Amazon fires two UX designers critical of warehouse working conditions
reuters.com
reuters.com
What a strange statement. "We support their right to criticize their working conditions, only actually we don't at all"
> You have the right to report if your workplace is unsafe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amazon has to create the appearance that they aren't violating federal law
Because that is if you don't agree with company policy or whatever company is doing, you should not work there. They should lose all employees and go bust.
In practice I understand one would like to disagree and things should change to better. But life is not that simple, so if you can afford quitting please do so (if you are wealthy enough even in their face saying what they should do better), if you somehow cannot afford that, for the sake of your close ones really put your head down and work your way through... there is nothing bad I could say about such person, those are just circumstances.
That said - for all those assholes that should say something because they have their comfortable position in a company ... fuck them really bad!
That is why I highly regard Snowden, he had comfortable position, yet he went against all of that. If he would be someone oppressed and making barely living wage that would be just a normal thing that someone would like to fight for a better life ....
You give one line. This draws you in.. 3 then 4 sentences which explains your point and I decide to stop reading. Your third paragraph was bigger than all of the others combined. Your fourth is small followed by a bigger last paragraph.
Beef up 2 that is where you make your key point.
Keep the last line short.
But in reality they (bad guys) were using line workers who could not really make right or wrong because they were not educated on the front line doing atrocities. Fuck you is about people who are educated enough that they could spot slimy stuff (though they were enough removed from bad stuff to not "spot" the bad stuff) but still stick to their comfortable life.
The idea that using logistics technology to enable fast and efficient delivery of household goods is a nice thing to have in our world?
> For those people they would support all policies for the greater company good.
That's just a narrative you are constructing. Obviously it doesn't apply to the whistleblowers in question here or they wouldn't have spoken out in the first place.
Without seeing the actual policy, my guess is that "criticizing" is something employees can do internally within the company. However, you can't post public tweets about it.
In other words, "don't air dirty laundry".
This type of distinction is very common in typical employee policies. Likewise, it's common for a CEO for VP to say to the employees "I have an open door policy so if you see something wrong, tell me." -- but common sense should tell you that the CEO does not mean for the employee to post an "open letter to the CEO" on Twitter or NYTimes for the public read as well.
I know of no well-known company that encourages employees to publicly criticize their workplace.
Or worse, threatening to make his choices look incompetent.
Either way, Im sorry to hear that things went south after complaining and it sounds like it just got bruised egos involved.
And they will come down on those people HARD! "Why is your employee complaining to me? Why aren't you doing your job?"
And down the line it comes crashing down. And meteor lands on your face.
Reminds me of this news.yc thread, "We may get fired and I don't know what to do" [0], which had a follow-up from the OP with full backstory ~7 years later, "I stood up to my boss, then he got promoted" [1].
Did the same a while ago, with my CEO. Instantly removed from overseeing the biggest project we have in the works. Also removed from all communications about the project and privileges to view project-related documents revoked.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/2...
If anyone is looking a corporate-speak translation here ya go. It's direct signaling to potential dissidents that their employment is not guaranteed if they decide to speak-up, no other way to read this.
Amazon has spent billions trying to replace the human component of its distribution. It would utterly fall apart if warehouse workers stop working. What's wrong with letting them share in the wealth, giving them masks and gloves, and reducing the throughput a little bit so that people don't have to work in close proximity to each other?
This doublespeak bullshit from Amazon is a pretty glaring symptom of a larger problem, perhaps (if I may editorialize) Bezos's resentment that he has to employ warehouse workers at all.
When all of this is said and done, I think Amazon is going to make ungodly sums of money and everyone will hate Jeff Bezos for how he treats the little guys.
The funny part is they already are, for non-essential items.
They're addressing all of your points, aren't they?
- $2 raise during this time
- masks and temp checking
- prioritizing essential items for fulfillment and delaying non-essential shipments
Other major tech firms have done the exact same thing when employees have raised concerns.
They make it clear that they won't retaliate against you if you don't do the wrong things, but they won't actually enumerate what those wrong things are. It's like an extended round of the Chairman's Game. [1] [2]
[1] The game forbids its players from explaining the rules, and new players are often informed that "the only rule you may be told is this one". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game)
[2] The game is named in honor of a famous politician who was very well known for coming up with a lot of rules for his subjects to follow, without bothering to explain to them what the rules were.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt#Political_Theolog...
https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EO_Posters/Employee...
Four bad outcomes. All they do is "remove a troublemaker" from their standpoint. Why not just address the issues? They look like they want to bring back the days of company towns and central control. This doesn't make me want to work there, it's a strong dis-incentive for that.
It doesn't really matter what Amazon does (see this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22871216), the woke crowd has already made up their mind about the company and will criticize them regardless. The only thing that is going to satisfy the woke crowd is Amazon's failure.
Their best strategy is to focus on being the most customer centric company so that people like myself and millions upon millions of others keep buying from them.
I worked at another company the woke crowd loved to hate on and no matter how much more actual woke stuff our company did, the woke crowd still promoted the less woke company with the more woke brand because we were Goliath and they were David. We should have stopped wasting our effort to appease the unappeasable and just focused on being customer-centric like Amazon does. The loudest critics aren't trying to build a better world. They are trying to signal to others about how woke they want others to think they are.
