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> The major goal of the program, Amazon’s head of worldwide consumer business, Dave Clark, said, was to reduce employee attrition by fostering happiness among w

> The major goal of the program, Amazon’s head of worldwide consumer business, Dave Clark, said, was to reduce employee attrition by fostering happiness among workers — and also productivity. Shout-Outs would be part of a gamified rewards system in which employees are awarded virtual stars and badges for activities that “add direct business value,” documents state. At the meeting, Clark remarked that “some people are insane star collectors.” Truly insane, there is nothing stranger (or more dystopian) than fiction after all. Rather than fix the system of working their employees to death (literally in the case of the tornado) or improving their conditions, Amazon tries to use virtual gold stars (not even physical stickers like kindergarten) as a band-aid. That list of banned words is right out of 1984 (as cliché as it is to reference at this point): ethics, fairness, freedom. I cannot imagine anyone here seriously defending this unless you’re just looking to be a contrarian. This is not “par for the course” for manual labor jobs as some people are claiming. Most manual labor jobs do not restrict you from talking about ethics or justice with your coworkers or have even a need for some virtual gold stars beyond a little whiteboard in the building with number of sales, employee of the month, etc. The fact that these techniques won’t work for Amazon just shows that their laborers are really over-worked compared to the norm. Unfortunately, Amazon is able to use their massive resources and capital to pay just more than the local factory, packing gig, etc. so they have a stream of desperate people willing to take it.

