion would be Walmart and Target and Costco and Amazon unionizing together to negotiate wages.
        nicoffeine 5y ago
        "collude: cooperate in a secret or unlawful way in order to deceive or gain an advantage over others" Shareholder votes are public, but anonymous. The more typical scenario is that you hold on to the shares and create demand for the stock as a sign of your approval. Unless you own tens of thousands or more shares, you were probably not invited to the perfectly legal but private discussions about the proposals. Shareholders recently voted against every single proposal that was also opposed by Amazon.[1] [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2021/final-tally-amazon-shareholders-vote-proposals-pay-equity-privacy-tech/ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/final-tally-amazon-shareholder...
charlesju 5y ago
Honest question, if you were running Amazon, how do you protect against bad actors or poor performers? Do you leave it solely to the discretion of the managers? How do you judge manager performance, solely by morale?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > if you were running Amazon, how do you protect against bad actors or poor performers? Do you leave it solely to the discretion of the managers? You take the explicit metric and make it unsaid. Over the course of a few months, if a worker isn't meeting their "goal", they're given a generic performance warning. If they don't improve, they're terminated. This is why workers need a way to push back on quotas.
  - core-utility 5y ago
    So instead of the workers knowing the metric out in the open, you hide it from them and secretly judge them on it?
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > instead of the workers knowing the metric out in the open, you hide it from them and secretly judge them on it? I'm not advocating this. But it's how most management is done. Pushing back only on quotas, without otherwise empowering the labor force, will almost certainly lead to such a regression.
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > Honest question, if you were running Amazon, how do you protect against bad actors or poor performers? define poor performers. I've work for abusive corporations that were setting impossible goals and called employees "poor performers" and fired them when these impossible goals were not met.
  - bluedino 5y ago
gootler 5y ago
Where's the Amazon Union?
whack 5y ago
There's an obvious way that Amazon would workaround this law. They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. And offer performance-based bonuses that bring the average wage back to what it is today. I don't see how the law would handle this. I can't think of any reasonable way to outlaw "we'll pay you more for doing more work" policies. Even if it leads to the exact same outcome - most workers will do exactly what they are doing now, because everyone wants to get paid more. There is another obvious solution here. Increase budgets for Earned-Income-Tax-Credits or initiate a Universal Basic Income. This would increase the baseline standard-of-living for all workers, so that they would have better alternatives to what Amazon is offering. Of course, this would also mean that the average taxpayer would need to accept his obligations to his fellow citizen, and shoulder the cost of doing so. Not nearly as popular as outsourcing this responsibility to private companies.
- jancsika 5y ago
  > They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. 1: set of people willing to take a job with decent pay/benefits and then find out over the course of probably months that they are in a current day episode of Black Mirror where the job has been scientifically designed to burn them out. 2: set of people willing to take a job for minimum wage with the "freedom" to hit stretch goals and make their wildest dreams come true! I claim that set 1 has more people in it. I offer into evidence the fact that Amazon already chose #1 when choosing #2 would have been vastly more cost effective for them if the sets contained the same number of people.
  - whack 5y ago
    True, but consider the following. Every single restaurant waiter and uber driver is already a member of set 2. In fact, even more so - they are taking jobs with zero or below-minimum-wage, with the expectation that they will earn more from variable income. Uber, lyft, and the dining industry hasn't had too much trouble hiring people from set 2. I agree that set 1 is larger and preferable to Amazon. But if set 1 is outlawed, they will simply transition to set 2 instead. Or give everyone a pay cut and hire more people. Not pay their employees the same wage for lower output.
refurb 5y ago
Ahh… I see CA is now using the same approach for warehouse workers as for gun crime. Don’t actually enforce current laws on bathroom access and worker safety, and instead, just layer on new laws that “make it more illegal”. Truly bizarre.

225 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

Now unionize!

