6 ms·

The Workers Who Bring You Black Friday

84 points by sir_kitty 13y ago

thrill 13y ago
This is easier to read: http://www.thenation.com/article/177377/holiday-crush?page=full http://www.thenation.com/article/177377/holiday-crush?page=f...
- sir_kitty 13y ago
  oh most definitely - thanks!
rayiner 13y ago
> After waiting twenty minutes, we are ushered into a room upstairs. A woman from the agency hands each of us a time sheet. For the sign-in, she tells us to write 8:30. “I know you were told to be here at 8:15,” she says, anticipating a protest that never comes, “but that was just to make sure you got here early.” And, like that, fifteen minutes are lopped from our paycheck. It’s a small but important lesson in what it means to be a “flexible” worker. > But there are significant challenges to organizing the industry. “Because of the temp nature of work, it’s very easy for a worker who speaks out to be retaliated against,” says Palma. “They might not be called back to work the following day, or have their hours decreased.” That’s exactly what happened to Rodriguez, according to the WWU. After he spoke to the media and participated in strikes over unsafe workplace conditions—leading Cal/OSHA to fine the warehouse nearly $30,000—he was fired earlier this year. Federal charges have been filed against the company, alleging retaliation, and an investigation is under way. I'm not a fan of labor unions, but I'm not sure what else can be done about this sort of thing. Litigation can only tackle small parts of the problem, and class action settlements leave the lawyers as the only winners. Fines are never high enough to disincentivize the activity. There's a high chance of not getting caught, and even when you do get caught the fine is barely higher than the cost of complying in the first place. Maybe a punishment of public floggings for executives at companies who violate labor laws?[1] [1] There's a lot of Singapore worship among certain circles, so they shouldn't mind adopting some of their customs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore.
- kefka 13y ago
  Unfortunately, the power is in the hands of the temp workers.... if they all stick together. If they all collectively demanded better working conditions and better pay, they could succeed. After all, the work won't get done if they don't do it. Management certainly isn't going to dirty their hands in this kind of job. And after all what we see, it really is have-nots (proletariat) versus the haves(capitalists/managers).
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    Or be replaced by robots. All I could think of reading that is why they haven't figured out how to fold and tape a cardboard box with a robot yet. They should get on that, and then those people won't have to be subjected to those conditions anymore.
    - lcc 13y ago
      And then those people won't have jobs anymore.
      - nsxwolf 13y ago
        Unemployed, but more importantly, unexploited.
        rayiner 13y ago
        They're going to be replaced by robots either way. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated decently in the meantime.
        nsxwolf 13y ago
        So we can give them a living wage, which will accelerate the development of a robotic replacement, so that they can earn a bit more in the meantime, before their inevitable unemployment?
rjohnk 13y ago
Every year the same article. No one is forced to work at a temp agency or retail. If it sucks so much, find a different job. Yes, yes, I know, it's not that easy. But it actually is.
- quadrangle 13y ago
  HAHAHAHA. Laugh rather than cry, right? This is simple economics: there's a certain population of people, a certain amount of basic wealth and resources. If an individual figures out how to get a good job and not temp or warehouse work, all they've done is figure out how to be the one who gets that other job. Yes, the overall system can be flexible, but it is IMPOSSIBLE for every warehouse worker to all get good jobs at once. This is a social problem, not an individual problem.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  But it actually is. Hell yeah. Get off your lazy ass, and go spend tens of thousands of dollars getting an education that makes you employable (just put aside for the moment the fact that your years of compulsory education left you good for nothing better than packing boxes). It's that easy, everyone. Economy down? Well maybe you should invest massively in industry and spark a boom so there are more jobs. If you aren't doing that, you're just not trying.
  - abduhl 13y ago
    Why don't they just move into the tech industry, an industry filled with those that proclaim the worthlessness of a degree and a low barrier to entry? Or are they not fit for tech? Is there something that sets them apart and makes them lesser than your typical dot commer?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- tashi 13y ago
  I'm one of the people who would say it's not that easy, and I'm a little confused by using "but it actually is" as an apparent counterargument. Could you please elaborate?
obsession 13y ago