FinNerd 5y ago
Why don’t their employees quit then and work somewhere better if they have the opportunity? If they don’t have a better opportunity than seems like Amazon is providing a valuable opportunity. Not to mention we seem to be in a worker-favorable economy.
- vkou 5y ago
  Why would they quit when they can collectively bargain instead?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  > If they don’t have a better opportunity than seems like Amazon is providing a valuable opportunity. So when are we letting children back in the coalmines?
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    This is a terrible analogy and adds nothing to the conversation. We aren't going to make children work in mines, because (as I'm sure you know), adult workers and children are not the same thing. There is a huge chasm between "adult workers making more than a lot of their other opportunities is slightly more cannot unionize as easily using Amazon services" and "put children back in coal mines".
    - _dain_ 5y ago
      >We aren't going to make children work in mines, because (as I'm sure you know), adult workers and children are not the same thing. once upon a time, this was not obvious. this modern moral axiom is a result of of hard-won labor organizing over the 19th century. all kinds of exploitative practices were justified with the exact same "the workers are being given an opportunity so they shouldn't complain" argument. it's not an analogy. taking advantage of people because they don't have any other options is the definition of exploitation.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        In fact, most of the arguments by GP were also used by those defending now illegal labor practices, including child labor.
    - uncomputation 5y ago
      I disagree. I think it’s a good reminder that if we do not regulate labor, businesses like Amazon will grow more and more nefarious. They already confiscate phones, have a built-in PIP revolving door, use their own employees to vouch for them on Twitter, recruit aggressively to have a never-ending stream of labor, and explicitly violate existing labor laws by setting up a system so competitive their own employees cannot take bathroom breaks and meet quotas, in essence giving them no breaks. You seem to be under the impression that companies have an inherent disdain for child labor, which historically is not true. I think actually society has proven that, as long as we don’t see it, we’re fine with the cost. Also, do you know what stopped children in coal mines? Labor unions.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  "just quit and get another job" -- this is frictionless-plane-in-a-vacuum thinking. people have all kinds of life circumstances that means they can't act like perfectly rational economic agents, especially when they are poor. turn it around: why doesn't amazon just respect its worker's basic human dignity?
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    > why doesn't amazon just respect its worker's basic human dignity? Because that directly conflicts with making the highest profit possible (still legally). What’s sad in these discussions is that it’s both true that Amazon is a terrible employer and that it often pays more than alternatives for many workers. This seems like a failure of policy (ex. Enforcing living wage standards) and American business well-being at least as much as a failure of Amazon to “do the right thing.” Edit: Cracks me up that I got downvoted for telling the truth about capitalism.
    - jasd 5y ago
      I don't understand why we expect Amazon to do the right thing vs we should expect in this case all retailers to do the right thing? Unfortunately as consumers we are always looking for the best deal or the lowest price on everything. Which means retailers need to cut costs every way possible which in turn leads to sucking every ounce out of workers. Let's assume that Amazon did end up making things way better for their workers. That means higher costs and hence higher prices. This will allow other retailers to win markets by setting the best prices. I think we need regulation that applies to all retailers in this case or all industries that hire manual labor vs constantly targeting Amazon for being the bad guy.
      - AlexandrB 5y ago
        It's funny that this logic is rarely applied to executive compensation or stock buybacks. Apparently it only hurts competitiveness to increase wages for the low-level workers. Any of the other ways that money gets wasted in a major retail corporation is fine. And then there are the counterexamples, like Costco, that manage to pay well and be wildly competitive.