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> Workers clearly have a case of being subject to poor working conditions How do you know this though? Did you read a couple of articles about the poor working

> Workers clearly have a case of being subject to poor working conditions How do you know this though? Did you read a couple of articles about the poor working conditions and someone having to urinate in a bottle? Or have you actually gotten out and talked to some of the workers? I've done the latter and my take (along with that of the workers I chatted with) has been that the media and press are doing what they do best, and exaggerating the issue or at the very least making rare circumstances appear to be the norm.

umvi 5y ago
> making rare circumstances appear to be the norm The media does this all the time depending on what kind of message/agenda they want to push. It's a form of deception. Reporting on a rare circumstance should require a disclaimer at the very top: "Note: This particular circumstance has only been recorded to happen 5 times nationwide" vs. falsely implying it happens all the time and falsely implying that the problem is endemic.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  News is, by definition, unusual or impactful.
  - umvi 5y ago
    Right, the deception part is implying that the unusual is usual. The news could make lightning strikes seem like a big problem if they wanted to. "Yet another lightning strike kills couple in Wyoming leaving behind 2 kids as politicians gridlocked on lightning policy." "Yet another alcohol-related crash kills family of 5 as politicians gridlocked on alcohol policy." "Yet another <tragic event> happens due to <guns/covid/abortion policy/drug war/etc.> as politicians gridlocked on <agenda> policy."
crocodiletears 5y ago
Similar experience. Amazon warehouse guys I know shrug it off as 'just another warehouse job'. That doesn't mean warehouses are pleasant to work in, even in comparison to similarly paying positions. But Amazon isn't quite the great satan of employers. Just another megacorp. If the employers can unionize and the union works well, then good on them - they deserve to claw as much of the surplus value they produce back from their employer as they can negotiate.
jmkb 5y ago
I've spoken with both Amazon delivery workers and Amazon warehouse workers. Small sample set, but the delivery workers seem reasonably satisfied, and the warehouse workers seem abused. In both cases former employees were more willing to discuss working conditions than current ones. I've also spoken to Whole Foods employees. Those who were working at the time of the Amazon acquisition universally despise the new management, and those hired since the acquisition are indifferent. But everyone's afraid to actually discuss this inside the store -- they believe they're being closely monitored.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The important part would be how this compared to Walmart warehouse workers, or Target or Home Depot, to determine if this needs legislation or union action.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    Why does that matter? If the New York Amazon employees want to unionize for whatever reason, that's their right to do so. Doesn't matter how you or I - who don't work there - feel the quality of their job compares to Wal-Mart, etc.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I did not intend to imply there is anything wrong with unionizing. I just do not find any substance in article after article being solely about Amazon warehouses with no point of reference. It was already known before Amazon that warehouse work sucked, that information is trivial. It would be interesting to see what difference retail employers are like, especially considering how fungible they are and how similar their profit margins are.
  - bigbillheck 5y ago
    The best way to get legislation is via unions or the threat thereof.
jjulius 5y ago
> Or have you actually gotten out and talked to some of the workers? ... I've done the latter and my take (along with that of the workers I chatted with)... I would be curious to know how many workers you spoke with, relative to the number of employees in their warehouses. I would also be curious if the employees you spoke with all worked in the same facility/region, or if they were scattered throughout the country/world. It's one thing to talk to a few people from the same spot, it's a completely different thing to speak to a good sampling of people that is more reflective of Amazon as a whole.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  I wonder if all the journalists pumping out articles about Amazon work conditions are taking a sampling from across the country, or are seeking out a single outrageous event to report on. Actually, I don't wonder that, because I know what the answer is.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjulius 5y ago
    For what it's worth, I ask the same question of any journalistic piece about Amazon warehouses. I expect a good sampling from them, just as I do from anyone touting their anecdata as representative of a whole.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      What answers have you received after asking these questions?
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Or have you actually gotten out and talked to some of the workers? A friend of mine had to move to a new city on short notice when his wife got a new job. He applied at an Amazon warehouse while he applied to longer term jobs. He expected the worse given all of the news stories, but then he started working there and it was fine. He said it was the most well-run warehouse job he’d had. Still a warehouse job, but nothing like the horror stories in the news. Obviously only an n=1 anecdote and it’s entirely possible that other locations are worse, but it wasn’t the dystopian job that we’ve all read about in every news article about Amazon lately.