This is so horrifying to read. Is there anything we can do to help?
- meritt 13y ago
  Amazon acquired Kiva Systems to employ robots [1] to replace people for these various tasks. Although taking away a viable source of income for low-income earners during the holiday season probably isn't viewed as "help" by most of them. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs
knowitall 13y ago
Perhaps Amazon could add a checkbox to the shopping cart: [] pay 10% more that will go directly into the pockets of the packers. I wouldn't even mind a picture gallery of everybody who handled my package.
- ars_technician 13y ago
  Laying on guilt like that in the checkout process really turns some people off though.
- RodericDay 13y ago
  wow
- quadrangle 13y ago
  If some business did this and it was reliable, I guess we'd need third-party certification that this was real… As someone else mentioned, the real solution is a Basic Income Guarantee. Otherwise, these ideas start becoming bizarro bureaucratic regulatory wasteful things, even though it sounds nice.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  They already have this: http://smile.amazon.com/ http://smile.amazon.com/
  - username223 13y ago
    What the fuck does that have to do with paying the people who pack my orders? 1/200 of what I spend on "eligible purchases" (whatever those are) goes to some other organization.
- SilasX 13y ago
  Unfortunately, the theory of tax/cost incidence shows what can go wrong with this: since it results in above-market effective wages, that simply intensifies the competition for those positions, probably to the point that workers will offer to do them for less than the current wage Amazon is paying, since they know they'll still make the same from such donations. Here's a discussion that covered the question in the context of allowing people to tip McDonald's cashiers directly, but the same analysis applies: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_1.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_... "Who benefits" is determined by the shape of the supply/demand curves, not who is being handed the dollars.
powertower 13y ago
If you think Capitalism is bad, just try Socialism. Instead of making X amount of people miserable, it makes almost everyone miserable. The world is not perfect, there is no utopia, and whatever you might think, Capitalism is about as good of product/market fit (human-nature/society-type fit) as you can get in a world that's not based on small hunter/gatherer groups. It's also keeps us in a state of competition, which is the driving force for innovation and progress like nothing else is. But don't believe me, just check how all the previous Marxsist and Socialist societies in history turned out.
- mcv 13y ago
  The balance is of course somewhere in the middle. The good parts of capitalism with the good parts of socialism. You get a much nicer society than with either one t the extreme.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    How do you get just the good parts of X (for any X), without the bad parts? In most cases, you just get X as a package.
    - mcv 13y ago
      Sometimes, but not in this case. Plenty of northern European countries (Sweden is a popular example) mix the good bits of capitalism and socialism just fine, while avoiding the worst excesses. It's not perfect, but they're certainly on a much more productive path than either socialist or capitalist extremists.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
yetanotherphd 13y ago
I don't see a big issue here. It's not the fault of the industry that certain kinds of labor are cheap. In fact it's nobody's fault, it's just the nature of the market. The only kinds of response to this situation that make sense are to increase welfare (and reduce the barriers/conditions to obtaining it) and decrease taxes for people on low incomes. Anything else misses the essence of the problem, which is that a large number of people, for whatever reasons, do not produce enough value to earn a decent wage. Enforcing various laws might help too, but given that all manual work is by nature dangerous, it's not clear that this industry is especially bad.
RestlessMind 13y ago
I guess this is how seeds of a revolution are sown. I know that no system is perfect. And that capitalism* is better than many others which have been tried so far. But if enough people are frustrated with the given system, all it needs is a trigger to vent out that frustration. * I guess main problem with capitalism is inheritance. When everyone is on equal footing, a "loser" may not mind the "winner" getting rich either through hard work, or even through occasional luck. But after 3-4 generations, when children of rich parents have inherent advantages (education, connections etc) which are extremely hard to overcome, this system starts becoming unstable.
iamn 13y ago
This whole schpiel just made me keep thinking: "I wonder how these people will feel when robots replace them in these kinds of jobs"...
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Something along the lines of, "Who do we lynch first? The robotics? Or the owner?"

