24 ms·

Amazon warehouse workers stage first-ever strike in the UK

257 points by bubblehack3r 4y ago

lnsru 4y ago
It’s shocking, that there are millions of people picking various objects from the boxes every day all over the world. I know, robotics is hard. But I would guess, that is couple orders of magnitude easier than self driving for example. Light is controlled, temperature above freezing point, size of the box known, shape and size with weight as well as weight distribution of the object are known. Why it is not happening?
- pharmakom 4y ago
  I think the tech will get there. For the shorter term though, imagine a telepresence robot so you can hire workers from anywhere in the world.
  - iceTA 4y ago
    This is the plot of Sleep Dealer.
  - monkeydust 4y ago
    This is doable today with a robotic arm at least. My friend is working on it here in UK. https://www.extendrobotics.com/ https://www.extendrobotics.com/
- ben_w 4y ago
  It is happening. The humans now on strike are what's left after most of it was automated.
- kmlx 4y ago
  https://www.ocadogroup.com/about-us/ocado-technology/ https://www.ocadogroup.com/about-us/ocado-technology/
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  If a robot cost £1mil (including install) and lasts for 10 years with zero maintenance or other costs, then it's cheaper to employ 4 people on 25k a year to do the same job. And that's without things like seasonal demand changes or government grants for hiring people. 1mil for a robot isn't that much. Does anyone make a robot that can work (at least) as fast as 4 people and never need maintaining etc?
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    It's the same economics that made slavery not viable. Sure you don't have to pay labor costs with a slave but if they break their arm you have to call a doctor, otherwise you are out the money you paid for the slave (and that is many years of a typical man's wages), and either way you aren't getting any work until they are healed. It's much more economical to work humans that you've paid a wage, to the bone, and once they are broken, fire them for lack of performance and hire another. No upfront capital outlay, no ongoing costs when they are injured and can't work for you, hell you don't even need to pay them enough to survive, wage slaves beat actual slaves every time. Amazon's problem is they hit such a scale they are starting to run out of wage slaves. They either broke them already or the potential worker has friends or family broken by them so they are wise to the deal. If this wasn't the case they would have little interest in automation.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Slavery was economically viable.
      - willcipriano 4y ago
        After the post Civil War recession, economic growth rates increased dramatically[0]. While slavery made individual southerners wealthy, it's abolition resulted in a broader more dynamic economy that took millions out of poverty. [0]https://fee.org/articles/no-slavery-did-not-make-america-rich/ https://fee.org/articles/no-slavery-did-not-make-america-ric...
- philipov 4y ago
  There are a lot of places where manual labor is preferred to automation, not because automation is hard, but because automation is expensive, while labor can be found for dirt cheep.
  - sct202 4y ago
    Also if you only need labor part of the year like for Christmas for Amazon, if you fully automated Amazon would have to have a bunch of expensive idle robots for the rest of the year. With people you can hire them as seasonal temps for just when you need them.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      I would think that goes the other way, as a benefit to automation. People are a lot more volatile than machines, so scaling up and down in periods of high and low demand is more predictable with machines.
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        Machines are a capital expenditure. You basically can't scale them down below their initial investment cost to acquire. Order picking is, in the grand scheme of human employment, essentially unskilled labor. It takes a bit of practice to get efficient, and a certain level of perseverance and endurance to operate at top efficiency, but it doesn't take any form of higher study, credentialing or apprenticeship to become qualified at. Scaling seasonal workers in this role is relatively trivial in terms of expense compared to purchasing robots. Final note: humans take years to become obsolete and replaced by newer generations. The same isn't true with robots. If you can get full use out of one year round, it is much easier to justify investing now rather than 5 years from now than if you only get two months a year use out of it.
        datavirtue 4y ago
        How about WFH drone robot operators? You could automate and macro some things and wouldn't need people onsite.
- francisofascii 4y ago
  "We're cheaper than droids and easier to replace." - Line from Andor, Episode 9.
- monkeydust 4y ago
  It is happening and Amazon are a big investors in this space afaik (https://amazon.jobs/en/teams/amazon-robotics https://amazon.jobs/en/teams/amazon-robotics). I think the issue is that there are some tasks that might seem easy for a robot to do but they are not, either too expensive vs human capital or the failure rate is not tolerable. The human body is a pretty amazing machine.
- onion2k 4y ago
  But I would guess, that is couple orders of magnitude easier than self driving for example. You would guess wrong then. Robots don't handle variability well at all. Making a robot that can pack anything like a human can is a huge challenge.
  - ape4 4y ago
    The packages I receive seem like they are packed by a simple algorithm. Find the longest dimension of the object, get a box that holds that size. Fill the box with packing material.
    - onion2k 4y ago
      That's not what I mean. Picking a box isn't so hard (although box packing algorithms for non-uniform objects is still tricky). The robotics part is more like "how do I make a robot that can pick up a pen, a 50kg weight, and a silk blouse, and make it put all three in the same package without messing up?" In a factory that would be three distinct robots because that variability in weight, size, surface friction, malleability, etc makes it a hard problem. In a warehouse it would need to be one robot. Even if you compromise and accept additional packaging like putting soft items in boxes or bags it's still quite difficult.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        >Picking a box isn't so hard Though, frankly, Amazon often seems to do a terrible job of optimizing packing--both over and under. I'm guessing that within some range of the right size and some range of not having too much breakage, it's cheaper for them to half-ass it to some degree.