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  Say you’re a father. You need to support your family, and there’s an Amazon Fulfillment Center in town. It pays a whole dollar an hour better than the local fruit packing warehouse, which is a huge difference. Amazon is providing me a valuable opportunity! Except now, I’m working myself to the bone trying to fulfill my package counts, peeing in bottles, shitting in bags, constantly stressed about if I can not only meet my quotas, but beat everyone else on the floor with me so that I can get more hours next time. I get back from work miserable, stressed, and probably angry from the constant competition needed to just survive. But this is a valuable opportunity, surely, except for the fact that I’m constantly stressed about work, and now I can’t even complain about how I’m stressed about work because Amazon won’t allow me to have my phone on the floor or say the word “restroom” in their internal chat app. Oh but right, as you say, it’s a worker-favorable economy! Let me go to packing warehouse and try and get even fifty cents closer to Amazon with the leverage I obviously have. I’m sure the guy there is gonna say no problem, here’s a raise. This is the lesson that we already learned in the 1800s with monopolies; they distort reality. It’s useless to argue “if you don’t want to work for them, don’t” because they often pay just better than your local alternatives, but by virtue of their economy bending power, they will exert an insane amount of control and influence until they are either regulated or there is no competition left and I don’t even have the fruit packing warehouse anymore, but the Amazon Oranges Fulfillment Center.
  - eftychis 5y ago
    These working conditions should simply be illegal in the U.S. (and the countries it is not already). There is no way around that. If society doesn't demand that then good luck to all of us. I am simply surprised again and again people haven't "broken" and keep putting up with this.
    - mistermann 5y ago
      My understanding is that people voted for this, that's what I'm told anyways.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      > I am simply surprised again and again people haven't "broken" and keep putting up with this. Rates of deaths of despair suggest that people have broken, they just don't have the leverage to significantly change things.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Negotiations exist between two parties in a contractual relationship. Employment isn't a take it or leave it deal, it's give and take between two parties where terms of employment are decided by negotiations between both of them.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    You mean like how I freely negotiate and accept the contract that describes CPUs backdoors (Intel Management Engine) in one of two computer CPU manufacturers in the world?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      Or your cellphone contract, or apartment lease, or the terms of use for every web site, or End User License Agreements. They're all totally "meeting of the minds" mutually agreed upon between parties of equal power, open to negotiation by skilled end-users... LOL! Most contracts/agreements that end users are subjected to are far from freely negotiable. They are take-it-or-leave-it rule-making written by some company's legal counsel and enforced by the courts. Agree or don't do business with. I've never been presented with an employment agreement where any of the terms could be negotiated. Salary and benefits? Yes, sometimes. But other terms? No way. I always try, but in every case, you get a stern message from corporate legal basically saying "Sign it unmodified or GTFO." I don't know who these HN Captains of Industry are who negotiate the terms of their employment, but that's the exception, not the rule. Maybe at the VP+ level, these things are negotiable (parties are more equal in power), but at the "5th grunt from the left" level, no way.
      - heavyset_go 5y ago
        This is the point of unions, because atomized workers don't have much leverage by themselves to negotiate with an entities that have already consolidated their interests and power in the form of corporations. Unions help workers consolidate their interests and power in order to leverage them against the consolidated interests and power of their employers and negotiate better terms of employment.
- Lamad123 5y ago
  Let them eat foie gras
ars 5y ago
> working their employees to death (literally in the case of the tornado) According to people who live in the area this isn't true. Amazon's response to the tornado was what everyone in that area does.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Well if thats the case then a lot of places are working employees to death and should all stop. Amazon clearly has the budget to look after its employees. Noblesse oblige and whatnot.
  - weezin 5y ago
    The amount of people that don't know what you are suppose to do during a tornado is mind boggling...
    - bb88 5y ago
      There's a difference between not knowing what your are supposed to be doing during a tornado in your home, and what you're supposed to do in an Amazon warehouse. In Illinois, commercial warehouses aren't required to have tornado shelters. If you grow up in Illinois or anywhere around the midwest, there's a high likelihood you've been through a tornado drill in your childhood.
      - weezin 5y ago
        Well they did have a shelter area. My point was the people that followed the tragedy with horrible tornado advice in order to score political points.
        bb88 5y ago
        But was it broadcasted to the workers when the tornado warning happened? Site safety plans typically include things about tornado warnings particularly in Illinois, where tornados are common. It's also common to have a site wide announcement system in case of fire or tornado warnings instructing people where to go and what to do. Site safety plans typically exist to prevent lawsuits in the first place.
randmeerkat 5y ago
If you still have a prime membership this is a great time to cancel it.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  If you have a senator or representative this would be a great time to ask what the fuck is the NLRB doing when there's this much anti union activity going on? And if they don't respond some more direct action might be necessary.