84 points by sir_kitty 13y ago

This is easier to read: http://www.thenation.com/article/177377/holiday-crush?page=full http://www.thenation.com/article/177377/holiday-crush?page=f...

sir_kitty 13y ago
oh most definitely - thanks!

rayiner 13y ago

> After waiting twenty minutes, we are ushered into a room upstairs. A woman from the agency hands each of us a time sheet. For the sign-in, she tells us to write 8:30. “I know you were told to be here at 8:15,” she says, anticipating a protest that never comes, “but that was just to make sure you got here early.” And, like that, fifteen minutes are lopped from our paycheck. It’s a small but important lesson in what it means to be a “flexible” worker. > But there are significant challenges to organizing the industry. “Because of the temp nature of work, it’s very easy for a worker who speaks out to be retaliated against,” says Palma. “They might not be called back to work the following day, or have their hours decreased.” That’s exactly what happened to Rodriguez, according to the WWU. After he spoke to the media and participated in strikes over unsafe workplace conditions—leading Cal/OSHA to fine the warehouse nearly $30,000—he was fired earlier this year. Federal charges have been filed against the company, alleging retaliation, and an investigation is under way. I'm not a fan of labor unions, but I'm not sure what else can be done about this sort of thing. Litigation can only tackle small parts of the problem, and class action settlements leave the lawyers as the only winners. Fines are never high enough to disincentivize the activity. There's a high chance of not getting caught, and even when you do get caught the fine is barely higher than the cost of complying in the first place. Maybe a punishment of public floggings for executives at companies who violate labor laws?[1] [1] There's a lot of Singapore worship among certain circles, so they shouldn't mind adopting some of their customs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore.

kefka 13y ago
Unfortunately, the power is in the hands of the temp workers.... if they all stick together. If they all collectively demanded better working conditions and better pay, they could succeed. After all, the work won't get done if they don't do it. Management certainly isn't going to dirty their hands in this kind of job. And after all what we see, it really is have-nots (proletariat) versus the haves(capitalists/managers).
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  Or be replaced by robots. All I could think of reading that is why they haven't figured out how to fold and tape a cardboard box with a robot yet. They should get on that, and then those people won't have to be subjected to those conditions anymore.
  - lcc 13y ago
    And then those people won't have jobs anymore.
    - nsxwolf 13y ago
      Unemployed, but more importantly, unexploited.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        They're going to be replaced by robots either way. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated decently in the meantime.
        nsxwolf 13y ago
        So we can give them a living wage, which will accelerate the development of a robotic replacement, so that they can earn a bit more in the meantime, before their inevitable unemployment?

rjohnk 13y ago

Every year the same article. No one is forced to work at a temp agency or retail. If it sucks so much, find a different job. Yes, yes, I know, it's not that easy. But it actually is.

quadrangle 13y ago
HAHAHAHA. Laugh rather than cry, right? This is simple economics: there's a certain population of people, a certain amount of basic wealth and resources. If an individual figures out how to get a good job and not temp or warehouse work, all they've done is figure out how to be the one who gets that other job. Yes, the overall system can be flexible, but it is IMPOSSIBLE for every warehouse worker to all get good jobs at once. This is a social problem, not an individual problem.
EliRivers 13y ago
But it actually is. Hell yeah. Get off your lazy ass, and go spend tens of thousands of dollars getting an education that makes you employable (just put aside for the moment the fact that your years of compulsory education left you good for nothing better than packing boxes). It's that easy, everyone. Economy down? Well maybe you should invest massively in industry and spark a boom so there are more jobs. If you aren't doing that, you're just not trying.
- abduhl 13y ago
  Why don't they just move into the tech industry, an industry filled with those that proclaim the worthlessness of a degree and a low barrier to entry? Or are they not fit for tech? Is there something that sets them apart and makes them lesser than your typical dot commer?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
tashi 13y ago
I'm one of the people who would say it's not that easy, and I'm a little confused by using "but it actually is" as an apparent counterargument. Could you please elaborate?