  - js8 4y ago
    The solution will eventually be similar to shipping containers. Every producer will have to use one of several hundreds (because of different sizes) standard ways to package something, if they want to sell with Amazon.
- detaro 4y ago
  Even alone making grippers that reliably can pick up arbitrary objects is surprisingly hard (I believe Amazon did have some prizes offered to anyone who comes up with improvements there). So for now it's cheaper overall to have humans do the tricky part of actually picking stuff up and putting it in boxes, and where possible move other things to/from them. E.g. various "self-driving" shelving systems etc. And Amazon ships all kinds of stuff in various packaging formats etc, so is kind of the worst case here. I could see a company that produces and packages its own stuff choose differently here, and design packaging specifically with its logistics robot capabilities in mind. (For larger packaging sizes, that tend to be large-ish plain boxes, that's already what is happening)
- hbgl 4y ago
  In the places where automation is not happening, manual labor is still cheaper. The more these people strike though, the sooner they will get replaced by robots.
- have_faith 4y ago
  We think of ourselves so highly, yet mastery over boxes eludes us.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  We are fascinated by intelligence/reasoning but if you think about evolution - motion/sensory response were optimized for billions of years, human reasoning is a more recent development - I'm not surprised these things are harder to solve than generating text that appears to be written by another human.
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    Same thing with chess, but written word is much older. Maybe spoken word is next, since chronologically it's much older. Moving through an environment, self-healing, reproduction, and being powered by pretty much anything that grows are last on the list.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Because there's nothing easy about those things, and nothing cheap about building and maintaining a robot that would do them? When you ask the robot to move to another position on the line because they're caught up and the other positions have a backlog, they don't move, and they don't explain why. Also, when they break, you can't yell or threaten them into operating normally again.
- blamazon 4y ago
  Humans are, in many ways, in many places, the best, least expensive robot. To me the bottleneck is not technology, it's the labor market. Basic human labor planetwide is generally not expensive enough for full automation yet. This is not lost on an HR-heavy company like Amazon that employs over a million humans. Such an equilibrium is a long way away too. We are systemically undervaluing the life energy of our species, en masse.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    There are a ton of things that, if labor were arbitrarily expensive, it would be replaced with some combination of: - Robots/automation - Self-service - Poorer service - A lot of people collectively deciding they just just don't need $X if it's going to cost that much Compare the US overall to many places in southeast Asia for example. There is generally a lot more personal service and staffing overall where the labor is cheaper.
    - amalcon 4y ago
      I've heard tell that in some cities with low labor costs, it's cheaper for a disabled person to pay someone to carry them up and down stairs than to rent an apartment with an elevator. That particular robot has been around in more or less its modern form for at least 100 years.
    - nicbou 4y ago
      > A lot of people collectively deciding they just just don't need $X if it's going to cost that much A lot of people decide that it's their God-given right to enjoy a certain service at a certain price, even if it requires exploited labour to achieve. They will actively support legislation that enables this sort of exploitation, because again, this service is too nice to pass on.
    - lawrenceyan 4y ago
      It's interesting to consider how basic income if implemented, could potentially greatly speed up the development/rollout of robotics in industry.
  - deleted 4y ago
- mabbo 4y ago
  tl;dr: Robotic picking requires higher shipping costs, and shipping costs are much higher than the labour costs to pick the item. I spent years in Amazon Fulfillment Tech, a lot of in the Picking software space. It's all about tradeoffs, and shipping costs. Amazon will spend far more money getting the item from the warehouse to your front door than they will on labour costs getting the item into the box, ready to ship to you. Shipping is expensive, labour is relatively cheap when each item is touched by maybe 2-4 people for a few seconds each. Robotics are getting better, but the typical storage bin in an Amazon warehouse is optimized for density, not for easy picking. Humans do a great job of picking items despite the storage density. We fish it out, feel around, use our incredible vision powers. We're great at it! Robots suck at that sort of thing (today). Amazon could build a warehouse that is optimized for robotic picking. But if you built it with today's robots, you would have a fraction of the item storage density. That means you'd either need many times more warehouses or you'd need to reduce your selection. When you reduce selection, that means a different warehouse is handling those other orders, and it's probably further away from the customer. Further away from the customer => higher shipping costs.
  - mymythisisthis 4y ago
    Do you think in the future some form of standardized shipping packages will become the norm? Much like the standard metal shipping container became the norm in the trucking industry. That way more automation can be incorporated across the whole shipping chain.
    - mabbo 4y ago
      But that's the same problem: you'd use more storage space per item, needlessly, decreasing storage density.