- LanceH 5y ago
  There are explanations for why these stories come out about Amazon needing to be unionized that which can put bad actors on either side of those stories. I'm not anti-union, but I'm amazed that so many people view them as 100% pure agents of good in all cases.
  - burkaman 5y ago
    > I'm amazed that so many people view them as 100% pure agents of good in all cases. I genuinely don't think there's a single person on the planet who believes this.
  - mountainb 5y ago
    People also conflate historic unions with the current post-New Deal legal framework around unions, which is a framework that only really benefits labor lawyers without really benefitting other people. Just because they're called "unions" does not mean that they are the same thing as the historic "unions." They're a completely different thing governed by a highly complex body of law which is utterly different from the previous framework, operating under totally transformed social and economic conditions. Current day unions are fee bonanzas for lawyers paid for by the workers, the corporation, and the shareholders. The New Deal is often misinterpreted by current day leftists who incorrectly conflate their own views with FDR-era progressivism and the legal reality that it created. They like the fantasy idea of unions in the same way that we can admire the elven kingdom of Lothlorien, and do a lot to avoid perceiving the bureaucratized reality of contemporary unions in favor of nostalgia LARPing.
chriswarbo 5y ago
Regardless of anecdata either way, would any of that be reason not to unionise, and hence reduce the risk?
LegitShady 5y ago
OSHA records show amazon had twice the amount of serious injuries than lets say walmart in 2020. In 2019 their injury rate was in the 7's and it was twice the industry average. https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463132/amazon-injury-rate-warehouses-osha-data-report https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463132/amazon-injury-rat... Amazon delivery providers report injury rates even higher but don't get reported by amazon because they are technically hired by other companies. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/study-amazon-workers-injured-at-higher-rates-than-rival-companies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/study-amazon-workers-injured... > The SOC found that these DSPs reported injury rates of 14 and 13.3, respectively, per 100 workers. Additionally, the majority of injuries reported by DSPs in 2019 and 2020 were severe, requiring employees to take time off work to recover, the SOC said. Comparing against the industry averages and against competitors is not the media exaggerating anything - its how you would understand what is normal or not. edit: can't reply because hackernews is limiting my posting rate but for the poster below who asks maybe its because amazon is so good at reporting, the evidence suggests otherwise and there is no evidence to suggest they are reporting better. It could be but the evidence suggests otherwise, so unless you have some evidence to the contrary all you're doing is conjecture. A higher injury rate is just be a higher injury rate unless there's evidence to suggest otherwise, which you don't seem to have. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed-rising-injury-rates-at-its-warehouses.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed... >Amazon may also be underreporting warehouse worker injuries. A physician who inspected Amazon warehouses for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that workers at some Amazon facilities were being discouraged from reporting injuries and seeking outside medical care, according to Reveal. >Another company initiative designed to curtail "lost-time injuries," or those requiring time off work, ended up preventing them from being counted as lost time, according to Reveal, directly contradicting Amazon executives' framing that such injuries were down due to enhanced safety measures.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Amazon self-reported more incidents. This does not mean that more incidents occurred in Amazon warehouses vs other smaller ones. Amazon will report a sprained ankle while small mom and pop warehouse operations won't report anything that didn't require an ambulance.
colechristensen 5y ago
Well I'm not the absolute judge. But warehouse work is hard, I know that from close connections. I've heard 1st person accounts of things that suck working in an Amazon warehouse. The fact that for Amazon particularly, there's a very revolving door for warehouse employees. It all comes together to "yup, a union seems reasonable". Not a conviction that Amazon is the devil, nor do you need condemning evidence for collective bargaining to be a good idea.
GoodJokes 5y ago
an astroturfer has entered the chat

umvi 5y ago

> making rare circumstances appear to be the norm The media does this all the time depending on what kind of message/agenda they want to push. It's a form of deception. Reporting on a rare circumstance should require a disclaimer at the very top: "Note: This particular circumstance has only been recorded to happen 5 times nationwide" vs. falsely implying it happens all the time and falsely implying that the problem is endemic.