This doesn't mean that Amazon and my previous employer shouldn't do good things. They should and do. What it means is that they should do it because those things are the right thing and they should pay no mind to the haters because haters are gonna hate. You can't be Goliath and not get hated on.
Not sure treating employees badly makes for a better world. Perhaps more profit at the top makes for a better world for some.
This isn't even about people at the top. When everyone is on the same team and owns equity in that collective endeavor, someone that goes outside to publicly bad mouth the team is hurting everyone on their team. That's some Grade-A anti-social behavior. I'm an IC and far from the top, but I never want to work with such people who use righteous indignation to justify their anti-social actions.
These two people are two nobodies who took it upon themselves to be the arbiters of judgement and instead of checking with their colleagues to see if their views were collectively aligned with the consensus of their colleagues. They should be asking themselves "AITA?". If you are whipping up public outrage that hurts your colleagues without validating if there is consensus among your colleagues, the answer to that question is unequivocal "yes".
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” ― Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow
If you criticize your employer by putting other sectors of the company in a fragile position and still think you should not face any consequence, you have no SITG.
Simply put: no symmetry in the risk you are taking => no weight to your words => I just don't care at what you say.
Likewise, if you just learn about a perceived misdeed from a company and all that you can say is "This does not make me want to work there" but it does not make you say "I will not allow myself the benefit of consume something that was achieved through bad working conditions", you have no SITG. You don't work there already, you are not losing anything -> no weight to your words => I don't care at what you say.
"These two people are two nobodies who took it upon themselves to be the arbiters of judgement and instead of checking with their colleagues to see if their views were collectively aligned with the consensus of their colleagues."
The article stated a thousand Amazon employees accepted the event invite before it was deleted by management, which goes without saying that they had enough group interest internally to warrant the event... which is within the purview of their already established employee interest group.
Source: Amazon Employees For Climate Justice @AMZNforClimate We're a group of Amazon employees who believe it’s our responsibility to ensure our business models don’t contribute to the climate crisis. Views ≠ Amazon.
https://twitter.com/AMZNforclimate
These employees are only guilty of voicing their dissent publicly and running afoul of corporate PR policy. We are all entitled to voicing our opinions and beliefs and rallying around a cause individuals are passionate about e.g. climate change impact, Google ending military/China contracts, etc. The unfortunate way I've seen this play out is that at-will employment means an employer is free to sever your relationship at any time with them and can do so under the cloak of bad performance, violating company policy, etc. and it will be an uphill battle to prove retaliation in court when they have the best legal team money can buy. Best to be prepared to look for employment elsewhere if you are organizing a group event to expose your employer to negative PR when on their payroll.
I'd love to be proven wrong though.
FWIW: my experience with Brazilian Google-employees is that their lives are shockingly insulated from the rest of the country. home -> car -> guarded parking -> <entertainment> -> home. we admittedly privileged expats got to experience more than them even, at times!
Lastly, the ad hominems have no place on HN.
He said, while commenting down-thread with very rational-debate-provoking labels of "Trumpian America" and "Right-wing Brazilians who don't care about the society and the situation in their country".
> Amazon’s external communications policy prohibits employees from commenting publicly on its business without corporate justification and approval from executives. Herdener previously said the policy did not allow employees to “publicly disparage or misrepresent the company.”
Amazon is straight up firing these people for expressing their personal opinions. Amazon isn't even claiming they lied, or pretend to speak officially, or any other reason.
You can agree or disagree with that policy, but it's not new. Source: first heard of this policy when I was hired at Amazon in 2007.
It depends on the specifics of this case.
If you were employed by a company and disparaged them publicly, breaking company policy, would you believe that your employment with them is in any way protected?
It doesn't sound like Amazon is attempting to hide anything here.
I assume they want less buzz about work conditions.
>I assume they want less buzz about work conditions.
I don't think this is the case. They have been public about responding to the media and have been posting daily updates through their own site. The link to their blog discussing workers' conditions is on the front page of Amazon.com.
That’s not to say I disagree with workers’ protections only tat if you believe strongly then protections or not should not be much of a consideration.
That said, is Amazon acting illegally so you’re calling that out or do I just disagree with their position?
Do I get outraged at them? Should they be outraged at me? Did anyone of us do anything illegal?
Google had a similar policy and, after losing NLRA cases, had to issue a notice to all employees saying that its previous policies no longer included discussing working conditions with the public.
Amazon will likely get sued over this, and very likely lose in a similar matter, as their conduct here is even more egregious.
Firing designers for complaining about their unsanitary working conditions is illegal. Firing warehouse workers for complaining about their unsanitary working conditions is illegal. Firing designers and warehouse workers for attempting to organize together is illegal.
Firing designers for talking about someone else's working conditions isn't "one weird trick" for avoiding the law here.
You are a lawyer and are making this claim as someone who is educated in labor law? Or you have a citation to share with us, or something of that nature? Perhaps the chapter and verse of the law that makes this move illegal? Or a case where it was found that workers have the right to publicly comment on other workers' working conditions as long as they work at the same company?