- hourago 4y ago
  > It’s shocking, that there are millions of people picking various objects from the boxes every day all over the world. I just read the article and does not talk about automation. Did I miss something?
- fortituded0002 4y ago
  > Why it is not happening? Amazon has been working on robotics for years and has been incorporating it into their warehouses for a long time. https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/warehouse-robotics-automation-innovations-amazon-showcased-2022/638115/#:~:text=Amazon%20is%20testing%20free%2Droaming,vision%2C%20cover%20this%20task%20instead https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/warehouse-robotics-auto.... Not sure how much I agree with this, but a buddy of mine for years talked about how problematic it was for warehouse workers to fight for higher wages and more support because their jobs would likely be automated away in the near-ish future. His argument was that these jobs are not intended to be long-term career jobs and that by pretending they are, you run the risk of doing people a disservice as they stay longer and they become less employable over time.
  - Retric 4y ago
    The key takeaway here is: “Although many are prototypes, the company aims for the bots to eventually make an impact in the company’s logistics network.” They really don’t make significant use of robots.
    - fortituded0002 4y ago
      They do. I've seen it. It's been in the works for years. Each time I've worked in the warehouses things have changed. It's not fully automated, but improvements have been made.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Yet, their number of warehouse employees is still growing like an exponential curve. Compare the number of items shipped per 1,000 warehouse employees in 2012 vs 2022 and no it’s not wildly different.
        fortituded0002 4y ago
        > Yet, their number of warehouse employees is still growing like an exponential curve. Compare the number of items shipped per 1,000 warehouse employees in 2012 vs 2022 and no it’s not wildly different. No idea where this data is coming from. But there are a lot of factors at play and this is pretty high-level data on what could be going on. It doesn't account for changes in how the company operates, the number of warehouses that are spinning up, how packaging and shipping has evolved (moving between warehouses to consolidate multiple orders into single shipments, etc), the massive spike in orders during the pandemic... But really, What's your goal here? It seems like you just want someone to say you are right instead of discuss? If you wanted to discuss, I'd expect that numbers thrown out would have some sort of backing behind them and displaying curiosity as to why things may be operating a certain way as opposed to already deciding how things work.
- oliwarner 4y ago
  What I find shocking is that they'll work for a billionaire for £10/h, and let him micro-monitor break time.
  - netrus 4y ago
    Tells you something about the alternatives they have.
    - WeylandYutani 4y ago
      Other warehouses, despite what internet pundits will tell you, are much the same. Tech workers in air-conditioned buildings are out of touch on how the underclass live and work. BUT I PICKED TOMATOES FOR A SUMMER JOB WHEN I WAS 15
  - rjh29 4y ago
    What choice do you think people have? At minimum wage pretty much all jobs are like that.
    - iso1210 4y ago
      Supermarkets pay more than that and while aren't exactly cushy, they aren't as bad as the reported warehouse conditions of an amazon factory.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  There are many "lights off" warehouses and subsets of warehouses. Lots of stuff that ships direct from a manufacturer's warehouse is like this. The orders amazon picks and packages are far too diverse for that to be economical and current levels of technological progress.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Human hands are an amazing technology that we haven’t been able to artificially replicate. I expect that in the (near?) future when AI has replaced software engineers, lawyers, writers, and bloggers that humans will still be needed to be warehouse workers, fruit pickers, plumbers, and surgeons.
- kansface 4y ago
  > But I would guess, that is couple orders of magnitude easier than self driving for example. The more I think about this, the more I believe you to be incorrect! Identifying the correct item in the bin is hard - things are in random arrangements and orientations. They may be buried under other stuff. Packaging continually changes. Things will be in the wrong bin. Things will be packaged by the manufacturer incorrectly! Things expire but you can't rely on expiration dates, which you'd have to be able to read and parse in the first place. Anything in the bin could be extremely fragile. Some things are both fragile and heavy. The act of picking stuff up is hard. Grip too hard, you break it. Grip too soft, you drop it and break it or something else. Grip it the wrong way, you break it. Crush stuff around it rummaging, you break that. Some things must be pinched, others grasped, cradled or supported at multiple points. You break something, then what? You've contaminated who knows what around it roomba style - you can't send stuff out to customers thats covered in shards of glass or unknown liquids. How do you identify when something is broken or defective in the first place? Packaging may be damaged while the item is OK, or the item may be broken while the packaging is intact. Humans can do this because they have a model of the world with interactive feedback. Things with broken glass may sound wrong or just feel wrong when moved. The stakes are lower on average, but putting the wrong item in a cart will eventually kill someone. Consider allergies, medical supplies, the blind or illiterate. All the while, you have to do this for less than $15/hour? I can only see robots currently succeeding for hyper specific items - perhaps those that are low value and heavy for instance.
hhthrowaway1230 4y ago
This is fantastic. A milestone I'd say. Good for them.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
A third of the workers at one location are striking for one day. I somewhat doubt Amazon will listen to their demands.
- ddulaney 4y ago
