7 ms·
"The Amazon system is characterized by low wages, permanent performance pressure and short-term contracts" - one of the union board members For me, this senten
by functional_test 13y ago
"The Amazon system is characterized by low wages, permanent performance pressure and short-term contracts" - one of the union board members
For me, this sentence captured the entire article. Of course the wages are low-- the jobs require no skills and have been largely automated by Kiva et al.
It's hard to argue that performance pressure is a bad thing -- logistics is an industry where performance matters. And again, the competition is robots.
Complaining that contracts are short term does have some legitimacy. That said, it's clearly a seasonal business; do the unions honestly expect them to hire people year round when they just aren't needed?
I really want to be on the side of the people, but I'm afraid that asking for more money/longer contracts/etc. is just a way to make the automation even more compelling.
- kubiiii 13y agoIt would clearly be more human to automatize a task that is characterized by low wages, permanent performance pressure and short term contracts. A few years ago while discussing with a cashier about the automated cash registers they had just installed: -Dont you fear losing your job? -You call that a job? -...
- cantbecool 13y agoThat type of work is demoralizing to one's soul. I couldn't imagine having to do that as a 9-5. However, I'm going to guess within a decade or so there will have to be a 3-4 day work week instituted as the norm, since there simply won't be enough jobs for people to support themselves with.
- kubiiii 13y agoEither this or bullshit jobs.
- jeena 13y ago"In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week." ... http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
- Pxtl 13y agoKeynes was half-right. We have the capability to operate on a 15-hour work-week while maintaining a 1930ish standard of living. We just choose not to.
- redblacktree 13y agoOr maybe we'll give a Basic Income Guarantee a more serious look, when > 50% of the population is unemployed and they take to the streets.
- Pxtl 13y agoMandating a 30-hour-limit on the work-week with firm controls on overtime would get a lot of people back into the workforce and would give a lot of people some work-life balance back. But it would also be politically unpalateable to the conservative/libertarian wings of just about every country.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Uchikoma 13y agoThe alternative is Basic Income. But yes, countries need to decide how distribute work in the future (automatic cars will destroy a lot of low level jobs, taxies, logistics, ...)
- philwelch 13y agoThat's not really how it could possibly work because labor isn't fungible. You think that instead of having some engineers working 50 hour weeks and some warehouse workers working 0 hour weeks you'd convert the warehouse workers to engineers and have everyone work 25 hour weeks? If they could have become engineers they would have already done so.
- dmoo 13y agoI wonder as more and more jobs are replaced where the people are going to come from who can afford the shiny things in the Amazon warehouse?
- BitMastro 13y agoAlso, choosing a critical period like just before Xmas has the effect of making the protest look like ransom
- randallsquared 13y agoMaybe that's the only time they have leverage.
- dmoo 13y agoHow else would they make Amazon care?
- vkou 13y agoWhereas "Accept our terms of employment or starve," isn't?
- aggronn 13y agoYou're implying that Amazon has a de facto monopoly on available jobs.
- vkou 13y agoThe parent comment implied that their workers have a de facto monopoly on filling boxes. Which is indeed the case in the short term. However, quitting your job means not making your rent payment for a quarter of America, so the analogy still holds. Management bargains collectively - why can't their employees do likewise?
- philwelch 13y agoManagement bargains collectively? I don't think so. That would be considered anti-competitive, like when Apple and Google had a no-poaching agreement.
- vkou 13y agoPerhaps I misused the word 'collectively' - but notice that this is a strike by Amazon workers in Germany, as opposed to all warehouse workers in Germany. Inside the company, management's position is highly collective. Owners expend significant resources to get the best possible deal on what they have to pay their employees - resources that are beyond the reach of an individual employee. For jobs like this, it imposes pay grades across the entire warehouse floor - as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. It only makes sense that employees should organize their own advocacy groups.
- krebby 13y agoautomation is going to happen regardless. Tactics like this are just buying time.
- Fede_V 13y agoAutomating these jobs is excellent, and I'm looking forward to it. I do wish that the benefits of automation would be shared more widely though - although the average poster on HN is paid very well, and has an intellectually challenging and satisfying job, what should people who weren't educated actually do?
- collyw 13y agoDo you assume most posters are from the States? I work in Spain. I would say I am paid comfortably for living, without enough to save comfortably for the future.
- Fede_V 13y agoI was generalizing, but I think it's safe to assume that average HN poster has higher than average income/education.
- krebby 13y agoAutomation is going to happen regardless. Tactics like this are just buying time.
- krebby 13y agoAutomation is going to happen regardless. Tactics like this are just buying time.
- krebby 13y agoAutomation is going to happen regardless. Tactics like this are just buying time.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoI'd even go as far as say that people are hired on a temp basis because Amazon's somewhere working on fully automating the picking job. I can see a setup where people are only needed to load the machines with products, where the machines are item dispensers of sorts that can contain a buffer of products.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Xdes 13y ago"The job terms don't really matter. If you hire a worker it should be full-time and at a living wage or your company is riding on the tax payers." - College age liberal
- MrBuddyCasino 13y agoIts not just that, the conditions are described as being "brutal". If you are interested: http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-... Better yet, if you can read german: http://www.monde-diplomatique.de/pm/2013/11/08/a0001.text http://www.monde-diplomatique.de/pm/2013/11/08/a0001.text
- DigitalJack 13y agoI agree with what you say, but whAt if amazon treated employees as customers instead of servants? Maybe the pay wouldn't be better, but the could listen to employe grievances better. Do they go out of there way to foster relationships among employees? Encourage out of work get togethers like Friday happy hour, light team sports? Groups to visit the local zoo or Japanese Gardens, group outings to a new movie, organize a hobbit marathon, a real marathon or maybe just a 5k? Groups for board game enthusiasts? Clans on WoW? The work may be mndane and shitty, but slogging through with friends makes it a million times better.
- Roritharr 13y agoI guess this is my first personal comment on hn, but boy are you out of touch with the world. This is low to minimum wage work. The employee benefits are that you are employed. Your work is a commodity and they make you feel it and they have all the reasons in the world to make you feel grateful for having that job... Group Visits? On whose time? The employer won't pay for the time, since he is trying to get the work done as cheap as possible and the employee won't want to use his private time for it, for the obvious reason of having so little of it... Get out there and work for 6€/hour before you go about imagining how things could be improved for people in these jobs.
- DigitalJack 13y agoI can only assume you misread my post.
- roel_v 13y ago"Do they go out of there way to foster relationships among employees? Encourage out of work get togethers like Friday happy hour, light team sports? Groups to visit the local zoo or Japanese Gardens, group outings to a new movie, organize a hobbit marathon, a real marathon or maybe just a 5k? Groups for board game enthusiasts? Clans on WoW?" I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic here? It seems like you're saying it's OK to pay people low wages and per-week contracts as long as you have a company WoW guild? (I'm quite opposed to unions in general and I'm not on the 'Amazon is evil' bandwagon, but you comments doesn't make much sense to me).
- revdinosaur 13y agoSuggesting that future developments will make these jobs obsolete is a weak argument against improving their conditions today. Also, if improving the quality of life for their human employees rapidly advances automation developments then why hold back progress in two places?