
Amazon employees plan ‘online walkout’ to protest treatment of warehouse workers - claudeganon
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/amazon-employees-plan-online-walkout-over-firings-work-conditions.html
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NegativeLatency
The treatment of warehouse workers and of people with different non office
jobs is a strong reason why I will never work at a place like Amazon or
Walmart.

Glad to see some people sticking up for each other in these times especially.

~~~
txcwpalpha
Amazon warehouse workers get $17/hr starting wage (and a full 2x ($34/hr!!)
overtime), with no experience/education needed and almost no barrier to
getting the job (except physical capability to lift a box), as well as the
best health insurance I've ever heard of entry-level manual laborers getting,
as well as education budgets to be used on any higher level education they
want.

Obviously warehouse work isn't glamorous and they are under a lot of pressure
and there's nothing wrong with increased scrutiny on how they are treated, but
it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are
treated like slaves.

~~~
deeblering4
Their workers are treated like robots, not slaves.

And the "good wages for low qualifications" argument is equally exhausting.
Money shouldn't be some universal justification for overlooking poor workplace
conditions and unethical treatment of human beings.

~~~
txcwpalpha
I never said that good wages is justification for anything. Please don't put
words in my mouth.

I do a lot of work with AWS, and I care where my money goes, so I spend a lot
of time researching this whenever an article accusing Amazon comes up. I have
not seen anything outside a few edge cases that qualifies as "unethical
treatment". This is exactly what I'm referring to in my original comment. A
story about an FC worker peeing in a bottle doesn't mean they're being treated
unethically. I've seen stories about Google SWEs peeing in bottles and
sleeping under their desk because they were under a tight deadline, and yet I
don't see people boycotting Google over their treatment of SWEs
(coincidentally, one of the ways I do see people justifying these tight
deadlines for SWEs is that they make lots of money, so it seems at least some
people _do_ think that good wages is justification for tough working
conditions).

If you want a better manual labor comparison, oilfield workers work in
grueling conditions, are forced to sleep in tiny bunks, and sometimes come out
of the job with a missing limb, but I don't see posts on HN every day about
how we should boycott oil companies over their treatment of workers (and
again, lot's of people justify the grueling conditions of oilfield workers by
pointing out they make a lot of money, so...).

I only have a certain amount of processing power in my brain and can only be
outraged at so many things at any given time. If Amazon workers truly were
being treated terribly, I would care. But a handful of workers (out of nearly
1 million) saying that they got stressed out at work because their boss asked
them to work faster just doesn't make the cut for me. Could it be better?
Sure, and with my nearly-unlimited supply of online social media slacktivism,
I'll advocate for things to be better. But in the real world where resources
aren't unlimited, there are _many_ companies that I'll boycott over working
conditions before Amazon.

~~~
colechristensen
It is intense, hard labor with a lot of performance pressure squeezed out of
people who are the most desperate for work.

When it comes down to it nobody can put the pressure on a software engineer to
do that kind of every second counts work which forces people to go beyond
their limits and ruin their bodies because they need to put food on the table
and have few other options.

~~~
kryogen1c
> the most desperate for work

> they need to put food on the table and have few other options.

how does that make any sense? how are people being taken advantage of when
they "have few other options", are "desperate for work", and "need to put food
on the table"? amazon should pay less and make the job easier? then theyd just
be another of the bad options.

so, your argument is amazon simply has an obligation to pay workers more
(after theyre already a good option) because... why?

~~~
colechristensen
When people don't have options, they find themselves forced to choose between
terrible working conditions and not being able to afford to eat.

When your workforce consists of people taking the only job they can find, you
worsen working conditions until just above where people would rather starve
than work for you.

The issue isn't pay, it's employment practices and on-the-job pressures. There
are very believable stories out there of the working conditions.

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tareqak
> Previously, Costa said Amazon attempted to intervene in the group’s efforts
> to organize the panel by deleting invitations sent to other workers
> internally, which the group claims were accepted by more than 1,500
> employees.

It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the
full right to control what happens on their resources.