  - randomfinn 5y ago
    > If you have a senator or representative Most of us don't, but I've been looking at the lobbying numbers and they don't seem that expensive. I think with crowd funding and smart targeting of the money it might not be that difficult to buy change.
    - harry8 5y ago
      Are you suggesting we should crowd fund to get the money for politicians elected by the people to actually for the people?
      - joquarky 5y ago
        The Onion "suggested" this 12 years ago. https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821 https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-l...
      - kqr 5y ago
        Unfortunately that's how most of our capitalist democracies work.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  And if Amazon is trying to set up a distribution center in your state, county, or town: fight it. At the very least insist on language that prohibits any sort of corporate welfare. No tax breaks, no free infrastructure. Bezos is the richest man in the world; he can afford to run a new sewer or water main to his big fancy warehouses, instead of making a county's worth of low-income blue-collar folks pay for it. He can afford to pay property tax. Etc Same for Walmart. Same for every fucking corporation. Stop giving corporations breaks to "bring jobs" to your town. Soon as that corporation finds a better deal somewhere else, or the workers get too 'uppity', they'll shop around and move to a town more desperate than yours.
mannykannot 5y ago
I'm hoping - and expecting - Amazon workers will game, euphemize, parody, ridicule and covertly subvert this clueless attempt at coercive social engineering for as long as Amazon thinks it is a good idea.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Amazonian182829: I'd like see us more together. That way we could get more of what we're looking for. Still be hard, but not like django working.
  - makapuf 5y ago
    Join a onion!
grapeskin 5y ago
The scariest thing isn't that Amazon is a company worth nearly trillions and using that money to oppress workers to maintain their lead. It's that tech workers are happily applying to get a decent paycheck and crushing people under them, just to protect the company's billions. Then they'll post online about how happy they are to have been smart enough to save up to buy a lakefront home and retire at 45, and say people should follow their path in tech if they're looking for a step up (after destroying the road behind them and making it easier to oppress workers), or worse, pretend to lament how hard it is for other people to follow their footsteps and how something needs to be done. FAANG workers are really entering and sometimes fully into "just following orders" territory. The lame social media posts from fellow tech workers about how things "should" be regulated gets tiresome. The real solution is to simply not work for them.
- someelephant 5y ago
  Seems odd to blame other workers here even if they do make a lot of money. The only way workers will be helped is other jobs provide better value to the worker or companies are regulated to provide better conditions. Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests.
  - randmeerkat 5y ago
    > Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests. People _are_ responsible for the choices they make _and_ the entities they choose to empower… Anyhow… I’ve known engineers that have chosen community over themselves… Regardless, you’re on HN, fortunately you don’t have to make that choice. Instead you can skip FAANG toxicity and join a startup “community” that aligns with your values. Even better you can start your own startup. The payout is also potentially far better than grinding at a soul sucking FAANG position for years.
    - chii 5y ago
      > The payout is also potentially far better than grinding at a soul sucking FAANG position for years. if you consider financial pay out, i really can't agree that it's a better payout for the risk you're taking. A startup can be a lottery, and "winning" can be difficult and has a chance element. On average, i think the payout is lower than employment at the FAANGs, esp. if you do good salary negotiation and move often to ensure you're not missing out any uptick in the market rate. Of course, a startup, like winning the lottery, pays out a lot more when successful, and some people prefer the high risk high reward - it's not a wrong choice. But that should be understood first.
coredog64 5y ago
cough phonetool cough
- mathgladiator 5y ago
  Some of us played the game and invented our own badges. I had one for deploying a service of over 100,000 hosts while asleep.
harry8 5y ago
Look out for stern opposition to Amazon's behavior in the Washington Post "Democracy Dies in Darkness"
- lostlogin 5y ago
  On the off chance someone doesn’t know it, the Washington Post is owned by Bezos.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Well, there is this article on WP right now, for what it's worth: Amazon union win could usher in a new wave of scrutiny of its labor practices (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/04/amazon-union-win-could-usher-new-wave-scrutiny-its-labor-practices/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/04/amazon-un...)
olalonde 5y ago