> Under the NLRA, it is illegal for your employer to:
> Fire, demote, or transfer you, or reduce your hours or change your shift, or otherwise take adverse action against you, or threaten to take any of these actions, because you join or support a union, or because you engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection, or because you choose not to engage in any such activity.
You can get a basic overview of this topic by googling things like NLRA, NLRB, and protected concerted activity, including very recent examples of how these concepts have applied. They're much broader protections than you think, and Amazon has very clearly broken them. That's why their spokesman is giving out contradictory statements like saying that they allow employees to discuss eachother's working conditions, then firing them for exactly that.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking that "the company has a policy" or "at-will employment" means "you have no legal rights".
While warehouse workers could file suit under the National Labor Relations Act if fired for speaking publicly of their own working conditions, I'm not sure that Amazon's UX team would qualify (but again, IANAL).
To draw an analogy: Would a DoorDash engineer be safe speaking out against the working conditions of DoorDash drivers?
They should be, but you might be right that the National Labor Relations Act (or other applicable law) isn't doing its job.
I am not a lawyer nor am I condoning this, but them is the facts.
edit: added play
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
It's pretty easy to come up with a lot of absurd and "legal" at-will policies (e.g. we'll fire anybody who watches porn)
The US is full of outrage about companies doing unethical things but nobody wants to make unethical things illegal.
I do think that it would be helpful to make the decision making public though. Limited legal liability isn't limited moral liability. Rather than saying "amazon fired" someone they should tell us "Jane Doe a manager at Amazon made the decision to fire."
People shouldn't hide behind the company logo when they do shitty things to other people. And if you want to rationalize it, cool, do it with your name attached so your pastor, spouse, friends, and kids know the things you'll do for a paycheck and you can justify it all you want to your community.
It's pretty telling to me that I'm being downvoted for saying that I think people should own up to their decisions in the workplace that impact other people and are questionable ethically. Removing any kind of moral liability for those decisions is how we wind up with businesses that employ good people that do shitty things to other good people.
I don't know what the policy is explicitly or if it's justified, but there should be visibility into that kind of decision making from the outside. It's in the lack of visibility that we see bad shit happen with hiring and firing.
Imagine you are an engineering manager running a team of 10. You got an email from your boss that the project revenue is way lower than projected, so the funding is getting cut and you need to get rid of one of your worst performers, but you have to pick who it is yourself, as your boss probably doesn't even know the actual people on your team. You have to fire them, even though you personally don't want to, because they are performing fine, just worse than all your other engineers.
Whose fault is this? Is it your boss' fault? They don't even pick the person and neither do they know any of them. Is it your fault? You've made the decision to fire that person, even though you don't want to fire them.
That's patently false. Plenty of people want to make those unethical things illegal, it's just that the people who engage in those unethical things have had the political power to thwart many of those efforts so far.
This should give you a hint about this person's intention. Their argument is a classic appeal to authority.
I think I either misunderstand this type of argument or you meant to use a different link. If you look at my history, I am hardly a proponent of all things Amazon. I recognize their strengths and their weaknesses. It is important to clear eyes about all this.
edit: corrected fallacy to argument
Separately, there is no "appeal to authority fallacy" in the post.
Well, not unless you consider the significant disparity in negotiating power between the employer and prospective employee when forming that contract. Very few people are in a position to negotiate something like that, and the ones that are aren't likely to be explicitly fired for speaking their mind.
Obviously they won’t get everything they want, but that’s the nature of negotiation.
This really only works for a handful of people applying for high level jobs where they are significantly more desirable than anyone else who applied for the position.
Just because the “value” of a man’s labor is low (in some sense), doesn’t mean the government should intervene.
You're essentially arguing that only the few people at the top should be able to do well. Just because anyone can rise to the top of their class and do well if they work hard enough doesn't mean everyone can, it's a race to the bottom of who can give up free time or family time to be more valuable to their employer. While in the short term employers might prefer that, I really don't think it's good for society long term.
Freemen should rationally allocate free time, family time and work time. A man isn’t guaranteed everything he wants, only the opportunity to rationally pursue his interests.
You've already defined it with "The employee should negotiate “fireable offenses” into his contract." I don't know of a single employer that would be interested in hiring someone who insisted on including a list of nonfirable offenses which included making public statements which paint the company in a bad light. That specific item we're talking about is completely unviable for most employees to negotiate, i.e. they have no meaningful/material/real/significant ability to negotiate it.
>Either men with guns coerce the market participant or they don’t.
There are many more forms of coercion than just "men with guns," and if coercion specifically by men with guns is worth acting on then why shouldn't other forms be?
In this case there technically _is_ coercion by men with guns, albeit a degree or two removed. People need money to keep a roof over their head, and they need jobs to receive that money. If they're not able to work then your men with guns will come and remove them from their living space, and once on the street they'll likely have many more unpleasant encounters with more men with guns.
>Freemen should rationally allocate free time, family time and work time. A man isn’t guaranteed everything he wants, only the opportunity to rationally pursue his interests.
Nothing I've argued goes against that. My point here is that there are certain things which the invisible hand of the free market is unable to touch due to the dynamics of the market. That is, in my and many other people's opinion, where the government needs to step in and force the market to make decisions it would be otherwise unwilling to do. This has already been necessary many times before in American history, such as with the ending of slavery, child labor, and the introduction of minimum wage laws. In all of these cases government intervention was necessary to reduce human suffering and raise people's quality of life. Yes, some "market value" was lost in the process but to people with empathy that was a completely worthwhile trade.