It's so weird that this is even needed. I mean didn't they already have laws that requires breaks, etc... Leave it to Amazon to come up with a legal or computational strategy to work around the existing laws.

dsr_ 5y ago
It turns out that it is not enough to pass a law; it must be enforced, and it must be enforced even-handedly.
- throwaway14356 5y ago
  yes, waste of money without. They are probably big enough to merrit permanent inspectors on the floor. Lets give them a quota in attention points to point out - or be fired.
- shados 5y ago
  America is amazing at passing feel good laws without thinking about the enforcement logistics.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    The US is not alone in that. Laws should always include a cost benefit analysis and a declaration saying how they will be enforced and how they will be financed.
    - shados 5y ago
      You're so right. Reminds me of when people were claiming ADA exemptions for masks, as a "loophole". Then folks involved in the ADA point out it wasn't a loophole, because it was illegal to claim an exemption if you have a real condition. Except the way laws like the ADA and HIPAA are written, it's literally impossible in most cases to check if someone is lying or not. So unless you're ready to literally gamble on your guts feeling (they can't sue you for discrimination if it was indeed false, but you have no way to check!), you couldn't do anything. But hey, it's against the law, so I'm sure people won't lie.
tyingq 5y ago
Seems like the laws that require breaks don't preclude setting piecework quotas that make them impossible to use. See https://www.scribd.com/document/407590982/Amazon-Terminations#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/407590982/Amazon-Termination... Scroll down to "The system also tracks an associates time off task" It basically admits that "time off task" doesn't automatically account for bathroom breaks. You have to ask a manager to include each one, during the conversation where you're being scolded for high "time off task"! The wording in this section is Amazon's wording, too. Oof. Edit: After a bit of searching, there don't appear to be any federal laws requiring breaks in the US, and there are many states that don't have any either. Breaks: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/rest-periods https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/rest-periods Meals: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks
- jonshariat 5y ago
  Nurses also have this problem. On a busy floor, they rarely get to use their breaks or have to quickly scarf down some food and run back.
  - thebradbain 5y ago
    (Not all, but many) Nurses/Doctors are exempt employees though, which has its own set of rules. Warehouse workers aren't, generally
    - bluedino 5y ago
      Most nurses are hourly.
      - tssva 5y ago
        Hourly employees can be exempt.
  - chefandy 5y ago
    When I was working in restaurants a decade ago, getting breaks was the exception rather than the norm.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lhorie 5y ago
Regulations about breaks don't really cover this situation. The gist, as I understand, is that Amazon requires workers to meet very specific productivity metrics such that the employment becomes a trade-off between efficiency and employee well-being. My understanding is that there isn't anything in the books that quantify exactly what's the minimum acceptable amount of "slacking off" an employee is allowed to engage in (I'm using the term "slacking off" loosely here to mean anything that isn't strictly actively engaging 100% in whatever is considered "productive"). In other words, there's nothing that specifically says "employers can't get you into hot water because you walked too slow from this shelf to that shelf" The thing I constantly find weird about California regulation these days is how short sighted and micro-managey it all is. This one clearly is explicitly targeted at Amazon, the AB5/Prop 22 pair is specifically targeted at Uber/Lyft, etc. It strikes me as a deep lack of understanding about how policy making is supposed to work. Ideally, policy is supposed to be something you get experts to research holistically, present data on and implement based on certain expectations of how pros and cons are supposed to play out. California policy making looks to me more like a reactive game of whack-a-mole, trying to put out whatever is the fire du jour with hacks and bandaids and hoping the new rules don't cause any collateral damage.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  All the experts are bought and paid for by someone these days though. Who exactly are you supposed to be asking about something like this? And if you look at Universities, well good luck. They have a known ideological bent that would cause recommendations that are skewed the other way.
- tdeck 5y ago
  Well, in terms of AB5 the federal government tried to head this one off with broad legislation 83 years ago. The Fair Labor Standards Act defines an "employ" as "to suffer or permit to work" specifically because they understood that employers would try to classify workers as anything other than an employee in order to get around the law. It doesn't seem to have worked out that way, so there's an argument for being a bit more specific. (I learned about this from this excellent podcast: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/to-suffer-or-permit-to-work/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/to-suff...) I think the underlying problem is that these employers have disproportionate power, influence, and resources, along with endless creativity. If they can't get the government fully on their side every time, they'd rather it be dysfunctional.
rodgerd 5y ago
Pretty rich when Jeff Bezos is attacking SpaceX on the grounds that Musk doesn't respect the law. Like, he's not wrong, but that's solid "takes one to know one" territory right there.