> I cannot imagine anyone here seriously defending this unless you’re just looking to be a contrarian. HN has a large libertarian base who are against regulated unions. They are seen as bad government interference in the free enterprise system. I don't want to start an argument but there's a lot of economics science that supports that belief.
- stepbeek 5y ago
  What kind of libertarianism? Afaik left-libertarianism is in favour of unions. If it's right-libertarianism you're referencing then can you share some of the "economics science" that promotes it?
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    "Left" libertarianism is an oxymoron. Any philosophy that prioritises the collective over the individual is inherently illiberal.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      The left vs right dichotomy doesn't have too much to do with collectivism vs individualism. For example, social conservatism is a right wing idea, but it is highly collectivistic (prioritizing social mores over individual freedom). Left libertarianism typically means free market economics + democratically organized and owned workplaces + social libertarianism (free love, free religion, free drugs etc). Right libertarianism is similar, but emphasizes contractualism instead of democratic control. Left libertarians typically scoff for example at corporations for their limitations on the personal freedoms of the workers, viewing it as a form of slavery.
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      The very opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism "Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[6] especially social anarchists,[7] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists"
CryptoPunk 5y ago
I defend this because the union system, where the government mandates companies engage in exclusive bargaining with unions, is illiberal, unfair and economically destructive. What's fair is the right to quit. Nothing beyond that. No one is entitled to a job that some other party furnishes, and to effectively force that company, via labor regulations, mandated negotiation advantages for unions, etc, to provide them a job with the terms they want. With government mandates against them, Amazon is fighting with both hands tied behind its back, and it's only a matter of time before social activists will succeed in putting the company's US based sites under the control of unions, as we saw happen to the Big Three automakers. In comparison to what Amazon is up against, which is blatant violations of its contract liberty by the state and its apparatus of violence (the courts, police and prisons that compel compliance with state injunctions), these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! P.S.: The US big three automakers went down because of complete management failure. They continued to build cars that nobody outside the US wants (seriously go to any other western nation and look how many US cars you see), and then were surprised that US customers started to want superior Japanese and European cars. VW in Germany is highly unionised and they are the second largest car manufacturer in the world.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    >>That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! I am not against government. The US had a government, with police, firefighters, an army and roads, in 1890, and no labor regulations that violated the freedom to contract, because during the Lochner era, the Supreme Court consistently struck down such laws as violating the Constitution's guarantee of substantive due process. That you equate the provision of government services that are pure public goods, with restrictions that prevent people from exercising their contract freedom, shows you fundamentally don't understand the objection to these types of laws, or what "contract liberty" even means. I imagine you see "contract liberty" as synonymous with "anarchy".
pawelmurias 5y ago
If people are willing to completely pointless busy work in mobile and MMO games and paying through the nose to be zombified and gain virtual stars, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do that in a virtual job (when they are being actually paid this)
minusSeven 5y ago
I think the end goal of Amazon is to replace these employees with bot and to automate manual labour work. Until then all this is just ways to delay the unionization as much as possible.
negamax 5y ago
How is this different from China's social point system. Which is criticized a lot here. Strange world to live in.
cs702 5y ago
Yes, that was my reaction too. But what shocks me most is what this implies about the (many?) managers at Amazon who are responsible for it. They must be either: (a) under so much pressure that they decided to go ahead with it despite being aware of the horrifying similarities their New Approved Language has with Newspeak, the centrally controlled language that prohibits the use of certain words in Orwell's classic novel, 1984; or (b) so poorly educated that they're blissfully unaware of the parallels, and perhaps even think of themselves as really clever for having thought up this Orwellian scheme on their own.
- banannaise 5y ago
  In my experience with managers of all sorts, (a) is incredibly common. Low-level managers everywhere are under a ton of pressure, and are often stuck in a position where they know the measures they are implementing hurt the people who report to them, but they've been railroaded into it and don't see any realistic alternative.
gremlinsinc 5y ago