1. Work for a company that you don’t feel the need to publicly criticize.
2. Start your own company.
3. Increase your market value thru hard work to improve your negotiating position.
> There are many more forms of coercion than just "men with guns“
I don’t want to make assumptions. Please describe forms of coercion other than (threats of) physical violence.
> In this case there technically _is_ coercion by men with guns, albeit a degree or two removed. People need money to keep a roof over their head, and they need jobs to receive that money.
A man’s need for food does not override my natural property rights. He must use his mind to productively participate in commerce. If he does not, he will perish.
> My point here is that there are certain things which the invisible hand of the free market is unable to touch due to the dynamics of the market. That is, in my and many other people's opinion, where the government needs to step in and force the market to make decisions it would be otherwise unwilling to do.
From a consequentialist framework: I suspect the government’s cure will be worse than the disease.
>1. Work for a company that you don’t feel the need to publicly criticize.
Absolutely, in an ideal world everyone should. But many people do not and switching jobs can be difficult, particularly for people outside the tech bubble that HN exists in.
>2. Start your own company.
Not everyone can do that, and the skills required to start and run a successful company are almost completely orthogonal to those most people develop in their careers.
>3. Increase your market value thru hard work to improve your negotiating position.
There's a fixed number of people that can be at the top of any market (in proportion to market size), this will only work for a handful of people. It's not a general solution.
>I don’t want to make assumptions. Please describe forms of coercion other than (threats of) physical violence.
Coercion is the opposite of freedom, and in general coercion describes a party "forcing" another party to act in some way contrary to their preference either by force, implied force, or some form of a threat. As an example, a child could be coerced into cleaning their room by their parent shutting down the wifi until the chores were done.
>>In this case there technically _is_ coercion by men with guns, albeit a degree or two removed. People need money to keep a roof over their head, and they need jobs to receive that money. >A man’s need for food does not override my natural property rights. He must use his mind to productively participate in commerce. If he does not, he will perish.
Are you trying to say that people who don't productively use their minds to participate in society deserve to die? How exactly would a hypothetical nonpunishable disparagement clause in an employment contract affect your "natural property rights" in any way?
>>My point here is that there are certain things which the invisible hand of the free market is unable to touch due to the dynamics of the market. That is, in my and many other people's opinion, where the government needs to step in and force the market to make decisions it would be otherwise unwilling to do. This has already been necessary many times before in American history, such as with the ending of slavery, child labor, and the introduction of minimum wage laws. In all of these cases government intervention was necessary to reduce human suffering and raise people's quality of life. Yes, some "market value" was lost in the process but to people with empathy that was a completely worthwhile trade.
>From a consequentialist framework: I suspect the government’s cure will be worse than the disease.
Do you think that the "government's cure" of ending slavery has left people worse off? Are children worse off now that they're required to stay in schools instead of working in mines or textile mills?
Even in the case of this hypothetical nonpunishable disparagement clause, how exactly would it leave people worse off?
Most people will have to make major concessions to negotiate a clause like this into their contract. I am fine with this.
Do I think a hypothetical works where all employers guaranteed this power to laborers is an improvement over the current one? Maybe, but I am morally imposed to creating this world thru government intervention.
> I'm not claiming that this particular "freedom" to openly criticize your employer deserves government intervention
Noted.
> Absolutely, in an ideal world everyone should. But many people do not and switching jobs can be difficult, particularly for people outside the tech bubble that HN exists in.
It takes hard work to get a better job with more money and benefits, but this is being human. This situation pleases me.
> Not everyone can do that [start a company], and the skills required to start and run a successful company are almost completely orthogonal to those most people develop in their careers.
So prioritize learning these skills over starting a family or whatever else.
> There's a fixed number of people that can be at the top of any market (in proportion to market size), this will only work for a handful of people. It's not a general solution.
I am suspicious of this because there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. People at the top of their field create new wealth.
> As an example, a child could be coerced into cleaning their room by their parent shutting down the wifi until the chores were done.
Children make the issue confusing. Let’s say that a man wants to use the WiFi at Starbucks, but he can’t get the password until he purchases something. This isn’t coercion. Starbucks is selling a service, the man can accept or deny the contract. If men with guns force him to buy the coffee, then it’s coercion.
(Edited)
> Are you trying to say that people who don't productively use their minds to participate in society deserve to die?
Yes.
> How exactly would a hypothetical nonpunishable disparagement clause in an employment contract affect your "natural property rights" in any way?
If the government forces me to add this clause to employment contracts, then my right to free association has been violated.
> Do you think that the "government's cure" of ending slavery has left people worse off?
Slavery is evil. I don’t know enough about American abolition to address the specific point. But it is certainly possible to do something evil while intending to resolve some other evil.
The people who stole the land are dead. The people who were stolen from are dead.
The point is moot.
