Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disabilities
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com
We had a bunch of mentally disabled people on our team (think low IQ / down syndrome). These guys loved their job. They felt like they were doing cool shit all day. They cheered and smiled when the food truck would roll around 11AM and they'd spend what seemed like 1/2 their earnings on snacks and drinks. They smiled nearly every moment of that job.
Good for them and good for the plant manager understanding this reality and making a good for society out of a relatively bad situation (boring ass work, people having a disability few of us could handle).
It made me smile, and hopefully this will last for more than the 5min it takes to reach the comments about worker conditions and low-cost exploitation.
Of course, people of sufficiently low mental capability don't occur naturally at a high enough rate. So they have to help things along by disrupting fetal development for some people. That part seems morally questionable.
Great novel though, highly recommended.
I haven't replied to anybody specifically because I don't want to start a flame war, but I am genuinely interested.
Slightly off topic, but I had to start my own company because finding a job when you are quadriplegic is richly impossible. Granted, quadriplegics can make terrible employees in that it's difficult to say you will definitely be at a certain place at a certain time. But it just takes a little tweaking and a little flexitime to get around the obstacle for instance.
Edit: Also maybe you were getting low-balled because they actually hoped you'd take another offer.
I have high anxiety, less than perfect social skills and noise processing issues and I still spent five years teaching kindergarten. I dealt with the noise and the stress from starting a new job and then every year discovering exciting new things to stress out about as my responsibilities changed.
No one owes anyone a job and no one is owed a job. Very few people are going to hire anyone unless they think that they can make money by doing so, businesses aren’t charities. Minimum wages make hiring large numbers of people unprofitable so those people don’t get hired. The higher the minimum wage the greater that number will be. See France. The argument generalises to any cost, very much including what lawyers would call “reasonable accommodations”. If the government wants to ensure working people get paid a certain amount there’s no reason the income tax can’t go negative, subsidising lower paid, presumably low productivity workers, as with the US earned income tax credit. The same logic applies to accommodations. If employing someone is unavoidably more expensive and the government wants them employed they can either employ them or subsidise their employment.
You’ve internalised all the costs of employing you and now as far as employers are concerned you’re just another contractor. If the costs are borne by the employer then they’ll attempt to avoid them. See the drop in disabled employment following the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act[1].
[1] Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to ac- commodate disabled workers and outlaws discrimination against the disabled in hiring, firing, and pay. Although the ADA was meant to increase the employment of the disabled, the net theoretical effects are ambiguous. For men of all working ages and women under 40, Current Population Survey data show a sharp drop in the employment of disabled workers after the ADA went into effect. Although the number of disabled individuals receiving disability transfers increased at the same time, the decline in employment of the disabled does not appear to be explained by increasing transfers alone, leaving the ADA as a likely cause. Consistent with this view, the effects of the ADA appear larger in medium-size firms, possibly because small firms were exempt from the ADA. The effects are also larger in states with more ADA-related discrimination charges.
The rest of your comment seems to include relevant details to the OP's question. I haven't read them closely enough to understand them, but from a moderation point of view your comment would been much better if you had stuck to that sort of answer.
Most people have probably never worked with a quadriplegic software developer and have no idea how this impacts your productivity. That introduces risk that paying you the same as anyone else will lead to you being overpaid. Every employee has risks, but this one is pretty unique to you and all the other usual risks are still there.
Tools, practices and policies have all been built around people with a different set of requirements than you and, as an edge case, there's a good chance you'll expose some issues. If this is just a tool that isn't as effective as usually, it's lost productivity. If it is something not being ADA compliant because no one had thought about it before, the risk is potentially additional cost to fix it or litigation. The litigation risk, while perhaps unfair to you individually, definitely plays a role during your interview process.
