
Amazon warehouse workers are walking out and Whole Foods workers are striking - pseudolus
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/30/amazon-warehouse-whole-foods-workers-strike/
======
habosa
Tells you a lot about why "the market" won't always give you the outcome
you're looking for. People value delivery more than ever right now. It's
literally saving lives. However that value does not result in the people
taking risk to provide the delivery getting any more money.

As others have mentioned these workers have so little leverage right now
because of the massive unemployment. So even if Amazon was to charge customers
more, they could totally just pocket the money and the
warehouse/delivery/grocery people would have no position.

It's so completely unfair. Everyone risking their lives to feed us right now
should probably be making 2-3x normal pay (and we should be paying a lot more
for their services).

~~~
jumpman500
I think what you're asking is more unfair.

Amazon should do what's good for the most amount of people which is keeping
prices down. There are plenty of people willing to take these jobs, we have
record unemployment. Raising wage 2-3x the normal pay is unfair given how many
people would take these jobs today.

I think it's way to easy for us with nice paying jobs, and secure employment
to say that we'd pay more for goods and services. There are so many unemployed
people that aren't going to be doing good in a month. These people will want
any job and will need cheap goods.

If we're going to do some sort of hero compensation for all of our essential
works, which I'm in favor of, it should be through the government. Private
sector should continue to be fair and act rationally.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Amazon should do what's good for the most amount of people which is keeping
prices down."_

Amazon could do this by reducing the amount of profit it pockets and giving
that share to its employees.

Jeff Bezos is the richest man on Earth. He can afford it.

In fact, I'd like to see Bezos risk his life commuting to work on unsafe
public transit, working in some of Amazon's warehouses where he'd be exposed
to other workers who might be sick, handling hundreds of potentially infected
packages, and doing deliveries... all this with crappy if any health insurance
and virtually no safety net.

There's been a long-standing argument that founders deservedly reap great
rewards because they are the ones in a company who shoulder the great majority
of the risk.

Now that's been shown to be an utter and complete lie by this epidemic, hasn't
it?

Bezos is sitting nice and safe in his mansion, pocketing billions while it's
the desperate people who work for him who risk their life for peanuts.

~~~
tdfx
> I'd like to see Bezos risk his life commuting to work on unsafe public
> transit, working in some of Amazon's warehouses where he'd be exposed to
> other workers who might be sick, handling hundreds of potentially infected
> packages, and doing deliveries... all this with crappy if any health
> insurance and virtually no safety net.

Amazon operates within an existing system, defined by government regulation,
and competes within that system exceedingly well. If you're upset with the
outcomes, blame the real culprit: utterly ineffective government policies.
Corporations are by definition not altruistic entities. They're not supposed
to be, and it's the job of government policy to tame the negative
possibilities of their profit-driven pursuits.

Why can't corporations seek profit and altruism at the same time? Because you
can model your business as a function that optimizes for profit, which is
easily quantifiable. I've never seen any way to optimize for altruism.

Say you wanted to optimize for altruism and profit: how would that work? Is 3x
wages really enough if employees still have shitty health insurance? Should
Amazon provide its own medical services in warehouses so they don't depend on
bad private insurance? How many doctors should they hire? Should they treat
non-workplace health issues? What if they find someone has cancer? You get
into fuzzy, grey territory very quickly with this line of thinking. Profit is
always a number and it's better when it's higher. How do you measure
altruistic behavior?

If you're upset with the outcomes, change the system that's incentivizing that
behavior. Don't penalize the players for succeeding. This is the role that
government is supposed to play.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" If you're upset with the outcomes, change the system that's incentivizing
that behavior. Don't penalize the players for succeeding. This is the role
that government is supposed to play."_

Great idea, except that the government has been effectively coopted by the
very corporate and wealthy interests they are tasked with regulating.

Government officials regularly come from high executive posts in industry, and
when they retire from government work are hired in to cushy, well-paid jobs at
the very corporations they had regulated and assigned government contracts to
while they were in office.

The "pro-business" faction has been busy deregulating as much as they can and
selling off government assets to private corporations. Anti-trust enforcement
has been a joke for decades. As we speak environmental regulations are being
rolled back with the excuse of making life easier for polluting corporations
in the wake of the cornavirus crisis. With the successful capture of the
Supreme and lower courts by conservatives we can expect to see even more
corporate and wealth dominance.

At this point in history I don't have much hope in the government reigning in
corporations or the wealthy. The trend towards ever more wealth concentration
and ever greater inequality in the US is crystal clear.

~~~
tdfx
> At this point in history I don't have much hope in the government reigning
> in corporations or the wealthy

I would agree with that. But I still think it's probably easier to fight that
fight than to try to shame corporations into achieving unquantifiable, often
mutually exclusive goals to everyone's satisfaction. I'm not hopeful
government will change any time soon, I just want to make sure we're directing
the resentment to the right place.

------
djohnston
The crisis has provided a lot of leverage for these workers, but large-scale
unemployment has also made replacing them easier than ever before. Will be
interesting to see what happens here.

~~~
oarsinsync
Lets hope "the right thing" and the companies start treating their employers
better.