As an employer, do you want to have an employee that in a very public manner ( and these days it is oh so easy to be public ) trashes your business? Is that line crossed? I would argue, as usual, that it depends. If the employee's life is threatened by horrific business practices, then talking to the media is almost their civic duty. That said, I do not think they should be surprised they are fired after the fact though..
So where is the line for you?
Where "the line" is depends on the specific circumstances, but it's pretty clear to me that Amazon overdid it in this case. If they found these employees' statements embarrassing enough to fire them, then it sounds like they know they are doing something wrong.
I'm not saying you are necessarily doing the following, but raising the question "at what headcount" is sometimes done to suggest that this is absurd or unfair position. Why should a company with 119 employees be subject to different rules than a company with 120 employees? But this problem exists everywhere we have laws to regulate behavior. What really is the difference between 65 and 66 miles an hour? Is a hot dog really different if it has 86% organ meat vs 85%?
To answer the question, assuming we want to force 'large' companies to play by different rules specifically in the case of tolerating employee criticism, we shouldn't even use headcount as a metric. Some other measure of size should be used.
We are in absolute agreement. Frankly, I have argued before that they are already too big.
"There's also a big difference between criticizing the company's products and criticizing their business practices."
I am not sure I agree with that statement. Would you feel the same if the employee publicly criticized a company for using non recycled paper AND they have to change course now and use recycled paper; afterwards the story "went viral" and employee got fired for that specific action. Is employee justified in doing that without any repercussions? It is genuinely hard for me to argue for the employee here.
"Where "the line" is depends on the specific circumstances, but it's pretty clear to me that Amazon overdid it in this case."
To you it may be clear, but clearly not to everyone since we are having this discussion. Whether the pendulum should swing ( it should ) is a worthwhile conversation to have.
"If they found these employees' statements embarrassing enough to fire them, then it sounds like they know they are doing something wrong."
I don't know if I buy this argument. HR does not like troublemakers seems like more plausible explanation.
My favorite which would work in much of the US is "We'll fire anybody who registers with the Republican party." (Or Democratic, if you prefer.) Especially in a state where registration is required in order to participate in the primary. It is legal, but, I believe, completely unacceptable to just about everyone.
This is not true in my experience. Many people on the left, particularly under 35, earnestly believe that their political opponents are by definition racist and evil. In a manner similar to how I would not want a literal neo-nazi on my company's payroll, they do not want a registered Republican on the company's payroll.
Edit: In other words, this kind of bigotry is actually acceptable to a disturbingly large number of people.
I absolutely agree about the importance politics at local level. In fact, this is likely where regular citizens have biggest chance to actually influence an outcome.
I used to have a condescending attitude towards people who took sports 'way too seriously', but now I wonder if it is a net gain for society to give people a comparatively harmless outlet for these tendencies. Real harm is done when our policy discussions are dominated by the kind of tribalism, ideological intolerance, and rush-seeking engagement that seems to happen when people bring these tendencies to politics.
Tribalism in America goes deep, and you're right: rooting for a sports team is fairly harmless, and rooting for a political party is probably harmful, but I'd argue it's not nearly as harmful as as rooting blindly for an ideology. If you want your party to succeed, you should be engaged in your local politics, talk to people from the other side, listen honestly to their concerns, be willing to change your own opinion on specific policies, and push for those sensible policy changes to be adopted as part of your local party's platform. That's how you win people over, that's how you win elections, and how you enact real change that affects people's lives. Anything else is just yelling into your echo chamber, or getting into bar fights with the guys wearing the "wrong" jerseys.
Ideologies form the axes of socioeconomic space, they're not an ideal point, and the push toward an "us versus them" mentality in politics is embarrassing. It's a quirk that's arisen out of new media, an easily exploitable bug, and the sooner people see through the bullshit and we outgrow this, the better.
Right leaning people are fired all the time for their views on social issues, and no one seems to have a problem with that normally.
Further if these employees would have been fired to taking a counter view I bet there would have been cheers for their firing
no the outrage here is not really because " people shouldn't have outside-work activities be held against them" no it is more "I agree with these employee opinions and am outraged they were fired for an opinion I share"
That's not particularly non-sensical, at all. That's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.
"We'll fire anybody who plays a game" would qualify as "absurd".
But yes, shit talking your employer is generally not one of those reasons.
You _cannot_ sign away these rights in an employee agreement or policy you agree to. Amazon having a "policy" against speaking out about unsafe working conditions is not a legal (or moral) defense of their behavior.
Didn't help that Google guy. The NLRB itself even issued some sort of opinion stating that he had violated corporate policy and that his firing was thus justified.
If by "that Google guy" you mean the one who got fired for posting critical memes about pay on Facebook, I'm pretty sure they were ordered reinstated and the notice was issued.
The Amazon folks fired here did nothing more than say they were concerned about working conditions on Twitter. It's hard to have a more explicitly protected activity.
Let me further clarify my statement: While shit talking your employer, you must be very careful not to step outside the bounds of what is legally protected. And with attention comes scrutiny.
Yes, employment at-will allows both the employer and employee to terminate employment at anytime without cause.
However, it seems pretty clear Amazon did not terminate these employees without cause...you can argue the termination was for violation of a company policy all you want (Amazon certainly will), but the evidence seems to support Amazon fired these employees in retaliation for exercising their Constitutionally protected rights.