FinNerd 5y ago

Why don’t their employees quit then and work somewhere better if they have the opportunity? If they don’t have a better opportunity than seems like Amazon is providing a valuable opportunity. Not to mention we seem to be in a worker-favorable economy.

vkou 5y ago
Why would they quit when they can collectively bargain instead?
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> If they don’t have a better opportunity than seems like Amazon is providing a valuable opportunity. So when are we letting children back in the coalmines?
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  This is a terrible analogy and adds nothing to the conversation. We aren't going to make children work in mines, because (as I'm sure you know), adult workers and children are not the same thing. There is a huge chasm between "adult workers making more than a lot of their other opportunities is slightly more cannot unionize as easily using Amazon services" and "put children back in coal mines".
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    >We aren't going to make children work in mines, because (as I'm sure you know), adult workers and children are not the same thing. once upon a time, this was not obvious. this modern moral axiom is a result of of hard-won labor organizing over the 19th century. all kinds of exploitative practices were justified with the exact same "the workers are being given an opportunity so they shouldn't complain" argument. it's not an analogy. taking advantage of people because they don't have any other options is the definition of exploitation.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      In fact, most of the arguments by GP were also used by those defending now illegal labor practices, including child labor.
  - uncomputation 5y ago
    I disagree. I think it’s a good reminder that if we do not regulate labor, businesses like Amazon will grow more and more nefarious. They already confiscate phones, have a built-in PIP revolving door, use their own employees to vouch for them on Twitter, recruit aggressively to have a never-ending stream of labor, and explicitly violate existing labor laws by setting up a system so competitive their own employees cannot take bathroom breaks and meet quotas, in essence giving them no breaks. You seem to be under the impression that companies have an inherent disdain for child labor, which historically is not true. I think actually society has proven that, as long as we don’t see it, we’re fine with the cost. Also, do you know what stopped children in coal mines? Labor unions.
_dain_ 5y ago
"just quit and get another job" -- this is frictionless-plane-in-a-vacuum thinking. people have all kinds of life circumstances that means they can't act like perfectly rational economic agents, especially when they are poor. turn it around: why doesn't amazon just respect its worker's basic human dignity?
- mdorazio 5y ago
  > why doesn't amazon just respect its worker's basic human dignity? Because that directly conflicts with making the highest profit possible (still legally). What’s sad in these discussions is that it’s both true that Amazon is a terrible employer and that it often pays more than alternatives for many workers. This seems like a failure of policy (ex. Enforcing living wage standards) and American business well-being at least as much as a failure of Amazon to “do the right thing.” Edit: Cracks me up that I got downvoted for telling the truth about capitalism.
  - jasd 5y ago
    I don't understand why we expect Amazon to do the right thing vs we should expect in this case all retailers to do the right thing? Unfortunately as consumers we are always looking for the best deal or the lowest price on everything. Which means retailers need to cut costs every way possible which in turn leads to sucking every ounce out of workers. Let's assume that Amazon did end up making things way better for their workers. That means higher costs and hence higher prices. This will allow other retailers to win markets by setting the best prices. I think we need regulation that applies to all retailers in this case or all industries that hire manual labor vs constantly targeting Amazon for being the bad guy.
    - AlexandrB 5y ago
      It's funny that this logic is rarely applied to executive compensation or stock buybacks. Apparently it only hurts competitiveness to increase wages for the low-level workers. Any of the other ways that money gets wasted in a major retail corporation is fine. And then there are the counterexamples, like Costco, that manage to pay well and be wildly competitive.
uncomputation 5y ago
Say you’re a father. You need to support your family, and there’s an Amazon Fulfillment Center in town. It pays a whole dollar an hour better than the local fruit packing warehouse, which is a huge difference. Amazon is providing me a valuable opportunity! Except now, I’m working myself to the bone trying to fulfill my package counts, peeing in bottles, shitting in bags, constantly stressed about if I can not only meet my quotas, but beat everyone else on the floor with me so that I can get more hours next time. I get back from work miserable, stressed, and probably angry from the constant competition needed to just survive. But this is a valuable opportunity, surely, except for the fact that I’m constantly stressed about work, and now I can’t even complain about how I’m stressed about work because Amazon won’t allow me to have my phone on the floor or say the word “restroom” in their internal chat app. Oh but right, as you say, it’s a worker-favorable economy! Let me go to packing warehouse and try and get even fifty cents closer to Amazon with the leverage I obviously have. I’m sure the guy there is gonna say no problem, here’s a raise. This is the lesson that we already learned in the 1800s with monopolies; they distort reality. It’s useless to argue “if you don’t want to work for them, don’t” because they often pay just better than your local alternatives, but by virtue of their economy bending power, they will exert an insane amount of control and influence until they are either regulated or there is no competition left and I don’t even have the fruit packing warehouse anymore, but the Amazon Oranges Fulfillment Center.
- eftychis 5y ago
  These working conditions should simply be illegal in the U.S. (and the countries it is not already). There is no way around that. If society doesn't demand that then good luck to all of us. I am simply surprised again and again people haven't "broken" and keep putting up with this.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    My understanding is that people voted for this, that's what I'm told anyways.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > I am simply surprised again and again people haven't "broken" and keep putting up with this. Rates of deaths of despair suggest that people have broken, they just don't have the leverage to significantly change things.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Negotiations exist between two parties in a contractual relationship. Employment isn't a take it or leave it deal, it's give and take between two parties where terms of employment are decided by negotiations between both of them.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  You mean like how I freely negotiate and accept the contract that describes CPUs backdoors (Intel Management Engine) in one of two computer CPU manufacturers in the world?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    Or your cellphone contract, or apartment lease, or the terms of use for every web site, or End User License Agreements. They're all totally "meeting of the minds" mutually agreed upon between parties of equal power, open to negotiation by skilled end-users... LOL! Most contracts/agreements that end users are subjected to are far from freely negotiable. They are take-it-or-leave-it rule-making written by some company's legal counsel and enforced by the courts. Agree or don't do business with. I've never been presented with an employment agreement where any of the terms could be negotiated. Salary and benefits? Yes, sometimes. But other terms? No way. I always try, but in every case, you get a stern message from corporate legal basically saying "Sign it unmodified or GTFO." I don't know who these HN Captains of Industry are who negotiate the terms of their employment, but that's the exception, not the rule. Maybe at the VP+ level, these things are negotiable (parties are more equal in power), but at the "5th grunt from the left" level, no way.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      This is the point of unions, because atomized workers don't have much leverage by themselves to negotiate with an entities that have already consolidated their interests and power in the form of corporations. Unions help workers consolidate their interests and power in order to leverage them against the consolidated interests and power of their employers and negotiate better terms of employment.
Lamad123 5y ago
Let them eat foie gras