  I think Amazon sees unionization activity as a critical risk for them. With a headcount of a million, any increase in cost for them is huge. I suspect they are extremely active in looking for ways to quash these efforts. That will probably mostly involve legal corporate messaging, illegal corporate intimidation [0], and just shutting down any facility that unionizes. But if the demands are cheap and easy, I could definitely see Amazon quietly (extremely quietly!) caving if that would weaken the union. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/28/amazon-staten-island-new-york-retaliation https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/28/amazon-st...
  - hourago 4y ago
    > I think Amazon sees unionization activity as a critical risk for them. Not necessarily Amazon as a company, quite often to improve working conditions also improve productivity. But there is a risk for upper management that prefers obedient employees that accept anything that goes down whatever reasonable or not. Lazy management loves employees that work extra hard to fill up gaps created by management failures. Many managers also think that any feedback from employees will look bad on them, even if it just to improve productivity. Finally many shareholders just cannot stand the working class and giving them even demands that will improve productivity seems scary.
leg100 4y ago
This is incorrect. This is not the first-ever strike. There were wildcat strikes across the UK last summer, more widespread than today's it would appear: > https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252523767/UK-Amazon-workers-stage-series-of-wildcat-strikes-over-pay-offers https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252523767/UK-Amazon-work... Media outlets routinely ignore illegal, unofficial, wildcat strikes. They are more newsworthy however, because they express genuine disillusionment amongst workers and their capability to organise themselves without union management.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Every time I tune in to Democracy Now! I'm amazed at how much labor action is entirely ignored by most of the media (including "leftist" NPR). I mean, it's that or DN is just making it up and faking all those interviews they do with people involved in it, but I don't think that's the case. If you don't seek out explicitly pro-labor media like that, you'd think there are almost never any strikes or other actions by organized labor in the US at all. Maybe like one or two big pushes per year from one sector or another (like the railroad workers who got screwed recently). [EDIT] Yet every press release by any halfway-important company makes the papers. At least we're honest about what and who matter in our system: CAPITAL-ism.
  - Gortal278 4y ago
    Media is in it for clicks/views. Most people are not that interested in labor action unless it's flashy and effects them. I have no strong opinions on the matter, just commenting on your amazement that labor action is ignored by media.
- nabnob 4y ago
  Saving, thanks! And great point.
jimnotgym 4y ago
Solidarity I feel this is an important movement for both the people involved and the competitiveness of employers who treat their staff better.
a_c 4y ago
Strike always fascinate me. I wonde if there is any material that examine the dynamics of striking? E.g. The impact of striking, short term and long term, and its competitiveness relative to region without striking. One aspect I find intriguing is that the "trigger" of strike is often salary falls behind inflation. On the other hand, some portion of inflation is caused by increased labour cost. So by the time the strike demand is fulfilled, the next strike is in theory in the brewing. What material would you suggest to read upon?
- kome 4y ago
  a whole field of sociology and industrial relations study just that, there is a tsunami of literature on the subject
  - a_c 4y ago
    I'm extremely ignorant on this subject matter. Any pointer, like an author or a book will be highly appreciated!
    - kome 4y ago
      it's not an easy read for non sociologists, but I would start here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329202030003002 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003232920203000... Korpi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Korpi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Korpi) is one of the big figures of Scandinavian social democracy, and a researcher that studied for years the connections between social class, welfare, strikes, etc. But again, I just pick one text, among a tsunami of them. Check also those journals: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/EJD https://journals.sagepub.com/home/EJD and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1468232x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1468232x and basically all the journals in this list: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=1410 https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=1410
- hyperman1 4y ago
  In my experience, the worker treatment is generally as much a trigger of strikes as the salary. Here too: [...] long working hours, high injury rates, and the unrelenting pace of work, as well as aggressive, tech-enhanced monitoring of employees.
datavirtue 4y ago
They want loyal employees but get upset when they unionize. A union is implicitly a loyal body of employees. These companies (management monopoly, rather) want to dispose of people without a second thought because it is easier and more within their abilities. Unions break the management monopoly and add the capability to stop acting like a psychopath. It's really a government issue. All companies need the same circumstances so their competition isn't reaping extra profits by treating people worse than dogs. Workers deserve more protections than consumers.
davidf18 4y ago
[dead]
b3nji 4y ago
Serious question, why don't they just quit, and get another job?
- hezralig 4y ago
  Perhaps they like the job.
  - b3nji 4y ago
    I've not met anyone who enjoyed working at an Amazon warehouse. Maybe things have changed?
- 93po 4y ago
  Job mobility is not easy for low income earners. Not having a paycheck is really difficult if you're living paycheck to paycheck. And it's difficult to interview and job hunt if all of your free time is spent working, commuting, and caring for your family. Why don't employers just treat workers with basic dignity and a level of pay that isn't poverty-level?