lovich 5y ago

How does flagging or making a comment dead work in hn? I thought it occurred after many downvotes but I managed to check this thread <60 seconds after ‘Nikki nana posted >Now unionize! And the comment is already [dead]. That feels like it could only happen if there were bots downvoting instantly

Nicksil 5y ago
I think it's an automatic thing if the user is banned or suspended; like a shadow ban. So, there may very well not have been a number of down-voters and was simply dead from the start.
eganist 5y ago
That just means they're shadowbanned, as I understand it. And that tracks with all their other comments being dead. Flagged to death will say both flagged and dead.
- adwn 5y ago
  > That just means they're shadowbanned, as I understand it. And for good reason, judging by their other comments.
bhhaskin 5y ago
Also keep in mind that a two word comment doesn't really add to the conversation. Low effort comments tend to be down voted.
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
There’s a “comments” link in the header that shows the newest comments across all stories. People could be refreshing that and acting on comments without checking every individual story. This could be a good way to help moderate a lot of low quality comments, but the people doing it might not have all the context.
kodah 5y ago
That probably means that they have been banned which starts their post at -4 karma and requires vouching in order to list publicly. This only happens for repeated bad behavior.

giantg2 5y ago

They'll just do away with hard quotas and tell them they are "slow" or "could be doing more". This is what happens at my company since they aren't allowed to count story points, but they just do it behind the scenes anyways.

grafelic 5y ago
No big surprise really that scrum would be misused like this. It is the perfect recipe for micromanagement. Disgusting none the less.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> could be doing more ... no matter how much time you spend in meetings.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Unless one lives at the office, they could always do more.
  - Razengan 5y ago
    Until the universe approaches heat death, one could always do more.
  - abenga 5y ago
    Don't most of us live at the office these days?
q1w2 5y ago
In higher level tech jobs, we struggle to find good metrics to measure performance, and then in jobs where it's easy to measure performance with a clear metric - using it is controversial. Maybe the lesson is that when a metric becomes tangible, expectations to meet/exceed those metrics becomes an all-encompassing aspect of the job.
tmountain 5y ago
When a metric used for planning is conflated with performance measurement, it immediately loses all meaning.

thescriptkiddie 5y ago

Now unionize!

google234123 5y ago

I’m not sure the California government ever acts in good faith in these matters and the public overwhelmingly is with me: see AB5.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
The public would vote for indentured servitude if it kept their Amazon retail and Uber services cheap (and in California, they did, with Prop 22 [1]). That’s why it’s important to have checks and balances to prevent the tyranny of the majority [2]. The public voting themselves overly generous government benefits is no different than the public voting themselves consumer excess on the backs of gig workers. Sure, unions have problems and labor rights are inconvenient for businesses. At the end of the day, people deserve dignity and a less miserable work experience than they getting today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
- richwater 5y ago
  Lol tyranny of the majority keeps Uber cheap? You know drivers can just stop working if they don't like the wage right?
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I've lived long enough to quickly suss out humans with a lack of empathy and life experience. The life experience I can forgive, the lack of empathy I cannot. I hope you embrace the opportunity to grow as a human.
    - google234123 5y ago
      The essence of democracy is majority rule... Anyway, you are missing some empathy with other humans right to choose where and how they work.

