3 ms·

Again, there's been nothing to suggest that these were sub-par working conditions. Except for the length of the engagement, which is fairly normal, I don't see

by bmelton 13y ago

Again, there's been nothing to suggest that these were sub-par working conditions. Except for the length of the engagement, which is fairly normal, I don't see anything even remotely unusual about this working arrangement.

grecy 13y ago
Employing someone for 11 months so you can avoid paying benefits is disgusting. Just because it's not "unusual" doesn't make it acceptable.
- bmelton 13y ago
  If he was hired on the promise that his contract would only be 11 months, and he knew that up front, I don't see why it's a problem. If he were just randomly fired after 11 months so that they could avoid paying the difference, then I would completely agree with you.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    I would be very interested to know just how transparent they were about that. At one extreme I can see some vague handwaving saying 'this is a contract position...you get what that means right? so sign here...' At the other you might get a HR person saying 'yes contract jobs can lead to full-time opportunities' even though that might only happen for one person once a year.
    - bmelton 13y ago
      I would too, but I've worked in plenty of situations, as much as two decades ago, where there was a contract, and the potential for future employment. Once you get on site, you start asking the actual employees how serious the potential is, but the contract length is known full well ahead of time. Again though, I just don't see anything odd or unusual in this setup. It's pretty much the exact same setup that companies like Manpower and Adecco have used for decades. I don't know anything about the wages at Amazon, but I'm far more laissez faire on that than I suspect much of the rest of HN, and that's fine, but clearly Amazon isn't breaking the law here.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  It's also a moronic move by out-of-touch executives. I saw a stark example with a QA team that was almost entirely temps. The team was at least 2-3x as big as it needed to be because these stupid 6-12 month stints resulted in a continuous stream of new hires who had to be trained from scratch and were completely unmotivated. Then one day an edict came down from on high that resulted in the sudden termination of several relatively effective temps partway through their programmed stint. The excuse? "Development is slowing down for a while, we don't need as many." I literally said "What the fuck?! We're spinning UP!". A couple weeks later they were scrambling to fill the positions again.
anigbrowl 13y ago
It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance. This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent. That says that people who are wise enough get into management roles can get greater rewards without needing to be particularly (or at all) skillful, while people who choose to develop some operational skill or otherwise start at the bottom are suckers whose opportunities are decoupled from their competence or productivity - and there's a strong feeling that in many firms, this sorting takes place at the time of hiring, before the contract employees have an opportunity to become familiar with the corporate culture. Such a setup, where it exists, is deeply at odds with the meritocratic ideal that is heavily promoted in American culture, education and by most employers. tl;dr treating employment like prostitution is destructive of goodwill between suppliers and consumers of labor.
- jmduke 13y ago
  It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance. The majority of the quality assurance/editorial people I know (that's the position this guy was in) at Amazon started out as contractors and were then promoted to full-time employment because of their performance. While I think employing a contractor for 11 months to purposely avoid paying benefits is a dick move, its also the case that a lot of these positions don't exist for an entire year because the teams either a) automate them out of existence or b) send them out to Mechanical Turk. This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent. Agreed, though I think this is less a case of "this is an injustice to the workers" and more a case of "this is a dumb idea that leads to bad things all around".

by bmelton 13y ago

grecy 13y ago

Employing someone for 11 months so you can avoid paying benefits is disgusting. Just because it's not "unusual" doesn't make it acceptable.

bmelton 13y ago
If he was hired on the promise that his contract would only be 11 months, and he knew that up front, I don't see why it's a problem. If he were just randomly fired after 11 months so that they could avoid paying the difference, then I would completely agree with you.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  I would be very interested to know just how transparent they were about that. At one extreme I can see some vague handwaving saying 'this is a contract position...you get what that means right? so sign here...' At the other you might get a HR person saying 'yes contract jobs can lead to full-time opportunities' even though that might only happen for one person once a year.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    I would too, but I've worked in plenty of situations, as much as two decades ago, where there was a contract, and the potential for future employment. Once you get on site, you start asking the actual employees how serious the potential is, but the contract length is known full well ahead of time. Again though, I just don't see anything odd or unusual in this setup. It's pretty much the exact same setup that companies like Manpower and Adecco have used for decades. I don't know anything about the wages at Amazon, but I'm far more laissez faire on that than I suspect much of the rest of HN, and that's fine, but clearly Amazon isn't breaking the law here.
nknighthb 13y ago
It's also a moronic move by out-of-touch executives. I saw a stark example with a QA team that was almost entirely temps. The team was at least 2-3x as big as it needed to be because these stupid 6-12 month stints resulted in a continuous stream of new hires who had to be trained from scratch and were completely unmotivated. Then one day an edict came down from on high that resulted in the sudden termination of several relatively effective temps partway through their programmed stint. The excuse? "Development is slowing down for a while, we don't need as many." I literally said "What the fuck?! We're spinning UP!". A couple weeks later they were scrambling to fill the positions again.

anigbrowl 13y ago

It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance. This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent. That says that people who are wise enough get into management roles can get greater rewards without needing to be particularly (or at all) skillful, while people who choose to develop some operational skill or otherwise start at the bottom are suckers whose opportunities are decoupled from their competence or productivity - and there's a strong feeling that in many firms, this sorting takes place at the time of hiring, before the contract employees have an opportunity to become familiar with the corporate culture. Such a setup, where it exists, is deeply at odds with the meritocratic ideal that is heavily promoted in American culture, education and by most employers. tl;dr treating employment like prostitution is destructive of goodwill between suppliers and consumers of labor.

jmduke 13y ago
It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance. The majority of the quality assurance/editorial people I know (that's the position this guy was in) at Amazon started out as contractors and were then promoted to full-time employment because of their performance. While I think employing a contractor for 11 months to purposely avoid paying benefits is a dick move, its also the case that a lot of these positions don't exist for an entire year because the teams either a) automate them out of existence or b) send them out to Mechanical Turk. This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent. Agreed, though I think this is less a case of "this is an injustice to the workers" and more a case of "this is a dumb idea that leads to bad things all around".