Otherwise, the onus is on the rest of us to remember how these companies value
human life.

~~~
Kaiyou
No one cares that their products are made possible by literal slave labor.
Most people care so little, they aren't even aware which of their belongings
are made possible through slave labor. You really think anyone is really
concerned with how companies treat human life? Concerned enough to sacrifice
their own benefits instead of just parting with pretty words? I don't think
so.

~~~
op03
People care.

It's just that things break down in hyperefficient settings (factories,
warehouses etc) when unpredictable events hit them. These environments aren't
great at adapting quickly to things they haven't faced before.

Before anyone with decision making power or imagination, can be pulled in to
deal with some issue, (that no one has training or experience to handle on the
front lines), it's already all over social media and the news. That's just how
things work currently.

Give it a few days before reacting to whatevers on the net or on the news.

~~~
bluntfang
> People care.

They really don't. If people cared, Nike wouldn't use child slave labor.

~~~
oarsinsync
Some people can afford to care and don't.

Most people just can't afford to demonstrate they care. If you're part of an
exploited underclass, feeding your family has to be more important.

~~~
Kaiyou
That's just an excuse to shift responsibility. In a kill or be killed
situation, you could always choose to be killed instead of killing, you'd just
have to sacrifice your life. It's just that people don't actually care enough
to give up their life or any of their benefits.

It always comes down to the fact that people will not give up their own
benefits for someone else. If you want people to do something you have to
appeal to their self-interest, not their morality.

------
strict9
Right now public sentiment is highly favorable to the people left enabling
online shopping, groceries, and prescriptions.

Workers are easily replaceable at the moment, but companies should tread
carefully in treating workers as expendable.

In a time of crisis legislation, investigations, and executive orders have a
way of happening a little faster than normal.

------
npo9
What are the chances that these strikes can lead to a union? I imagine a
grocery store workers union could do a lot for the health of its workers now.

------
DrWumbo
This is a company that pays almost no Federal taxes, whose employees are
forced to seek aid from the Federal govt. The least they could do is offer
paid sick leave for those affected. Hardcore capitalism is doing as much harm
to the US during this crisis as the virus itself.

~~~
barry-cotter
> This is a company that pays almost no Federal taxes

Indeed, if you reinvest almost all your profits in the business instead of
taking them as earnings you pay very little in taxes. Taxing investment would
be a very stupid thing to do since it would discourage what makes society
richer in the long run.

~~~
matt_the_bass
If the issue was that simple ans black&white then bezos would not have his
fortune. Amazon has gamed the system.

~~~
derision
Do you think Bezos did not pay taxes on his earnings? His "fortune" is
majority equity in Amazon, not cash sitting in a bank account. Any income he
received was taxed

~~~
lonelappde
He paid a very small rate of long capital gains for everything he didn't
funnel through a tax shelter.

------
gutnor
There is a "Fight club" feel to this crisis. All the "key worker", necessary
job that need to be done regardless the catastrophe society is facing are
literally the least desirable job on the market and often the least paid too.

Hopefully there is going to be wake up call in society. Surely a large scale
demonstration like this would convince people that your "free market
capitalistic assigned worth, i.e. your salary" is not a sufficient measure of
your value in society and external adjustment (eg: government regulation or
welfare or ...) is actually quite reasonable.

~~~
Kaiyou
Why would it be reasonable? If you're not willing to perform a job at the
current pay grade, just quit your job. Either you get replaced immediately or
you've got yourself a chip in your salary negotiation.

~~~
habosa
Switching jobs right now would cost you: a) Income you need to provide
yourself food and shelter in a time of insecurity. b) Healthcare loss during
one of the worst global health crises ever.

The switching cost is near infinite and not reflected in the pay.

------
ForHackernews
Good for them. I guess I won't hold my breath for AWS SREs to go on strike in
solidarity, but if there were ever a time it would be now.

Edit: No strike threat, but there's a petition here
[https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/amazon-must-protect-
work...](https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/amazon-must-protect-workers-and-
community-from-covid-19)

Better than nothing!

~~~
kiliantics
This is why we need a tech workers union

~~~
throwawaysea
So those whose views are different from union leadership can nevertheless be
compelled to lend weight to those views? No thanks.

~~~
kiliantics
It's called solidarity. You acknowledge that more vulnerable people can
benefit from your support, such as the fulfillment centre workers being
supported by the SREs in this case. But if you only care about yourself and
never worry that you might need support from others some day, then yes, I
suppose it's not really for you.

------
throwawaysea
Amazon has already increased both normal and overtime pay for these workers,
and instituted lots of reasonable changes in their stores and fulfillment
centers. See [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-
to...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to-help-
employees-communities-and-customers-affected-by-covid-19)

These strikes just seems opportunist. For those saying “workers should get
PPEs” - how? There’s a shortage and medical workers are a higher priority
since they’re more likely to be infected. And clearly, online shopping is
popular these days and important to keep operating while there are shelter in
place orders. Grocery stores are also important to keep operating.

These workers are free to forego their jobs and go home. Amazon should just
replace them and move on. There will be many others who are willing to work.