whyenot 5y ago

What warehouse workers need is a union or some other structure that represents employees and can bargain on their behalf. Yes, there have been a lot of problems with unions, in the US, in the past, but that doesn't mean the need for worker representation has gone away.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/975259434/house-democrats-pass-bill-that-would-protect-worker-organizing-efforts https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/975259434/house-democrats-pas... (House Democrats Pass Bill That Would Protect Worker Organizing Efforts) https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/842 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/842 (H.R.842 - Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021)
lijogdfljk 5y ago
It's funny, i find anti-union to be nearly identical to anti-government. It seems there are people who feel any organized entity with power is bad. Be it government, or union - the effect is the same. I can definitely agree that it can be bad, but to me it's the only entity that should be representing me. Corporations will have no incentive aligned with myself. Unions/Governments serve as a way to organize the people at large. Which to me is a wholly good thing. This organization however does not come without risks. I think where we fail as a civilization is recognizing this power dynamic and finding ways to monitor corruption. I want to give a government power, but i also need ways to monitor them. Without know if/when an organization becomes corrupted we have no way of healing, and it will always be doomed to fail in the worst way. I'm very pro-union. However we need to figure out monitoring. In Governments, and Unions. Otherwise in my view it's just a matter of time before they fail.
- badRNG 5y ago
  > Be it government, or union - the effect is the same. I agree with your desire for oversight and accountability for either, but there is a difference of at least institutional momentum. I don't think anyone would consider institutional momentum of the US government to be aligned with the interests of workers. I think unions have an opportunity to be better and more explicitly aligned with those interests. As an employee previously part of a union, the adversarial relationship between unions and businesses seems to, at the end, strike a balance between the competing interests of the workers and the business. A business without unions can be like a courtroom without public defenders: not a great place to be the little guy.

CameronNemo 5y ago

On the front of this, it seems odd for legislation to target a specific company or a few companies. But as power concentrates in the hands of a few conglomerates, policy will need to be tailored to addressing those conglomerates head on. While universal policy would be nice, it is both impractical to write and easy to avoid.

tyingq 5y ago
It is odd that it specifically only applies to "Warehouse Distribution Centers". I imagine the same problems exist in other industries. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB701 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
- gruez 5y ago
  >It is odd that it specifically only applies to "Warehouse Distribution Centers". It's not odd at all when you consider how long of an exemption list AB-5 came with.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    It ends up either being an inclusion list or an exemption list at some point. I think it's odd to start with only one industry.
clairity 5y ago
> "While universal policy would be nice, it is both impractical to write and easy to avoid." rather, every law should scale with (economic and political) power, to create fairer markets, better representation, and more equitability, as conglomerates of any sort should be designed to benefit the public at large, not the principals only. for instance, fines for corporate malfeasance should be much higher proportionally than for small businesses (who have little/no market power). some laws try to approximate this with step functions, often a single cutoff (like "greater than 50 employees"), but those practically invite evasion (e.g., by creating 50-employee subsidiaries).

WaitWaitWha 5y ago

Long term, this accelerates Amazon's robotics development in fulfillment centers.

only_as_i_fall 5y ago
Which is probably for the best. I'm sure there are more productive or fulfilling things for people to be doing than shuffling boxes around.
- kukx 5y ago
  If shuffling boxes around gets them the highest pay they can get on the market it just may be the most productive thing they can do! That means being a useful cog in a very effective machine.
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    Unless Amazon can do the same work for less overall cost with robots. I guess my point is that the potential for automation doesn't seem a compelling argument to worsen working conditions
    - kukx 5y ago
      My point is that being a cog in the larger machine may be the most productive thing for a person. Even if it means doing a boring, repetitive job. For example someone shuffling boxes in Amazon may be way more productive than an office worker in some small company.
      - McWobbleston 5y ago
        I think it's important to highlight the difference between productive and profitable here. There's likely many things someone could do that's more productive, as in creates a benefit for those around them, but those productive things aren't always paid. What these workers are doing is getting the highest wage they can by engaging in work owners of capital believe will lead to profits from the market

jxramos 5y ago

Don't quotas already exist in other forms of unionized work; like I recall hearing electrical unions have designated time quotas for completing certain jobs? Maybe that memory is off though or inaccurate.