To be blunt, I have no idea how you could do software development as a quadriplegic. Without any data to the contrary, my assumption, perhaps unfairly, is that you are less productive and you might impact the team's productivity. If I had worked with a quadriplegic developer before, if you had references to could hear from (but is it even legal to talk to references about you being quadriplegic? Would they be willing to answer honestly?) or if I had a better understanding of what software development looks like for you, that could change my assumptions. But in general, you need to prove yourself where others don't, because most people have no idea how a quadriplegic developer works.
I'd be very interested to hear how you do software development if you'd be willing to share.
For instance employing women may bring additional days offs due to child birth and the society has to structurally think about these things and security and well being of the entire society or the generation may well end in a single run. Short term thinking does not survive.
Greed and selfishness is not new. There are always those who live in civilized societies and all the benefits it entails but do not want the responsibilities that the word 'civilized' places on them both in thought and action, and want to pretend they are living in a jungle for purely selfish reasons.
The NW Center has been cited in the past for such underpayment. https://patch.com/washington/seattle/nonprofit-underpaid-dis...
This was mentioned and it is implied that amazon is not paying these employees less
> employees placed at Amazon by Northwest Center chalked up a productivity rate that was 98 percent of the average while achieving 37 percent better quality work than the general population, and with a perfect safety record, compared with a 1.1 percent warehouse incident rate. They also had better attendance.
This sounds like a pretty big win
Disclaimer: I am a former amazon employee
> “I’m grateful to actually have gotten a job,” Howard said during a work break. “It’s just part time, but even still, it’s a good job. … I’m making above minimum wage.”
> Likewise, Northwest Center employees and those it places with Amazon are paid at least minimum wage. (Seattle closed a loophole in its minimum wage law that allowed employers to pay people with a disability a sub-minimum wage and recovered back wages from Northwest Center in 2018. Washington and many other states still allow minimum wage waivers.)
If they can find more profit by employing folks with disabilities, that's a net good. And why shouldn't they get some good PR out of it? Nothing wrong with that IMO.
However, Amazon has a history of aggressively exploiting workers who have little bargaining power.
I guess - without any further information, why spread this negativity?
I don’t understand the agenda here. My personal experience with shopping Amazon and AWS has been generally really good. Even if you’re has not been good, how do you extrapolate to Amazon people all being part of some evil conspiracy?
>City officials adopted the language for subminimum wage for people with disabilities in 2015 in its minimum wage law. That language had been modeled off the State Minimum Wage Act, which allows for “special certificates” that can be issued if someone has a disability.
>In September, the Seattle Office of Labor Standards stopped issuing those certificates based on the director’s rules. The bill, which passed through council member Teresa Mosqueda’s committee late March, officially changed the code to remove the option altogether.
The nonprofit that got fined was due to their underpaying workers without the previously-necessary certificate.
1. There are loopholes around paying minimum wage that are separate from the core subminimum wage legislation. The sheltered workshop exemption is federal disability law. If the location uses this exemption, then they can employ the workers as contractors and the federal law applies. (If not using the sheltered workshop exemption, such contracted workers must be paid $10.35 per hour.) 2. My understanding is that Amazon started this program before the 2015 reform and has expanded its scope over the years. 3. I didn't mean to imply Amazon paid subminimum wage, as I don't know the wages. (Although the quote in the story is unclear as to whether the minimum wage being referred to is the shelter exemption rate or Seattle's minimum.) My main intent (as a former Seattle tech founder) was to relay the disappointing background of their partner.
I was not attacking the integrity of the program and apologize it came off that way.
This "gotcha" is like saying, "$CARMAKER is only investing in electric cars because such autos get tax subsidies." Well, yeah. Public policy encourages things that are underproduced relative to the social optimum. That's why you need public policy to do it, and not regular businesspeople.
We have a term for where no one does anything good because the public will ridicule them for not having 100% pure motives: hell.
[1] a sibling reply suggests this exemption has been phased out
As for the exemption for subminimum wage, the NC's arguments in the past have been that only federal wage and disability law applies to them, as the workers are contractors. As a result, if the sheltered workshop exemption is properly applied, the workers are only eligible for a few dollars per hour. If that federal disability exemption applies, workers only earn a few dollars per hour. Otherwise, they earn $10.35.
