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Comment by i_cant_speel | Hacker News Reader

That's why any company treats any of their employees well. Google isn't giving their employees all these perks out of the goodness of their heart. They give them to attract the best talent to make the most money. Amazon is doing the same thing.

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that's the whole point of the job market. The dysfunction displayed by Amazon is evidence of a supply/demand imbalance in the job market for warehousing roles, because if people have an option to move to another company that does not treat them badly they generally will do. As it stands I'm guessing the ratio of Amazon applicants to positions is way too high meaning they can afford a high turnover rate and focus solely on increasing profit per head by squeezing their people for productivity and cutting costs spent on benefits. It's basically the same as those call centers that employ and mistreat students.

I worked in a call center and I used to always wonder why they'd accept such extreme turnover, given that there were a few weeks of training before they could put you on (the fact that there was a course in touch-typing as part of that training probably gives you an idea where the bar was for hiring). But I'd read some analysis that suggested that in some ways the employers running these systems found that desirable, because it was hard to unionize a workplace where people didn't stick around for a whole year on average.

You have to imagine that the quality of service people are providing isn't that high either if they're miserable. I think about peoples' quality of life in a call center whenever I'm stuck on hold with Verizon or some other faceless corporation.

People pretty regularly just told customers whatever they wanted to hear to get them off the phone. The more scrupulous among us wouldn't say anything false or break any rules but would deliberately upset customers to get them to ask for a supervisor (call length was a major metric which affected your pay substantially, so if you couldn't really do anything for them this was the best strategy).

"when a measure becomes a target" and all that.

> because it was hard to unionize a workplace where people didn't stick around for a whole year on average.

That's why you want inter-professional union.

How would that end up working? I think few people think of themselves as "call center professionals" because they end up in some other job, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your suggestion.

Typically every professions from every sectors (employees, medical, farmer, etc.) end up into a given category (social workers, railroad workers, etc.). Unions then use the memberships of all the employees across different companies and sectors as a leverage to negotiate better working conditions or retirement on behalf of their affiliates. So when/if is a strike is called for for a particular problem at company X or in sector Y they get the full force of every affiliates behind the union (edit: they can also dispatch strikers from company X at company Y location so workers from company Y aren't directly threatened or put into uncomfortable situations for instance, and massive street demonstration can rally many workers from many different companies/sectors).

Of course that system has been built over decades and the way it operates and negotiations are handled can vastly differ between neighboring countries (think France which is more confrontational at first and Germany where unions are more integrated into the process) (plus, unions have different political outlooks, so it's not one size fits all).

In countries with a strong social net unions use their affiliate's entrance fees to guarantee they are paid for striked days. Also some countries have laws that forbid employers to punish strikers (granted they announce in time they are going on a strike). Some sectors (medical, police, etc.) have some restrictions on that "right to strike".

That's just a really short resume, though and I don't know if such a thing could be possible in the USA.

it makes sense, because unionisation will decrease the company's competitiveness, leading to their clients shifting to another (non-unionised) call centre and everyone getting fired. Thus companies in sectors like this end up trying to squeeze every drop out of their employees before they quit, because they are expendable.

We were directly employed by the company for whom we were providing service rather than being a third-party call center.

even in that case, companies are aware of the cost-increasing effect of unionisation so the action is the same, but via direct company action rather than market attrition.

As Amazon is in the retail shipping business, essentially, their market is also seasonal and accustom to hiring and firing. It's seen as a bit more of a stain on a software company's reputation to have high turnover in software engineers; much less so in warehouse workers, where the whole infrastructure is designed to staff up for the December holiday rush and then let most of those people go.

does google employ or contract-out many lower-paid employees?

If they do, I'd imagine it would be for the things that are necessary for what they want to provide but aren't necessary for what they want to do.

They want a nice, clean work environment for their employees. So you need janitors.

Want to provide catered lunch? You need food service workers.

And the bar for "good enough" at those levels are much lower. You don't need a 5-star lunch every day. You need a decent lunch that's better than going out. And things can only get so clean.

I'm not sure but I don't see the relevance of that. I was simply pointing out that the incentives for both companies are the same, so Amazon shouldn't be bashed for this in particular.

Yes. All of their warehouse workers are employees of Integrity Staffing, not Amazon. Presumably Amazon is directing Integrity to bump up its wage.

That's a huge claim, which you shouldn't make without support. (I tried a quick search and found nothing to support "all".)

Also, the parent's question was about Google.

This is simply 100% false. What do you think the 500,000 employees of Amazon are doing if not working in a warehouse? They're not programming.

The press lumps Integrity's headcount as "Amazon". It is to Amazon's benefit that this falsehood goes unnoticed.

Go look at the last quarterly filing.

https://ir.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...

Employees (full-time and part-time; excludes contractors & temporary personnel): 575,700

As dang said, if you're going to make a big claim, at least attempt to be right.

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