The employees will sue and Amazon will settle. This is a major win for Amazon because it will be far less costly to pay these employees off rather than make any meaningful change to work conditions.
Yes, you certainly do have that right so long as what you say is true.
But lets assume your misunderstanding of the law were true, or these statements were in violation of some otherwise unknown confidential settlement agreement...who is to say the employee statements were disparaging? Amazon? No whether a statement is disparaging or otherwise violates the terms of an agreement is an issue of fact for a fact finder (i.e. jury or more rarely a judge) to determine.
>or these statements were in violation of some otherwise unknown confidential settlement agreement
I really have no idea what you're talking about here. What confidential settlement agreement?
>who is to say the employee statements were disparaging? Amazon?
Yes.
>No whether a statement is disparaging or otherwise violates the terms of an agreement is an issue of fact for a fact finder (i.e. jury or more rarely a judge) to determine.
No it's not. This isn't a court of law. It has nothing to do with whether the "agreement" was violated or not, and there is no need for anyone to do any "fact finding". This is an employment arrangement which can unilaterally be ended at any time by either party, and Amazon has chosen to do so.
>This is an employment arrangement which can unilaterally be ended at any time by either party, and Amazon has chosen to do so.
Yes, at will employment gives the parties the right to terminate the employment...but, Amazon can not terminate an employee for any reason. For example Amazon can't fire a employee for their race, or religion, or sexual preference. You may want to Google "workplace retaliation cases", because Amazon can not retaliate by firing an employee for reporting workplace safety concerns.
The First Amendment does not apply to this situation. The First Amendment applies to restrictions to speech from the government, but provides no rights or privileges when it comes to repercussions from private entities.
>For example Amazon can't fire a employee for their race, or religion, or sexual preference. >because Amazon can not retaliate by firing an employee for reporting workplace safety concerns.
Correct, but this isn't why they were fired.
There may be some gray area where the workers could claim protection under the NLRA if they but that really depends on additional details not provided in any of the reporting so far (such as which company policies they broke), and that has nothing to do with any constitutional rights.
This is generally true but there are exceptions, which funny enough you acknowledge one of them in your comment.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) gives private-sector employees the right to discuss their working conditions, which is considered “protected concerted activity.” They can share information about pay, benefits, safety and other work-related issues — and they can do it in the break room, at happy hour or on social media (such as Facebook and Twitter).
Real-world example of workplace freedom of speech:
Situation: A group of employees who worked for a retail store in San Francisco were concerned about their safety due to their store’s closing an hour later than other nearby stores. After unsuccessful discussions with the manager and later, the owner, the employees posted their frustrations on Facebook. An employee who saw the posts showed them to the owner, and subsequently, the other three employees were fired.
Ruling: The National Labor Relations Board reviewed the Facebook posts and determined they were acceptable. The employees were discussing the store’s legitimate safety concerns, so the posts were considered protected under the NLRA. It was determined that the employer committed an unfair labor practice by firing the employees.
What is otherwise not protected speech becomes protected speech.
>Correct, but this isn't why they were fired.
Amazon published a press release on the matter acknowledging they fired the employees for their posts about safety in the work place...it doesn't matter Amazon claims the post violated company policy, these employees have legal right to discuss their working conditions, which is considered “protected concerted activity.”
As you may or may not know the NLRA protections come from the Constitutional Right to association, which is an essential part of freedom of speech. While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.
Nobody's questioning the legality. The question is whether it should be condoned.
Private censorship is legal, but IMHO it can be unethical, especially when the balance of power is so far askew. An employer firing or threatening to fire an employee for speaking can have a large chilling effect.
I don't think it is absurd not to want to employ someone who is an activist against you.
Every large company very clearly states, one way or another, that speaking about the company to the public without being a designated spokesperson is seriously grounds for termination.
But if Amazon negotiated a deal with them by which both employer and employee bilaterally agreed to end the contract between them, then fair enough! Rest assured it was probably quite expensive for Amazon, or at least for that micro-pod’s balance sheet.
No one is entitled to be a hostile employee, just as no employee has to tolerate a hostile workplace. I think they’ll be happier working somewhere else (and I hope they continue the activism.)
Both this and the WaPo article are extremely light on the details what exactly these employees said or did. WaPo says that these employees "violated company policy", which leads me to believe they must have been saying something that Amazon felt was untrue, because again, official policy is that you can speak as much as you want about working conditions at Amazon as long as they are factual. I would like to see what exactly these people said that apparently upset Amazon, but I can't find it anywhere.
* make sure to use corporate-approved facts
factual: Amazon does this factual thing X and this factual thing Y, and it shouldn't be happening this way.
First one is just an opinion piece, regardless of its truthfulness, because it cannot be evaluated objectively (how to objectively determine whether amazon cares or not? who counts as "amazon" in this scenario? what factual event led to this statement? and on and on).
Second one is a factual statement that can be evaluated on a true/false basis. Events X and Y either happened or they didn't. If they did, the responsibility for those can be traced and evaluated. It leads to actual results, while the former is just an emotional opinion sort of statement, but that's exactly what sells the headlines.
That's not exactly uncommon in the modern world. Especially with the prevalence of social media, expressing your opinion on anything publicly could cost you your job. Same thing happened to James Damore.