ars 5y ago

> working their employees to death (literally in the case of the tornado) According to people who live in the area this isn't true. Amazon's response to the tornado was what everyone in that area does.

arcticbull 5y ago
Well if thats the case then a lot of places are working employees to death and should all stop. Amazon clearly has the budget to look after its employees. Noblesse oblige and whatnot.
- weezin 5y ago
  The amount of people that don't know what you are suppose to do during a tornado is mind boggling...
  - bb88 5y ago
    There's a difference between not knowing what your are supposed to be doing during a tornado in your home, and what you're supposed to do in an Amazon warehouse. In Illinois, commercial warehouses aren't required to have tornado shelters. If you grow up in Illinois or anywhere around the midwest, there's a high likelihood you've been through a tornado drill in your childhood.
    - weezin 5y ago
      Well they did have a shelter area. My point was the people that followed the tragedy with horrible tornado advice in order to score political points.
      - bb88 5y ago
        But was it broadcasted to the workers when the tornado warning happened? Site safety plans typically include things about tornado warnings particularly in Illinois, where tornados are common. It's also common to have a site wide announcement system in case of fire or tornado warnings instructing people where to go and what to do. Site safety plans typically exist to prevent lawsuits in the first place.

randmeerkat 5y ago

If you still have a prime membership this is a great time to cancel it.

aaomidi 5y ago
If you have a senator or representative this would be a great time to ask what the fuck is the NLRB doing when there's this much anti union activity going on? And if they don't respond some more direct action might be necessary.
- randomfinn 5y ago
  > If you have a senator or representative Most of us don't, but I've been looking at the lobbying numbers and they don't seem that expensive. I think with crowd funding and smart targeting of the money it might not be that difficult to buy change.
  - harry8 5y ago
    Are you suggesting we should crowd fund to get the money for politicians elected by the people to actually for the people?
    - joquarky 5y ago
      The Onion "suggested" this 12 years ago. https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821 https://www.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-l...
    - kqr 5y ago
      Unfortunately that's how most of our capitalist democracies work.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
And if Amazon is trying to set up a distribution center in your state, county, or town: fight it. At the very least insist on language that prohibits any sort of corporate welfare. No tax breaks, no free infrastructure. Bezos is the richest man in the world; he can afford to run a new sewer or water main to his big fancy warehouses, instead of making a county's worth of low-income blue-collar folks pay for it. He can afford to pay property tax. Etc Same for Walmart. Same for every fucking corporation. Stop giving corporations breaks to "bring jobs" to your town. Soon as that corporation finds a better deal somewhere else, or the workers get too 'uppity', they'll shop around and move to a town more desperate than yours.

mannykannot 5y ago

I'm hoping - and expecting - Amazon workers will game, euphemize, parody, ridicule and covertly subvert this clueless attempt at coercive social engineering for as long as Amazon thinks it is a good idea.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Amazonian182829: I'd like see us more together. That way we could get more of what we're looking for. Still be hard, but not like django working.
- makapuf 5y ago
  Join a onion!

grapeskin 5y ago

The scariest thing isn't that Amazon is a company worth nearly trillions and using that money to oppress workers to maintain their lead. It's that tech workers are happily applying to get a decent paycheck and crushing people under them, just to protect the company's billions. Then they'll post online about how happy they are to have been smart enough to save up to buy a lakefront home and retire at 45, and say people should follow their path in tech if they're looking for a step up (after destroying the road behind them and making it easier to oppress workers), or worse, pretend to lament how hard it is for other people to follow their footsteps and how something needs to be done. FAANG workers are really entering and sometimes fully into "just following orders" territory. The lame social media posts from fellow tech workers about how things "should" be regulated gets tiresome. The real solution is to simply not work for them.

someelephant 5y ago
Seems odd to blame other workers here even if they do make a lot of money. The only way workers will be helped is other jobs provide better value to the worker or companies are regulated to provide better conditions. Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests.
- randmeerkat 5y ago
  > Personal and corporate interests will always trump community interests. People _are_ responsible for the choices they make _and_ the entities they choose to empower… Anyhow… I’ve known engineers that have chosen community over themselves… Regardless, you’re on HN, fortunately you don’t have to make that choice. Instead you can skip FAANG toxicity and join a startup “community” that aligns with your values. Even better you can start your own startup. The payout is also potentially far better than grinding at a soul sucking FAANG position for years.
  - chii 5y ago
    > The payout is also potentially far better than grinding at a soul sucking FAANG position for years. if you consider financial pay out, i really can't agree that it's a better payout for the risk you're taking. A startup can be a lottery, and "winning" can be difficult and has a chance element. On average, i think the payout is lower than employment at the FAANGs, esp. if you do good salary negotiation and move often to ensure you're not missing out any uptick in the market rate. Of course, a startup, like winning the lottery, pays out a lot more when successful, and some people prefer the high risk high reward - it's not a wrong choice. But that should be understood first.

coredog64 5y ago

cough phonetool cough

mathgladiator 5y ago
Some of us played the game and invented our own badges. I had one for deploying a service of over 100,000 hosts while asleep.

