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I think this comes down to how many in the US see jobs in the general. A job working in an Amazon fulfillment center is seen by most as a kind of "stepping ston

I think this comes down to how many in the US see jobs in the general. A job working in an Amazon fulfillment center is seen by most as a kind of "stepping stone" job. Literally anyone can get the job very easily, and as a result its not considered to be a "good job" in the first place. There is an understanding that you work this type of job if you are fresh out of high school with no experience, or you don't have any skills so you can't find better work, etc. So it's considered okay to suffer in the short term, as you don't plan to stay in this type of job for the long term anyway. In fact Amazon leans into this by offering programs to pay tuition for fullfillment center workers to learn tech skills, etc. Part of the draw of the job is that you can more easily pivot from the role into new better roles. So with this background its not hard to see why workers don't bother to join a union or invest that much in improving working conditions in their current role. They want to be moving on to another job or better role in a year or less anyway. Disclaimer: I am an Amazon employee, and I am speaking from my own personal viewpoint, not for Amazon.

ahelwer 4y ago
I wouldn't say this is how such jobs are seen by most. This is certainly how such jobs are seen by people who have landed a tech job though. We can't all be tech workers, managers, consultants, or other such professions. Somebody has to move the packages around in the real world. To consign this and other essential (to borrow a word from early pandemic times) jobs to transitory, stepping-stone status is the opposite of how it should be. It doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether my git commits go in by the end of the week. The professions where it does matter whether something happens by the end of the week ought to be made much more attractive places to be.
- brutal_chaos_ 4y ago
  I have parents, neither are in the tech sector, that believe this. I would say a fair number of people outside of tech believe this too. I have also used vocational rehabilitation services and they don't treat those jobs with such disrespect, but I definitely got the feeling some jobs are stepping stone jobs.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  Everybody in my extended-family sees these jobs like this, and none of them are in tech. They are in construction, and office work, and health care, and wood working, and farming. Warehouse, retail, fast food, wait-staff, etc, are all seen as stepping-stone jobs. Unless you are running your own business in these areas, they are rarely viewed as "professions" or long-term jobs. Even with things like construction jobs, which are pretty well liked in my family, you are expected to move up to the "better" jobs like heavy machinery operator, or management, and such.
nonameiguess 4y ago
I don't think this is true. I remember when I was in the Army, I was a commissioned officer, and a whole lot of junior enlisted Soldiers who were discharging were intentionally looking to go work at Amazon fulfillment centers. While I imagine they're not "great" jobs in terms of the working conditions, they did seem to pay better than anything else you could do without specialized skills in the areas they were located in. As long as the job is full time and offers health insurance, that's gold in a lot of places. Keep in mind the cost of living can be extremely low in rural areas. I think back to a good friend from college that came out to LA to live with me 20 years ago to follow his dream of being a television writer. We shared a 2-bed place that was something like $1,400 a month or so back then. Where he was from, Charles Town, WV, the rent on a comparable place was between $100 and $200 a month. A full-time job that pays more than double the federal minimum wage is more than enough to make it there. It definitely isn't in New York City, of course, which starts to get at the real problem, but this isn't really an Amazon problem. No matter how strong a union ends up being, they're not going to push wages high enough for unskilled labor to ever be able to comfortably live in a place like New York City, but New York City still needs things like Amazon fulfillment centers. This is a problem with cities in general. None of them can house the low-skill populations they nonetheless require to do most of the labor required to make a city livable for everyone else.

ahelwer 4y ago

I wouldn't say this is how such jobs are seen by most. This is certainly how such jobs are seen by people who have landed a tech job though. We can't all be tech workers, managers, consultants, or other such professions. Somebody has to move the packages around in the real world. To consign this and other essential (to borrow a word from early pandemic times) jobs to transitory, stepping-stone status is the opposite of how it should be. It doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether my git commits go in by the end of the week. The professions where it does matter whether something happens by the end of the week ought to be made much more attractive places to be.

brutal_chaos_ 4y ago
I have parents, neither are in the tech sector, that believe this. I would say a fair number of people outside of tech believe this too. I have also used vocational rehabilitation services and they don't treat those jobs with such disrespect, but I definitely got the feeling some jobs are stepping stone jobs.
xboxnolifes 4y ago
Everybody in my extended-family sees these jobs like this, and none of them are in tech. They are in construction, and office work, and health care, and wood working, and farming. Warehouse, retail, fast food, wait-staff, etc, are all seen as stepping-stone jobs. Unless you are running your own business in these areas, they are rarely viewed as "professions" or long-term jobs. Even with things like construction jobs, which are pretty well liked in my family, you are expected to move up to the "better" jobs like heavy machinery operator, or management, and such.

nonameiguess 4y ago

I don't think this is true. I remember when I was in the Army, I was a commissioned officer, and a whole lot of junior enlisted Soldiers who were discharging were intentionally looking to go work at Amazon fulfillment centers. While I imagine they're not "great" jobs in terms of the working conditions, they did seem to pay better than anything else you could do without specialized skills in the areas they were located in. As long as the job is full time and offers health insurance, that's gold in a lot of places. Keep in mind the cost of living can be extremely low in rural areas. I think back to a good friend from college that came out to LA to live with me 20 years ago to follow his dream of being a television writer. We shared a 2-bed place that was something like $1,400 a month or so back then. Where he was from, Charles Town, WV, the rent on a comparable place was between $100 and $200 a month. A full-time job that pays more than double the federal minimum wage is more than enough to make it there. It definitely isn't in New York City, of course, which starts to get at the real problem, but this isn't really an Amazon problem. No matter how strong a union ends up being, they're not going to push wages high enough for unskilled labor to ever be able to comfortably live in a place like New York City, but New York City still needs things like Amazon fulfillment centers. This is a problem with cities in general. None of them can house the low-skill populations they nonetheless require to do most of the labor required to make a city livable for everyone else.