chriswarbo 5y ago
News is, by definition, unusual or impactful.
- umvi 5y ago
  Right, the deception part is implying that the unusual is usual. The news could make lightning strikes seem like a big problem if they wanted to. "Yet another lightning strike kills couple in Wyoming leaving behind 2 kids as politicians gridlocked on lightning policy." "Yet another alcohol-related crash kills family of 5 as politicians gridlocked on alcohol policy." "Yet another <tragic event> happens due to <guns/covid/abortion policy/drug war/etc.> as politicians gridlocked on <agenda> policy."

crocodiletears 5y ago

Similar experience. Amazon warehouse guys I know shrug it off as 'just another warehouse job'. That doesn't mean warehouses are pleasant to work in, even in comparison to similarly paying positions. But Amazon isn't quite the great satan of employers. Just another megacorp. If the employers can unionize and the union works well, then good on them - they deserve to claw as much of the surplus value they produce back from their employer as they can negotiate.

jmkb 5y ago

I've spoken with both Amazon delivery workers and Amazon warehouse workers. Small sample set, but the delivery workers seem reasonably satisfied, and the warehouse workers seem abused. In both cases former employees were more willing to discuss working conditions than current ones. I've also spoken to Whole Foods employees. Those who were working at the time of the Amazon acquisition universally despise the new management, and those hired since the acquisition are indifferent. But everyone's afraid to actually discuss this inside the store -- they believe they're being closely monitored.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The important part would be how this compared to Walmart warehouse workers, or Target or Home Depot, to determine if this needs legislation or union action.
- jjulius 5y ago
  Why does that matter? If the New York Amazon employees want to unionize for whatever reason, that's their right to do so. Doesn't matter how you or I - who don't work there - feel the quality of their job compares to Wal-Mart, etc.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I did not intend to imply there is anything wrong with unionizing. I just do not find any substance in article after article being solely about Amazon warehouses with no point of reference. It was already known before Amazon that warehouse work sucked, that information is trivial. It would be interesting to see what difference retail employers are like, especially considering how fungible they are and how similar their profit margins are.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  The best way to get legislation is via unions or the threat thereof.

jjulius 5y ago

> Or have you actually gotten out and talked to some of the workers? ... I've done the latter and my take (along with that of the workers I chatted with)... I would be curious to know how many workers you spoke with, relative to the number of employees in their warehouses. I would also be curious if the employees you spoke with all worked in the same facility/region, or if they were scattered throughout the country/world. It's one thing to talk to a few people from the same spot, it's a completely different thing to speak to a good sampling of people that is more reflective of Amazon as a whole.

dahfizz 5y ago
I wonder if all the journalists pumping out articles about Amazon work conditions are taking a sampling from across the country, or are seeking out a single outrageous event to report on. Actually, I don't wonder that, because I know what the answer is.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jjulius 5y ago
  For what it's worth, I ask the same question of any journalistic piece about Amazon warehouses. I expect a good sampling from them, just as I do from anyone touting their anecdata as representative of a whole.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    What answers have you received after asking these questions?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> Or have you actually gotten out and talked to some of the workers? A friend of mine had to move to a new city on short notice when his wife got a new job. He applied at an Amazon warehouse while he applied to longer term jobs. He expected the worse given all of the news stories, but then he started working there and it was fine. He said it was the most well-run warehouse job he’d had. Still a warehouse job, but nothing like the horror stories in the news. Obviously only an n=1 anecdote and it’s entirely possible that other locations are worse, but it wasn’t the dystopian job that we’ve all read about in every news article about Amazon lately.