harry8 5y ago

Look out for stern opposition to Amazon's behavior in the Washington Post "Democracy Dies in Darkness"

lostlogin 5y ago
On the off chance someone doesn’t know it, the Washington Post is owned by Bezos.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Well, there is this article on WP right now, for what it's worth: Amazon union win could usher in a new wave of scrutiny of its labor practices (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/04/amazon-union-win-could-usher-new-wave-scrutiny-its-labor-practices/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/04/amazon-un...)

olalonde 5y ago

> I cannot imagine anyone here seriously defending this unless you’re just looking to be a contrarian. HN has a large libertarian base who are against regulated unions. They are seen as bad government interference in the free enterprise system. I don't want to start an argument but there's a lot of economics science that supports that belief.

stepbeek 5y ago
What kind of libertarianism? Afaik left-libertarianism is in favour of unions. If it's right-libertarianism you're referencing then can you share some of the "economics science" that promotes it?
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  "Left" libertarianism is an oxymoron. Any philosophy that prioritises the collective over the individual is inherently illiberal.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    The left vs right dichotomy doesn't have too much to do with collectivism vs individualism. For example, social conservatism is a right wing idea, but it is highly collectivistic (prioritizing social mores over individual freedom). Left libertarianism typically means free market economics + democratically organized and owned workplaces + social libertarianism (free love, free religion, free drugs etc). Right libertarianism is similar, but emphasizes contractualism instead of democratic control. Left libertarians typically scoff for example at corporations for their limitations on the personal freedoms of the workers, viewing it as a form of slavery.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    The very opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism "Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[6] especially social anarchists,[7] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists"

CryptoPunk 5y ago

I defend this because the union system, where the government mandates companies engage in exclusive bargaining with unions, is illiberal, unfair and economically destructive. What's fair is the right to quit. Nothing beyond that. No one is entitled to a job that some other party furnishes, and to effectively force that company, via labor regulations, mandated negotiation advantages for unions, etc, to provide them a job with the terms they want. With government mandates against them, Amazon is fighting with both hands tied behind its back, and it's only a matter of time before social activists will succeed in putting the company's US based sites under the control of unions, as we saw happen to the Big Three automakers. In comparison to what Amazon is up against, which is blatant violations of its contract liberty by the state and its apparatus of violence (the courts, police and prisons that compel compliance with state injunctions), these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.

cycomanic 5y ago
That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! P.S.: The US big three automakers went down because of complete management failure. They continued to build cars that nobody outside the US wants (seriously go to any other western nation and look how many US cars you see), and then were surprised that US customers started to want superior Japanese and European cars. VW in Germany is highly unionised and they are the second largest car manufacturer in the world.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  >>That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! I am not against government. The US had a government, with police, firefighters, an army and roads, in 1890, and no labor regulations that violated the freedom to contract, because during the Lochner era, the Supreme Court consistently struck down such laws as violating the Constitution's guarantee of substantive due process. That you equate the provision of government services that are pure public goods, with restrictions that prevent people from exercising their contract freedom, shows you fundamentally don't understand the objection to these types of laws, or what "contract liberty" even means. I imagine you see "contract liberty" as synonymous with "anarchy".

pawelmurias 5y ago

If people are willing to completely pointless busy work in mobile and MMO games and paying through the nose to be zombified and gain virtual stars, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do that in a virtual job (when they are being actually paid this)

minusSeven 5y ago

I think the end goal of Amazon is to replace these employees with bot and to automate manual labour work. Until then all this is just ways to delay the unionization as much as possible.

negamax 5y ago

How is this different from China's social point system. Which is criticized a lot here. Strange world to live in.

cs702 5y ago

Yes, that was my reaction too. But what shocks me most is what this implies about the (many?) managers at Amazon who are responsible for it. They must be either: (a) under so much pressure that they decided to go ahead with it despite being aware of the horrifying similarities their New Approved Language has with Newspeak, the centrally controlled language that prohibits the use of certain words in Orwell's classic novel, 1984; or (b) so poorly educated that they're blissfully unaware of the parallels, and perhaps even think of themselves as really clever for having thought up this Orwellian scheme on their own.

banannaise 5y ago
In my experience with managers of all sorts, (a) is incredibly common. Low-level managers everywhere are under a ton of pressure, and are often stuck in a position where they know the measures they are implementing hurt the people who report to them, but they've been railroaded into it and don't see any realistic alternative.

gremlinsinc 5y ago