obsession 13y ago

This is so horrifying to read. Is there anything we can do to help?

meritt 13y ago
Amazon acquired Kiva Systems to employ robots [1] to replace people for these various tasks. Although taking away a viable source of income for low-income earners during the holiday season probably isn't viewed as "help" by most of them. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs

knowitall 13y ago

Perhaps Amazon could add a checkbox to the shopping cart: [] pay 10% more that will go directly into the pockets of the packers. I wouldn't even mind a picture gallery of everybody who handled my package.

ars_technician 13y ago
Laying on guilt like that in the checkout process really turns some people off though.
RodericDay 13y ago
wow
quadrangle 13y ago
If some business did this and it was reliable, I guess we'd need third-party certification that this was real… As someone else mentioned, the real solution is a Basic Income Guarantee. Otherwise, these ideas start becoming bizarro bureaucratic regulatory wasteful things, even though it sounds nice.
w1ntermute 13y ago
They already have this: http://smile.amazon.com/ http://smile.amazon.com/
- username223 13y ago
  What the fuck does that have to do with paying the people who pack my orders? 1/200 of what I spend on "eligible purchases" (whatever those are) goes to some other organization.
SilasX 13y ago
Unfortunately, the theory of tax/cost incidence shows what can go wrong with this: since it results in above-market effective wages, that simply intensifies the competition for those positions, probably to the point that workers will offer to do them for less than the current wage Amazon is paying, since they know they'll still make the same from such donations. Here's a discussion that covered the question in the context of allowing people to tip McDonald's cashiers directly, but the same analysis applies: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_1.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_... "Who benefits" is determined by the shape of the supply/demand curves, not who is being handed the dollars.

powertower 13y ago

If you think Capitalism is bad, just try Socialism. Instead of making X amount of people miserable, it makes almost everyone miserable. The world is not perfect, there is no utopia, and whatever you might think, Capitalism is about as good of product/market fit (human-nature/society-type fit) as you can get in a world that's not based on small hunter/gatherer groups. It's also keeps us in a state of competition, which is the driving force for innovation and progress like nothing else is. But don't believe me, just check how all the previous Marxsist and Socialist societies in history turned out.

mcv 13y ago
The balance is of course somewhere in the middle. The good parts of capitalism with the good parts of socialism. You get a much nicer society than with either one t the extreme.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  How do you get just the good parts of X (for any X), without the bad parts? In most cases, you just get X as a package.
  - mcv 13y ago
    Sometimes, but not in this case. Plenty of northern European countries (Sweden is a popular example) mix the good bits of capitalism and socialism just fine, while avoiding the worst excesses. It's not perfect, but they're certainly on a much more productive path than either socialist or capitalist extremists.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

yetanotherphd 13y ago

I don't see a big issue here. It's not the fault of the industry that certain kinds of labor are cheap. In fact it's nobody's fault, it's just the nature of the market. The only kinds of response to this situation that make sense are to increase welfare (and reduce the barriers/conditions to obtaining it) and decrease taxes for people on low incomes. Anything else misses the essence of the problem, which is that a large number of people, for whatever reasons, do not produce enough value to earn a decent wage. Enforcing various laws might help too, but given that all manual work is by nature dangerous, it's not clear that this industry is especially bad.

RestlessMind 13y ago

I guess this is how seeds of a revolution are sown. I know that no system is perfect. And that capitalism* is better than many others which have been tried so far. But if enough people are frustrated with the given system, all it needs is a trigger to vent out that frustration. * I guess main problem with capitalism is inheritance. When everyone is on equal footing, a "loser" may not mind the "winner" getting rich either through hard work, or even through occasional luck. But after 3-4 generations, when children of rich parents have inherent advantages (education, connections etc) which are extremely hard to overcome, this system starts becoming unstable.

iamn 13y ago

This whole schpiel just made me keep thinking: "I wonder how these people will feel when robots replace them in these kinds of jobs"...

toomuchtodo 13y ago
Something along the lines of, "Who do we lynch first? The robotics? Or the owner?"