
The Workers Who Bring You Black Friday - sir_kitty
http://www.thenation.com/article/177377/holiday-crush?page=full
======
rayiner
> 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
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
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.

~~~
eplanit
Agreed. The automobile manufacturers were very successful in improving quality
and efficiency via robotics, and were also encouraged to do so by enormous
drags from labor unions. Warehouses have also increased automation, but
clearly they can improve more. Beyond the warehouse, I'm eager to see their
deployment in retail stores and fast-food. Consumers will benefit from
efficiencies, and the unhappy workers will be free to find jobs more to their
liking.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Keep in mind, a negative income tax/minimum basic income plan only has
problems passing until a majority of the population can't find work. History
has taught us the results of "Let them eat cake".

------
yetanotherphd
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.

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

~~~
sir_kitty
oh most definitely - thanks!

------
rjohnk
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.

~~~
EliRivers
_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
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?

------
RestlessMind
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.

------
powertower
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
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
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
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.

------
iamn
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
Something along the lines of, "Who do we lynch first? The robotics? Or the
owner?"

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

~~~
meritt
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
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.

~~~
SilasX
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_...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/08/what_if_tipping_1.html)

"Who benefits" is determined by the shape of the supply/demand curves, not who
is being handed the dollars.

~~~
yetanotherphd
Nice point. Even if the money did get to the workers, I don't see why most
people would really want to do this, since is equivalent to donating $10 to
people who happen to be working that particular job. Wouldn't most people
rather donate that money to a charity, whose recipients are presumable more
needy than people who at least have jobs.