Then re-read your comment and considering whether that's the impression you can expect someone to take away from it.
> “I’m grateful to actually have gotten a job,” Howard said during a work break. “It’s just part time, but even still, it’s a good job. … I’m making above minimum wage.”
> Likewise, Northwest Center employees and those it places with Amazon are paid at least minimum wage. (Seattle closed a loophole in its minimum wage law that allowed employers to pay people with a disability a sub-minimum wage and recovered back wages from Northwest Center in 2018. Washington and many other states still allow minimum wage waivers.)
The NC used this exemption in the past and claimed the workers were contractors - and therefore only beholden to federal wage and disability laws. As long as they (Amazon and the NC) properly established the business as a sheltered workshop, workers would be looking at a few dollars an hour. Otherwise the federal minimum of $10.35 applies.
It is worth noting that the person with disabilities is quoted as saying he makes "above minimum wage". Likewise, later in the article:
> Likewise, Northwest Center employees and those it places with Amazon are paid at least minimum wage.
And indeed, I suspect this is the "double-bottom line" motive. Community impact is all well and good, but it has to serve the business as well. In this case, it's good PR, but it's also tapping a new talent pool to hire from. An Amazon rep is quoted saying same:
>... “a hybrid of a business need and a philanthropic opportunity.”
I also am not sure which minimum wage is being referred to - the sheltered workshop wage (a few dollars per hour and federal law, not the state subminimum law), the Seattle minimum wage or the federal minimum ($10.35 and only applies with the sheltered workshop exemption.)
Since the NC was caught violating state and city laws, they've claimed they don't have to comply with said regulations as their workers are contractors and only federal disability and wage law applies to them. In that case, the minimum is $10.35 - unless the sheltered workshop exemption is invoked, in which case the wage is a few dollars per hour. Those few dollars are still above the statutory subminimum wage, so the quote could refer to the sheltered workshop wage and still be true.
For some mental disabilities, expecting economic output above minimum wage is unrealistic.
But these are still human beings who have social wants and c. 16 waking hours every day. If they're unemployable at minimum wage, all they have to do is occupy themselves with extremely cheap leisure-- because they can't afford anything else.
I have a mentally disabled family member who used to have a below-minimum-wage sorting job at a direct mail place. The wage laws changed and that dried up.
My family is able to support him, but he spends a lot of time walking around and mumbling to himself. He seemed happier when he had somewhere to go and something to do. Of course, it's not easy to understand his perspective.
Please consider that, in some circumstances, a company hiring severely disabled people below minimum wage is making a positive contribution to society.
That said, as a former founder from Seattle, I'm quite aware of the NC's shenanigans. If there's scope to pay the proper minimum wage to these employees ($10.35 based on the NC's arguments that only federal disability and wage laws apply to them) then I'd prefer to see that happen.
As it stands, if one assumes the NC's stance on contractor wages to be correct, the disabled workers could still be paid a few dollars per hour. This would still be above the subminimum wage, so the article's quote about being above the minimum wage would still be accurate. But these workers would be missing out on $7-8 dollars per hour that federal wage law demands they be paid.
There are some disabled people, though, who can't provide $10.35/hr in economic benefit. If the "full" minimum wage is applied to them, it's much more likely that they end up with nothing to do than they end up making those extra $7-8/hr.
Businesses are not charities and will we shouldn't expect them to behave as such. If our society wants to provide for a disadvantaged group, straightforward taxation and redistribution is a much more fair way to accomplish that goal than enacting a wage minimum.
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/25/696718872/walmart-is-eliminat...
If Walmart is removing those positions, they may have found it to be a misconception. [edit: it seems like Walmart is not removing greeters, just making it harder for disabled/elderly people to hold those positions and expanding their responsibilities.]
Most people with disability genuinely want to work, but they usually get fired due to missing days or jobs that lack flexibility and cannot accommodate doctor visits for example.
