Surely if its terrible and no one will work there they will have to improve or pay more? Or am i misunderstanding basic economics?
In the media fantasy:
1. Amazon workers are so desperate for jobs they have no choice but to work for Amazon under prison-like conditions.
2. Amazon warehouse jobs are targeted at "left behind" workers who have no other options.
3. Amazon doesn't pay a living wage. Bezos' luxurious lifestyle is subsidized by taxpayer dollars.
In the real world:
1. US unemployment is so low right now that even employers of unskilled labor are looking at severe shortages. See the severe labor shortage in retail but also the real wage pressure across the board.
2. Amazon warehouse jobs are highly sought after. Amazon is unusually generous towards its warehouse associates offering them full benefits including healthcare, retirement, and even equity. Many investors really, really want Amazon to offer benefits comparable to their warehouse competitors (ie no benefits) but Bezos refuses to cut benefits for his unskilled employees every year.
3. America's minimum wage is criminally low but even still Amazon pays well above the minimum wage.
All of this obvious to anybody who does even a tiny bit of research [1] but it's not obvious to people who want to be deceived and so they buy into this baseless narrative.
Again, this is not about Amazon, or even about workers, this is about a media-political complex in which there is zero accountability. Like most things, from Iraq to China to basic scientific theories like climate change, you'll have to learn to separate the American media-political narrative (which is a fantasy that exists only to justify extreme inequality and the mass-murder of foreign brown people) from the actual facts in the real world.
[1] https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2017/08/08/amazon-benefit...
I've hear several conflicting reports on this - enough to understand that there is some variation and Amazon doesn't treat all workers the same way. That's why when one person reports inhuman behavior and another calls it bullshit, they're both right.
Yeah never understood that one either if i'm honest.
It's pretty depressing to see the same lack of empathy and critical thinking on hn.
No.
Abusers create an environment of fear where abused believe they have no choices. They separate people from their friends so they think no one cares about them. They convince their victim that no one else will want them.
They create an artificial sense that there is no way out. It’s absolutely not the case that abused people are abused because they have no other option.
Promoting the idea these people have no choices plays right into the abusers plans.
If Amazon is offering the very best jobs available to those workers, and Amazon actually complies with all laws and regulations, then I fail to see how is Amazon responsible for the worker's problems. It seems to me that the problem lies elsewhere, like how a regional economy managed to get so depressed to the point that no alternative job is available.
If the only job that's availanle to you is working in a sweatshop, does shutting the sweatshop down fixes anything?
Your mistake was assuming that this is something that could be understood solely with "basic economics."
"Basic economics" is a horribly limited intellectual tool-set that will mislead you if you rely on it too heavily.