If you want to remain employed, you need to be quite cautious about what you post on non-anonymous social media. In fact, I'd advise most people not to post on social media at all.
This, on the other hand, is just about Amazon trying to control people to keep their poor treatment of employees hidden. There's nobody at Amazon who's saying, "Man, I'm quitting if those people keep trying to improve worker conditions here."
It is uncommon in the parts of modern world that have reasonably modern employee protection laws. Yes, most jurisdictions recognize that employers may expect a certain degree of loyalty from their employees. But unless you're a very high-level executive, just disagreeing with your employer's conduct is absolutely no legal grounds for termination.
These tweets, made on 27 March, allegedly broke the camel's back:
@marencosta I am matching donations to $500 to support my Amazon warehouse colleagues and their communities, while they struggle to get consistent, sufficient protections and procedures from our employer. DM or comment for match. [1]
@emahlee I'm matching donations up to $500 to support my Amazon warehouse worker colleagues. "The lack of safe and sanitary working conditions" puts them and the public at risk.
It's bad ya'll... [2] and @marencosta re-tweeted it.
@marencosta had been warned by Amazon, in late 2019, to not publicly disparage them.
---
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/13/amazon-...
[1] https://twitter.com/marencosta/status/1243585580736237568
[2] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1243441985173651456.html
This has been the policy at every company I've worked for since the 90's. It's usually in the employee handbook, and at a couple of places I had to sign a separate paper acknowledging it.
Amazingly, several of those companies were news organizations. It's usually the first indication that a company is more interested in its stock price than doing the right thing.
But no one changes the policies until the NLRB requires them to after losing a case, even an easy case. Sometimes all they do is write "except where allowed by law" into the policy, then hope workers don't know what their rights are.
A lot of companies will do that. For instance, I never identify on social media (including here) which company I work for. I am not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Even giving it praise on social media is a form of communication, and I am not PR. Therefore, not authorized (of course, retweeting official communications or linking to them is fine). We may not like these policies (and it is kinda dystopian if you think about it), but once we identify as employees, we are representing the company.
Should I then decide to criticize the company publicly, I would expect the hammer to fall down, hard Not sure about termination, but it is always a possibility. Especially in the US, with at will employment.
You can blow the whistle. But that doesn't make one immune to consequences. Should it be like that? I don't know, but the matter of the fact is that it is like that today, across most corporations. Google is (Was?) somewhat of an exception, but even then most of it was on internal forums.
Do you really think people are going to read that comment and come away with useful advice?
You'd be surprised how many techies (especially the younger ones) don't see the above advice as being obvious.
It's only obvious if you've accepted the status quo ("at will employment", no worker protections). Many other developed countries have substantial worker protections [1], and I see questioning this as work towards progress in having those same worker protections in the US. Young folks haven't been ground down long enough by "The System" to accept that what is wrong is what will always be, which is awesome!
If your employer can fire you, and you have no recourse, for illustrating their abusive work environment (Amazon warehouses, in this case), that's a problem! What's more shocking (IMHO) are those who publicly comment that this is acceptable in a developed nation. The house is on fire, don't snicker at those trying to put the fire out.
[1] https://www.ituc-csi.org/new-ituc-global-rights-index-the (New ITUC Global Rights Index - The world’s worst countries for workers)
The ITUC Global Rights Index rates countries from one to five according to 97 indicators, with an overall score placing countries in one to five rankings.
1 – Irregular violations of rights: 18 countries including Denmark and Uruguay
2 – Repeated violations of rights: 26 countries including Japan and Switzerland
3 – Regular violations of rights: 33 countries including Chile and Ghana
4 – Systematic violations of rights: 30 countries including Kenya and the USA <-- We are here, ranked below 77 other countries
If you live in the US, and you haven't accepted that, then you live in a fantasy world.
It's great to know what the other possibilities are, and work to make them a reality, but acting as if the current reality isn't in force... well, that's just foolish, and these two Amazon UX designers are receiving a harsh lesson in reality.
Being idealistic is genuinely awesome, and I wish more people would aspire for better in our society. But behaving as if your ideals are reality is usually not going to go well for you, and people would do well to remember that. These former employees have possibly put their (and their families') financial security in jeopardy because they didn't.
As an older developer, I am ashamed at many of the things I said at work when younger, and wonder why I didn't realize how stupid they were. It's amazing I wasn't fired for some of them.
> unnecessary and imprecise technobabble
> the author assumes ... people ... are too stupid
> patronizing and unhelpful
Put it all together and you're basically describing the Hacker News Brand Voice.
"In general, criticizing one's employer in public is usually inversely proportional to the longevity of one's employment with said employer." reads a lot more balanced to me.
Sure, if you're whistleblowing something systemically unethical - as may well be the case here - then you should be able to do the right thing without fear of negative consequence. I.e., your employer, Amazon in this case, can't fire you.
However, speaking in more general terms, some people just love to whine and complain about things that simply aren't that important: I've worked with plenty (none at the moment, I hasten to add).
For example, and flipping it around: is it a Good Thing for you to trash talk your employer just because you don't happen to like your boss very much? No, I don't think it is, and I think it's entirely reasonable for you to get into trouble if you do.