257 points by bubblehack3r 4y ago

It’s shocking, that there are millions of people picking various objects from the boxes every day all over the world. I know, robotics is hard. But I would guess, that is couple orders of magnitude easier than self driving for example. Light is controlled, temperature above freezing point, size of the box known, shape and size with weight as well as weight distribution of the object are known. Why it is not happening?

pharmakom 4y ago
I think the tech will get there. For the shorter term though, imagine a telepresence robot so you can hire workers from anywhere in the world.
- iceTA 4y ago
  This is the plot of Sleep Dealer.
- monkeydust 4y ago
  This is doable today with a robotic arm at least. My friend is working on it here in UK. https://www.extendrobotics.com/ https://www.extendrobotics.com/
ben_w 4y ago
It is happening. The humans now on strike are what's left after most of it was automated.
kmlx 4y ago
https://www.ocadogroup.com/about-us/ocado-technology/ https://www.ocadogroup.com/about-us/ocado-technology/
LatteLazy 4y ago
If a robot cost £1mil (including install) and lasts for 10 years with zero maintenance or other costs, then it's cheaper to employ 4 people on 25k a year to do the same job. And that's without things like seasonal demand changes or government grants for hiring people. 1mil for a robot isn't that much. Does anyone make a robot that can work (at least) as fast as 4 people and never need maintaining etc?
- willcipriano 4y ago
  It's the same economics that made slavery not viable. Sure you don't have to pay labor costs with a slave but if they break their arm you have to call a doctor, otherwise you are out the money you paid for the slave (and that is many years of a typical man's wages), and either way you aren't getting any work until they are healed. It's much more economical to work humans that you've paid a wage, to the bone, and once they are broken, fire them for lack of performance and hire another. No upfront capital outlay, no ongoing costs when they are injured and can't work for you, hell you don't even need to pay them enough to survive, wage slaves beat actual slaves every time. Amazon's problem is they hit such a scale they are starting to run out of wage slaves. They either broke them already or the potential worker has friends or family broken by them so they are wise to the deal. If this wasn't the case they would have little interest in automation.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Slavery was economically viable.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      After the post Civil War recession, economic growth rates increased dramatically[0]. While slavery made individual southerners wealthy, it's abolition resulted in a broader more dynamic economy that took millions out of poverty. [0]https://fee.org/articles/no-slavery-did-not-make-america-rich/ https://fee.org/articles/no-slavery-did-not-make-america-ric...
philipov 4y ago
There are a lot of places where manual labor is preferred to automation, not because automation is hard, but because automation is expensive, while labor can be found for dirt cheep.
- sct202 4y ago
  Also if you only need labor part of the year like for Christmas for Amazon, if you fully automated Amazon would have to have a bunch of expensive idle robots for the rest of the year. With people you can hire them as seasonal temps for just when you need them.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I would think that goes the other way, as a benefit to automation. People are a lot more volatile than machines, so scaling up and down in periods of high and low demand is more predictable with machines.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      Machines are a capital expenditure. You basically can't scale them down below their initial investment cost to acquire. Order picking is, in the grand scheme of human employment, essentially unskilled labor. It takes a bit of practice to get efficient, and a certain level of perseverance and endurance to operate at top efficiency, but it doesn't take any form of higher study, credentialing or apprenticeship to become qualified at. Scaling seasonal workers in this role is relatively trivial in terms of expense compared to purchasing robots. Final note: humans take years to become obsolete and replaced by newer generations. The same isn't true with robots. If you can get full use out of one year round, it is much easier to justify investing now rather than 5 years from now than if you only get two months a year use out of it.
      - datavirtue 4y ago
        How about WFH drone robot operators? You could automate and macro some things and wouldn't need people onsite.
francisofascii 4y ago
"We're cheaper than droids and easier to replace." - Line from Andor, Episode 9.
monkeydust 4y ago
It is happening and Amazon are a big investors in this space afaik (https://amazon.jobs/en/teams/amazon-robotics https://amazon.jobs/en/teams/amazon-robotics). I think the issue is that there are some tasks that might seem easy for a robot to do but they are not, either too expensive vs human capital or the failure rate is not tolerable. The human body is a pretty amazing machine.
onion2k 4y ago
But I would guess, that is couple orders of magnitude easier than self driving for example. You would guess wrong then. Robots don't handle variability well at all. Making a robot that can pack anything like a human can is a huge challenge.
- ape4 4y ago
  The packages I receive seem like they are packed by a simple algorithm. Find the longest dimension of the object, get a box that holds that size. Fill the box with packing material.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    That's not what I mean. Picking a box isn't so hard (although box packing algorithms for non-uniform objects is still tricky). The robotics part is more like "how do I make a robot that can pick up a pen, a 50kg weight, and a silk blouse, and make it put all three in the same package without messing up?" In a factory that would be three distinct robots because that variability in weight, size, surface friction, malleability, etc makes it a hard problem. In a warehouse it would need to be one robot. Even if you compromise and accept additional packaging like putting soft items in boxes or bags it's still quite difficult.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      >Picking a box isn't so hard Though, frankly, Amazon often seems to do a terrible job of optimizing packing--both over and under. I'm guessing that within some range of the right size and some range of not having too much breakage, it's cheaper for them to half-ass it to some degree.