Many are just as good if not better than healthy employees. I thought about creating some kind of non-profit to help connect disabled employees and employers(have not researched the market, not sure if that already exists). I think if people had clearly defined limits employers would be more likely to hire them. In western nations, with disability often comes feeling of not being worthy, as worth is often attached to work. Ability to work remote and flexible hours could really put many people back to work.
What kind of chronic pain do you have and why do you have it? How common is this?
I have widespread tendon pain caused by a severe reaction to a popular antibiotic. I generally am pretty normal just get pain. Some medical professional label my symptoms as "fibromyalgia", however, this has been causing a lot of problems to finding the actual cause.
Here is a link if you are interested on the subject: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/referrals/quino...
Currently, most doctors in the US are not aware of the issue and nobody wants to speak up. It has been an odd experience for me.
It is perhaps under-recognized, but it's not obscure.
Looks like IVIG is the most promising treatment currently: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5833158/
The biggest issues are doctors just very skeptical and often refuse to even look at studies. I have to walk a fine line between being educated and appearing like I'm self diagnosing.
Is this perhaps a sign that you have terrible work conditions? Or perhaps you aren't paying enough?
Seems more likely than "the people we hire are usually terrible workers".
Having a job and financial independence vs nothing at all is the real world reality for the vast majority of these people.
Just because Amazon makes these jobs available is not taking other well paying jobs away from them. That’s not how this works.
Wether or not there should be more high paying jobs to capable disabled people is a different question.
A company that has a history of treating folks well? Yeah, this might be their advantage. But Amazon has stories of employees not being able to use the toilet while on the clock. I'm just hoping they at least pay folks the same.
This type of thing could easily be negotiated early on in all the startups I’ve worked for. Even non dev employees.
Even worse for a remote job?
It sucks for anyone with health problems and sucks for anyone with children. People lose jobs because their children are sick and because they wind up with a major medical thing that happens. FMLA only covers large medical stuff - if you've worked full time for a year for a large enough company.
Some of this could be fixed with laws that protect employees and things like that. I'm generally thankful I don't have to deal with the lack of worker protection in the US right now - it meant that breaking my elbow while working a seasonal job didn't mean I was out of an income, for example.
I've contracted with companies who specifically hire disabled workers. Their unemployment rate is ridiculously high (edit, I've heard numbers of up to 70%) and my leadership wanted to so something about that. I needed web usability experience added to my team, why not have someone with a disability to lead that? Guy was unemployed for a year, had a masters in HCI, this was an easy choice.
My company wanted to include our work in their diversity report, why not? They're specifically reaching out and hiring people who cannot find work, if they get positive PR for that, why the hell should we stop them? It gets more like-minded people in the company and shows others in our industry that they can do this too. It's leadership.
Maybe they could start with Boxers.
Let's say society as a whole confers a benefit of $x for a 'feel good' story about a corporation doing well. We can interpret this however we want, for example, the propensity to shop on Amazon increases by some epsilon.
This now means companies will try to do morally 'good' things in order to gain these rents.
This is a mechanism in which we reward companies for engaging in socially optimal behavior, and it operates without any central management.
Of course, like all things, this can be gamed. But that's not, on its own, a reason to suspect it's all for naught.
However, I do think that there are certain norms, that when violated, deserve to be called out. By calling them out, we help enforce the norms that are important to us.
For me, the norm that was violated here was "don't use the fact that you are treating disabled people decently as a way to elevate your business," which is a subset of a larger norm of "don't use disadvantaged members of our society for personal gain".
Pitching this story to the press (which Amazon certainly did) is different than doing the good deed itself, and the positive benefit to their business for doing this seems like it shouldn't outweigh the social norm that has been violated. Surely there are positive moral things they have done (some recycling initiative?) that don't rely on violating the norms I listed above.
"Is it okay to use disadvantaged people for personal gain, if in doing so you also improve their state in life?
I would answer (not enthusiastically) that it is okay.