At the same time, I find that deleting the an email after it has been sent by
the sender unknown to the sender to be a kind of gaslighting, and dystopian.
Having a policy to not organize using work resources might be harsh, but at
least it is more transparent as in the proverbial line is drawn in the
proverbial sand.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I would guess that Costa means the invitations had an associated calendar
entry and they deleted the calendar entry. Deleting emails would definitely be
pretty creepy, but I don't know if I've ever heard of that happening.

~~~
eximius
It'd be pretty hard to prove or even notice. It's probably happened, the
corporate world is too big, but it may not be common.

~~~
decebalus1
I witnessed instances in which IT was mandated to delete emails from the
server in order to stop a certain piece of information (salary info sent
accidentally to a large distribution list). It did not go well, of course,
because of POP3. It was pretty hilarious actually seeing people forwarding the
email repeatedly. But with a calendar entry, it's a different story as it's
centralized.

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Aaronstotle
While I'm glad that Amazon corporate employees are doing something to show
solidarity, this seems more like a feel good activity for the corporate
employees.

This is similar to the Google walkout, what difference does it make if you
leave work for one day, when everyone knows you're going to be at work the
following day?

If you do work at one of these companies, I would love to hear from you, I
don't mean to be snarky/rude, but I sincerely don't see how walking out is
helpful to anyone.

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jader201
I’ve been monitoring Amazon’s stocks through this whole crisis, and how
they’re going through the roof while almost all others are taking huge losses.

I can’t help but wonder if it will someday implode from the terrible,
unsustainable conditions their workers seem to be facing — even prior to the
pandemic, but exacerbated by it — and Amazon’s complete dismissal of it.

And this isn’t even including the increasingly poor state of consumer trust in
reviews, third party resellers, counterfeit products, and the myriad of ways
resellers can game the system. All of which Amazon also seems to continue to
dismiss as if it’s immune to the long-term impacts.

~~~
kaesar14
As long as people continue to move their shopping online, I'm convinced no
maltreatment of employees considered to be "working class" will stop people
from making their purchases, especially with the convenience and price.

Amazing considering the backlash against Uber for sexual harassment of female
upper-middle to upper class white collar workers. Almost destroyed the company
in the US. But the persistent abuse of thousands of working people - NOTHING!

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hn_user_77
People are acting like these are coal mine workers. After reading about their
high starting wage and decent benefits, it's hard to make an argument that
they are mistreated.

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supernova87a
I wish them good luck with that, when there's 15% unemployment.

~~~
op00to
How long do you think it would take for Amazon to make 1500 new engineers
productive during a pandemic? Amazon's not gonna fire anyone if they aren't
forced to for money reasons.

~~~
advisedwang
Sadly they already have: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21220353/amazon-
covid-19-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21220353/amazon-
covid-19-criticism-protest-fired-employees-cunningham-costa-climate-change)

I agree that the pandemic cuts both ways though!

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tinyhouse
The headline talks about protest treatment of warehouse workers but the actual
article talks also about other things like climate criss. I'm a bit surprised
since Bezos' annual letter that was published yesterday was heavily focused on
these things.

~~~
throwawaysea
These types of activists try to tie all these issues together using a lot of
mental gymnastics, to try and build a coalition or to leverage the motivation
behind one cause (like climate) to support another cause (like unionization).
It's illogical, but it is a strategy commonly used because it is effective,
even if disingenuous.

~~~
tick_tock_tick
I disagree that it works. Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter are two
movements that lost most of their power and presence due to muddling their
core message.

~~~
keanzu
Intersectionality is a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of
one's social and political identities (gender, race, class, sexuality,
ability, etc.) might combine to create unique modes of discrimination. It aims
to broaden the agenda of the first waves of feminism, which largely focused on
the experiences of white, middle-class women.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality)

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TomMckenny
As an important aside, I'm sure everyone has noticed that grocery store clerks
aren't allowed to wear masks in practice. I'm sure everyone has noticed quite
a few other jobs where this is so. It seems endangering the lives of certain
kinds of workers is nearly universal. Not to excuse them but I imagine Amazon
has a lot of company in this[1]. I am very glad at least Amazon employeesare
doing something about it.

[1][https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-worker-
at...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-worker-at-safeway-
distribution-center-in-tracy-dies-of-covid-19-complications/)

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jb775
It's about time for unions to make a comeback.

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Ratiofarmings
It's nice that they thank their "essential workers" now.

Meanwhile all the essential workers are like. Cool. Where is the money though.
A "thanks" gives you a warm feeling, but doesn't pay the bills.