- js8 4y ago
  The solution will eventually be similar to shipping containers. Every producer will have to use one of several hundreds (because of different sizes) standard ways to package something, if they want to sell with Amazon.
detaro 4y ago
Even alone making grippers that reliably can pick up arbitrary objects is surprisingly hard (I believe Amazon did have some prizes offered to anyone who comes up with improvements there). So for now it's cheaper overall to have humans do the tricky part of actually picking stuff up and putting it in boxes, and where possible move other things to/from them. E.g. various "self-driving" shelving systems etc. And Amazon ships all kinds of stuff in various packaging formats etc, so is kind of the worst case here. I could see a company that produces and packages its own stuff choose differently here, and design packaging specifically with its logistics robot capabilities in mind. (For larger packaging sizes, that tend to be large-ish plain boxes, that's already what is happening)
hbgl 4y ago
In the places where automation is not happening, manual labor is still cheaper. The more these people strike though, the sooner they will get replaced by robots.
have_faith 4y ago
We think of ourselves so highly, yet mastery over boxes eludes us.
moonchrome 4y ago
We are fascinated by intelligence/reasoning but if you think about evolution - motion/sensory response were optimized for billions of years, human reasoning is a more recent development - I'm not surprised these things are harder to solve than generating text that appears to be written by another human.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Same thing with chess, but written word is much older. Maybe spoken word is next, since chronologically it's much older. Moving through an environment, self-healing, reproduction, and being powered by pretty much anything that grows are last on the list.
pessimizer 4y ago
Because there's nothing easy about those things, and nothing cheap about building and maintaining a robot that would do them? When you ask the robot to move to another position on the line because they're caught up and the other positions have a backlog, they don't move, and they don't explain why. Also, when they break, you can't yell or threaten them into operating normally again.
blamazon 4y ago
Humans are, in many ways, in many places, the best, least expensive robot. To me the bottleneck is not technology, it's the labor market. Basic human labor planetwide is generally not expensive enough for full automation yet. This is not lost on an HR-heavy company like Amazon that employs over a million humans. Such an equilibrium is a long way away too. We are systemically undervaluing the life energy of our species, en masse.
- ghaff 4y ago
  There are a ton of things that, if labor were arbitrarily expensive, it would be replaced with some combination of: - Robots/automation - Self-service - Poorer service - A lot of people collectively deciding they just just don't need $X if it's going to cost that much Compare the US overall to many places in southeast Asia for example. There is generally a lot more personal service and staffing overall where the labor is cheaper.
  - amalcon 4y ago
    I've heard tell that in some cities with low labor costs, it's cheaper for a disabled person to pay someone to carry them up and down stairs than to rent an apartment with an elevator. That particular robot has been around in more or less its modern form for at least 100 years.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    > A lot of people collectively deciding they just just don't need $X if it's going to cost that much A lot of people decide that it's their God-given right to enjoy a certain service at a certain price, even if it requires exploited labour to achieve. They will actively support legislation that enables this sort of exploitation, because again, this service is too nice to pass on.
  - lawrenceyan 4y ago
    It's interesting to consider how basic income if implemented, could potentially greatly speed up the development/rollout of robotics in industry.
- deleted 4y ago
mabbo 4y ago
tl;dr: Robotic picking requires higher shipping costs, and shipping costs are much higher than the labour costs to pick the item. I spent years in Amazon Fulfillment Tech, a lot of in the Picking software space. It's all about tradeoffs, and shipping costs. Amazon will spend far more money getting the item from the warehouse to your front door than they will on labour costs getting the item into the box, ready to ship to you. Shipping is expensive, labour is relatively cheap when each item is touched by maybe 2-4 people for a few seconds each. Robotics are getting better, but the typical storage bin in an Amazon warehouse is optimized for density, not for easy picking. Humans do a great job of picking items despite the storage density. We fish it out, feel around, use our incredible vision powers. We're great at it! Robots suck at that sort of thing (today). Amazon could build a warehouse that is optimized for robotic picking. But if you built it with today's robots, you would have a fraction of the item storage density. That means you'd either need many times more warehouses or you'd need to reduce your selection. When you reduce selection, that means a different warehouse is handling those other orders, and it's probably further away from the customer. Further away from the customer => higher shipping costs.
- mymythisisthis 4y ago
  Do you think in the future some form of standardized shipping packages will become the norm? Much like the standard metal shipping container became the norm in the trucking industry. That way more automation can be incorporated across the whole shipping chain.