LanceH 5y ago
There are explanations for why these stories come out about Amazon needing to be unionized that which can put bad actors on either side of those stories. I'm not anti-union, but I'm amazed that so many people view them as 100% pure agents of good in all cases.
- burkaman 5y ago
  > I'm amazed that so many people view them as 100% pure agents of good in all cases. I genuinely don't think there's a single person on the planet who believes this.
- mountainb 5y ago
  People also conflate historic unions with the current post-New Deal legal framework around unions, which is a framework that only really benefits labor lawyers without really benefitting other people. Just because they're called "unions" does not mean that they are the same thing as the historic "unions." They're a completely different thing governed by a highly complex body of law which is utterly different from the previous framework, operating under totally transformed social and economic conditions. Current day unions are fee bonanzas for lawyers paid for by the workers, the corporation, and the shareholders. The New Deal is often misinterpreted by current day leftists who incorrectly conflate their own views with FDR-era progressivism and the legal reality that it created. They like the fantasy idea of unions in the same way that we can admire the elven kingdom of Lothlorien, and do a lot to avoid perceiving the bureaucratized reality of contemporary unions in favor of nostalgia LARPing.

chriswarbo 5y ago

Regardless of anecdata either way, would any of that be reason not to unionise, and hence reduce the risk?

LegitShady 5y ago

OSHA records show amazon had twice the amount of serious injuries than lets say walmart in 2020. In 2019 their injury rate was in the 7's and it was twice the industry average. https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463132/amazon-injury-rate-warehouses-osha-data-report https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463132/amazon-injury-rat... Amazon delivery providers report injury rates even higher but don't get reported by amazon because they are technically hired by other companies. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/study-amazon-workers-injured-at-higher-rates-than-rival-companies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/study-amazon-workers-injured... > The SOC found that these DSPs reported injury rates of 14 and 13.3, respectively, per 100 workers. Additionally, the majority of injuries reported by DSPs in 2019 and 2020 were severe, requiring employees to take time off work to recover, the SOC said. Comparing against the industry averages and against competitors is not the media exaggerating anything - its how you would understand what is normal or not. edit: can't reply because hackernews is limiting my posting rate but for the poster below who asks maybe its because amazon is so good at reporting, the evidence suggests otherwise and there is no evidence to suggest they are reporting better. It could be but the evidence suggests otherwise, so unless you have some evidence to the contrary all you're doing is conjecture. A higher injury rate is just be a higher injury rate unless there's evidence to suggest otherwise, which you don't seem to have. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed-rising-injury-rates-at-its-warehouses.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed... >Amazon may also be underreporting warehouse worker injuries. A physician who inspected Amazon warehouses for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that workers at some Amazon facilities were being discouraged from reporting injuries and seeking outside medical care, according to Reveal. >Another company initiative designed to curtail "lost-time injuries," or those requiring time off work, ended up preventing them from being counted as lost time, according to Reveal, directly contradicting Amazon executives' framing that such injuries were down due to enhanced safety measures.

missedthecue 5y ago
Amazon self-reported more incidents. This does not mean that more incidents occurred in Amazon warehouses vs other smaller ones. Amazon will report a sprained ankle while small mom and pop warehouse operations won't report anything that didn't require an ambulance.

colechristensen 5y ago

Well I'm not the absolute judge. But warehouse work is hard, I know that from close connections. I've heard 1st person accounts of things that suck working in an Amazon warehouse. The fact that for Amazon particularly, there's a very revolving door for warehouse employees. It all comes together to "yup, a union seems reasonable". Not a conviction that Amazon is the devil, nor do you need condemning evidence for collective bargaining to be a good idea.

GoodJokes 5y ago

an astroturfer has entered the chat