colejohnson66 5y ago
At least in those instances, the union can negotiate for better (longer) quotas. In Amazon’s case, there’s no union to represent them. There’s the companies (that contract with Amazon) that the drivers work for, but they’re less powerful because there’s another company right next to you.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  In other words, they don't have a cartel/monopoly?
  - cma 5y ago
    Amazon shareholders get stringent minority shareholder protection and legally protected collective voting schemes and can openly collude together against workers. A union gives somewhat similar rights to a similar stakeholder.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      How can I, and Amazon shareholder, go collude with other Amazon shareholders? Tell me how this is possible. I've never heard of it. You can only collude with someone you were in competition with. Shareholders of the same company by definition cannot collude with each other because they are not competing. Collusion would be Walmart and Target and Costco and Amazon unionizing together to negotiate wages.
      - nicoffeine 5y ago
        "collude: cooperate in a secret or unlawful way in order to deceive or gain an advantage over others" Shareholder votes are public, but anonymous. The more typical scenario is that you hold on to the shares and create demand for the stock as a sign of your approval. Unless you own tens of thousands or more shares, you were probably not invited to the perfectly legal but private discussions about the proposals. Shareholders recently voted against every single proposal that was also opposed by Amazon.[1] [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2021/final-tally-amazon-shareholders-vote-proposals-pay-equity-privacy-tech/ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/final-tally-amazon-shareholder...

charlesju 5y ago

Honest question, if you were running Amazon, how do you protect against bad actors or poor performers? Do you leave it solely to the discretion of the managers? How do you judge manager performance, solely by morale?

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> if you were running Amazon, how do you protect against bad actors or poor performers? Do you leave it solely to the discretion of the managers? You take the explicit metric and make it unsaid. Over the course of a few months, if a worker isn't meeting their "goal", they're given a generic performance warning. If they don't improve, they're terminated. This is why workers need a way to push back on quotas.
- core-utility 5y ago
  So instead of the workers knowing the metric out in the open, you hide it from them and secretly judge them on it?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > instead of the workers knowing the metric out in the open, you hide it from them and secretly judge them on it? I'm not advocating this. But it's how most management is done. Pushing back only on quotas, without otherwise empowering the labor force, will almost certainly lead to such a regression.
throw_m239339 5y ago
> Honest question, if you were running Amazon, how do you protect against bad actors or poor performers? define poor performers. I've work for abusive corporations that were setting impossible goals and called employees "poor performers" and fired them when these impossible goals were not met.
- bluedino 5y ago

gootler 5y ago

Where's the Amazon Union?

whack 5y ago

There's an obvious way that Amazon would workaround this law. They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. And offer performance-based bonuses that bring the average wage back to what it is today. I don't see how the law would handle this. I can't think of any reasonable way to outlaw "we'll pay you more for doing more work" policies. Even if it leads to the exact same outcome - most workers will do exactly what they are doing now, because everyone wants to get paid more. There is another obvious solution here. Increase budgets for Earned-Income-Tax-Credits or initiate a Universal Basic Income. This would increase the baseline standard-of-living for all workers, so that they would have better alternatives to what Amazon is offering. Of course, this would also mean that the average taxpayer would need to accept his obligations to his fellow citizen, and shoulder the cost of doing so. Not nearly as popular as outsourcing this responsibility to private companies.

jancsika 5y ago
> They can drop their base wage for all employees to the minimum wage. 1: set of people willing to take a job with decent pay/benefits and then find out over the course of probably months that they are in a current day episode of Black Mirror where the job has been scientifically designed to burn them out. 2: set of people willing to take a job for minimum wage with the "freedom" to hit stretch goals and make their wildest dreams come true! I claim that set 1 has more people in it. I offer into evidence the fact that Amazon already chose #1 when choosing #2 would have been vastly more cost effective for them if the sets contained the same number of people.
- whack 5y ago
  True, but consider the following. Every single restaurant waiter and uber driver is already a member of set 2. In fact, even more so - they are taking jobs with zero or below-minimum-wage, with the expectation that they will earn more from variable income. Uber, lyft, and the dining industry hasn't had too much trouble hiring people from set 2. I agree that set 1 is larger and preferable to Amazon. But if set 1 is outlawed, they will simply transition to set 2 instead. Or give everyone a pay cut and hire more people. Not pay their employees the same wage for lower output.

refurb 5y ago

Ahh… I see CA is now using the same approach for warehouse workers as for gun crime. Don’t actually enforce current laws on bathroom access and worker safety, and instead, just layer on new laws that “make it more illegal”. Truly bizarre.