  - mabbo 4y ago
    But that's the same problem: you'd use more storage space per item, needlessly, decreasing storage density.
hourago 4y ago
> It’s shocking, that there are millions of people picking various objects from the boxes every day all over the world. I just read the article and does not talk about automation. Did I miss something?
fortituded0002 4y ago
> Why it is not happening? Amazon has been working on robotics for years and has been incorporating it into their warehouses for a long time. https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/warehouse-robotics-automation-innovations-amazon-showcased-2022/638115/#:~:text=Amazon%20is%20testing%20free%2Droaming,vision%2C%20cover%20this%20task%20instead https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/warehouse-robotics-auto.... Not sure how much I agree with this, but a buddy of mine for years talked about how problematic it was for warehouse workers to fight for higher wages and more support because their jobs would likely be automated away in the near-ish future. His argument was that these jobs are not intended to be long-term career jobs and that by pretending they are, you run the risk of doing people a disservice as they stay longer and they become less employable over time.
- Retric 4y ago
  The key takeaway here is: “Although many are prototypes, the company aims for the bots to eventually make an impact in the company’s logistics network.” They really don’t make significant use of robots.
  - fortituded0002 4y ago
    They do. I've seen it. It's been in the works for years. Each time I've worked in the warehouses things have changed. It's not fully automated, but improvements have been made.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Yet, their number of warehouse employees is still growing like an exponential curve. Compare the number of items shipped per 1,000 warehouse employees in 2012 vs 2022 and no it’s not wildly different.
      - fortituded0002 4y ago
        > Yet, their number of warehouse employees is still growing like an exponential curve. Compare the number of items shipped per 1,000 warehouse employees in 2012 vs 2022 and no it’s not wildly different. No idea where this data is coming from. But there are a lot of factors at play and this is pretty high-level data on what could be going on. It doesn't account for changes in how the company operates, the number of warehouses that are spinning up, how packaging and shipping has evolved (moving between warehouses to consolidate multiple orders into single shipments, etc), the massive spike in orders during the pandemic... But really, What's your goal here? It seems like you just want someone to say you are right instead of discuss? If you wanted to discuss, I'd expect that numbers thrown out would have some sort of backing behind them and displaying curiosity as to why things may be operating a certain way as opposed to already deciding how things work.
oliwarner 4y ago
What I find shocking is that they'll work for a billionaire for £10/h, and let him micro-monitor break time.
- netrus 4y ago
  Tells you something about the alternatives they have.
  - WeylandYutani 4y ago
    Other warehouses, despite what internet pundits will tell you, are much the same. Tech workers in air-conditioned buildings are out of touch on how the underclass live and work. BUT I PICKED TOMATOES FOR A SUMMER JOB WHEN I WAS 15
- rjh29 4y ago
  What choice do you think people have? At minimum wage pretty much all jobs are like that.
  - iso1210 4y ago
    Supermarkets pay more than that and while aren't exactly cushy, they aren't as bad as the reported warehouse conditions of an amazon factory.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
There are many "lights off" warehouses and subsets of warehouses. Lots of stuff that ships direct from a manufacturer's warehouse is like this. The orders amazon picks and packages are far too diverse for that to be economical and current levels of technological progress.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Human hands are an amazing technology that we haven’t been able to artificially replicate. I expect that in the (near?) future when AI has replaced software engineers, lawyers, writers, and bloggers that humans will still be needed to be warehouse workers, fruit pickers, plumbers, and surgeons.
kansface 4y ago
> But I would guess, that is couple orders of magnitude easier than self driving for example. The more I think about this, the more I believe you to be incorrect! Identifying the correct item in the bin is hard - things are in random arrangements and orientations. They may be buried under other stuff. Packaging continually changes. Things will be in the wrong bin. Things will be packaged by the manufacturer incorrectly! Things expire but you can't rely on expiration dates, which you'd have to be able to read and parse in the first place. Anything in the bin could be extremely fragile. Some things are both fragile and heavy. The act of picking stuff up is hard. Grip too hard, you break it. Grip too soft, you drop it and break it or something else. Grip it the wrong way, you break it. Crush stuff around it rummaging, you break that. Some things must be pinched, others grasped, cradled or supported at multiple points. You break something, then what? You've contaminated who knows what around it roomba style - you can't send stuff out to customers thats covered in shards of glass or unknown liquids. How do you identify when something is broken or defective in the first place? Packaging may be damaged while the item is OK, or the item may be broken while the packaging is intact. Humans can do this because they have a model of the world with interactive feedback. Things with broken glass may sound wrong or just feel wrong when moved. The stakes are lower on average, but putting the wrong item in a cart will eventually kill someone. Consider allergies, medical supplies, the blind or illiterate. All the while, you have to do this for less than $15/hour? I can only see robots currently succeeding for hyper specific items - perhaps those that are low value and heavy for instance.

hhthrowaway1230 4y ago

This is fantastic. A milestone I'd say. Good for them.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

A third of the workers at one location are striking for one day. I somewhat doubt Amazon will listen to their demands.

ddulaney 4y ago
I think Amazon sees unionization activity as a critical risk for them. With a headcount of a million, any increase in cost for them is huge. I suspect they are extremely active in looking for ways to quash these efforts. That will probably mostly involve legal corporate messaging, illegal corporate intimidation [0], and just shutting down any facility that unionizes. But if the demands are cheap and easy, I could definitely see Amazon quietly (extremely quietly!) caving if that would weaken the union. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/28/amazon-staten-island-new-york-retaliation https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/28/amazon-st...
- hourago 4y ago
  > I think Amazon sees unionization activity as a critical risk for them. Not necessarily Amazon as a company, quite often to improve working conditions also improve productivity. But there is a risk for upper management that prefers obedient employees that accept anything that goes down whatever reasonable or not. Lazy management loves employees that work extra hard to fill up gaps created by management failures. Many managers also think that any feedback from employees will look bad on them, even if it just to improve productivity. Finally many shareholders just cannot stand the working class and giving them even demands that will improve productivity seems scary.

leg100 4y ago

This is incorrect. This is not the first-ever strike. There were wildcat strikes across the UK last summer, more widespread than today's it would appear: > https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252523767/UK-Amazon-workers-stage-series-of-wildcat-strikes-over-pay-offers https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252523767/UK-Amazon-work... Media outlets routinely ignore illegal, unofficial, wildcat strikes. They are more newsworthy however, because they express genuine disillusionment amongst workers and their capability to organise themselves without union management.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Every time I tune in to Democracy Now! I'm amazed at how much labor action is entirely ignored by most of the media (including "leftist" NPR). I mean, it's that or DN is just making it up and faking all those interviews they do with people involved in it, but I don't think that's the case. If you don't seek out explicitly pro-labor media like that, you'd think there are almost never any strikes or other actions by organized labor in the US at all. Maybe like one or two big pushes per year from one sector or another (like the railroad workers who got screwed recently). [EDIT] Yet every press release by any halfway-important company makes the papers. At least we're honest about what and who matter in our system: CAPITAL-ism.
- Gortal278 4y ago
  Media is in it for clicks/views. Most people are not that interested in labor action unless it's flashy and effects them. I have no strong opinions on the matter, just commenting on your amazement that labor action is ignored by media.
nabnob 4y ago
Saving, thanks! And great point.

jimnotgym 4y ago

Solidarity I feel this is an important movement for both the people involved and the competitiveness of employers who treat their staff better.

a_c 4y ago

Strike always fascinate me. I wonde if there is any material that examine the dynamics of striking? E.g. The impact of striking, short term and long term, and its competitiveness relative to region without striking. One aspect I find intriguing is that the "trigger" of strike is often salary falls behind inflation. On the other hand, some portion of inflation is caused by increased labour cost. So by the time the strike demand is fulfilled, the next strike is in theory in the brewing. What material would you suggest to read upon?

kome 4y ago
a whole field of sociology and industrial relations study just that, there is a tsunami of literature on the subject
- a_c 4y ago
  I'm extremely ignorant on this subject matter. Any pointer, like an author or a book will be highly appreciated!
  - kome 4y ago
    it's not an easy read for non sociologists, but I would start here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329202030003002 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003232920203000... Korpi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Korpi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Korpi) is one of the big figures of Scandinavian social democracy, and a researcher that studied for years the connections between social class, welfare, strikes, etc. But again, I just pick one text, among a tsunami of them. Check also those journals: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/EJD https://journals.sagepub.com/home/EJD and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1468232x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1468232x and basically all the journals in this list: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=1410 https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=1410
hyperman1 4y ago
In my experience, the worker treatment is generally as much a trigger of strikes as the salary. Here too: [...] long working hours, high injury rates, and the unrelenting pace of work, as well as aggressive, tech-enhanced monitoring of employees.

datavirtue 4y ago

They want loyal employees but get upset when they unionize. A union is implicitly a loyal body of employees. These companies (management monopoly, rather) want to dispose of people without a second thought because it is easier and more within their abilities. Unions break the management monopoly and add the capability to stop acting like a psychopath. It's really a government issue. All companies need the same circumstances so their competition isn't reaping extra profits by treating people worse than dogs. Workers deserve more protections than consumers.

davidf18 4y ago

[dead]

b3nji 4y ago

Serious question, why don't they just quit, and get another job?

hezralig 4y ago
Perhaps they like the job.
- b3nji 4y ago
  I've not met anyone who enjoyed working at an Amazon warehouse. Maybe things have changed?
93po 4y ago
Job mobility is not easy for low income earners. Not having a paycheck is really difficult if you're living paycheck to paycheck. And it's difficult to interview and job hunt if all of your free time is spent working, commuting, and caring for your family. Why don't employers just treat workers with basic dignity and a level of pay that isn't poverty-level?