Is it a Good Thing to trash talk a potential employer because you didn't like their hiring process? No. If other potential employers read what you've said they might choose not to interview you even if your concerns are legitimate. You can stand on principle if you want but of all the issues in the world you could stand on principle about, is this one really worth it? I'd say not but you may disagree.
Getting more serious: what about if your boss is a bully? Should you publicly trash talk them? No! Are you out of your mind?!?? You should do some research and find out how to deal with it effectively and in a way that doesn't damage your future career prospects, either at your current company (which may be a lost cause) or elsewhere, which may include getting and following legal advice.
Certainly for these serious issues: bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, and so on, if the issues are with a specific individual, rather than a systemic or cultural problem, whistleblowing is probably not the way to go. Note that for certain safety issues, or breaches relating to personally identifiable information, you may have a legal obligation to notify even for isolated incidents, depending on your jurisdiction (IANAL).
The problem with trash-talking your employer, or even former employers, is that you risk sending a signal to potential future employers that you are a troublemaker. In some cases this is not an illegitimate concern, and because of this employers tend to be cautious, which can harm your prospects.
Let me reiterate that I'm talking about trash talking in general, not the specific case of these Amazon employees, and very much not whistleblower activities involving systemic ethical failings by an employer or organisation.
That is not what I mean. This conversation is about the accepted "law of nature" that if you say bad things about your employer you will probably be fired. As you point out, sometimes there are good reasons to publicly say bad things about your employer. Therefore, it is bad that firing is the accepted consequence regardless of the situation, and we should seek to change this status quo.
> I think all of us learned these lessons the hard way, what's amazing is how much resistance I've encountered when I try to share this wisdom with folks in their early 20's. I guess the old adage is true, people like to learn their own lessons.
I think it's arguable the lesson you're referring too is not "wisdom," but rather an obvious form of status-quo acceptance. I don't think just "accept the status quo" would be counted as wisdom by many. The status quo used to include many awful things that are now rightly regarded with horror (for instance, executing someone for criticizing the king), and there are many things we accept now that will be regarded with similar horror in the future.
I'd bet money that the resistance you're encountering is moral rejection. You argue that something is true but acceptable. Your interlocutors also understand that thing to be true but they see it as unacceptable. And frankly, they're right: criticizing working conditions is always acceptable (even if they're not your working conditions, but those of your colleagues), and the people who do so need strong productions against reprisals by their employers. That's how working conditions are improved.
If you talk smack about someone, expect them to talk smack back about you.
If you talk smack about your employer, the employer will talk smack back about you (a lot of times, in the form of ending their involvement with you).
"If you do X then you can expect Y" is a tautology built on observation that divorces the observer from any responsibility for the outcome Y.
Specifically:
> It's much easier to point out that taking a certain set of actions will lead to a certain set of outcomes
This statement is too vague. What specific actions and what specific outcomes?
> since those are abstract concepts that require critical thinking and making value judgments
What is "making value judgements" mean?
Also, when you say "American justice system" - is this specific to the American judicial law and it does not apply to other countries?
"It's much easier for one to factually state that certain actions will almost inevitably lead to certain consequences than to critically question whether those actions should always justifiably warrant those consequences in the first place. Because of this, regardless of the underlying context, one may reflexively fail to sympathize with those who incur consequences that one may believe they reasonably should have expected would occur as a result of their actions.
That is, it's easier to say 'don't touch the stove or you'll get burnt' than 'you maybe generally should try not to touch the stove, but why is our room filled to the brim with dozens of hot stoves? also maybe you should touch it if you need to help save a cat that jumped on it'."
I had no trouble understanding what they were trying to say, honestly. They're saying it's easier for someone to say "drugs are bad, because they're illegal", or "you should've gone to jail because you used drugs", or "you should've known that using drugs would result in you ending up in jail", compared to saying something more nuanced like "one should be aware of the potential legal risks of using drugs, as a matter of personal precaution, but it's questionable whether US law and morality align on this particular subject".
Basically, caring more about "what is" than "what ought to be". "It is what it is, whaddya gonna do" is easier than trying to question the system. It is a pretty common phenomenon I've seen here, as an American.
They likely would have preferred the parent to consider the line between public trash-talking and public whistleblowing, how that applies to this case, what Amazon's perspective is and what the workers' perspectives are, etc. Instead of a simple "well, they said negative things about their employer in public, so why should anyone feel bad that their employer fired them as a result?".
Golden, this is a perfect analogy and gave me a chuckle.
I get irritated by this kind of comment because by being a description of a chain of events with no verdict as to whether outcome Y is fair or proportional to action X, it is an absolution of responsibility for the observer and to some extent implies that those affected by outcome Y are responsible for their fate simply because they weren't canny enough to realize the chain of events they had set in motion, regardless of whether the chain of events is immoral.
An alternate example: "The subversives held a protest and were reported to the secret police who sentenced them to death by firing squad. Perhaps if the subversives didn't want to be shot they shouldn't have staged the protest in the first place, since protesting carries the death sentence."
I know that example is taken to the extreme, but I think it makes some points more salient: (i) by reciting a series of outcomes without value judgments about the outcomes, the observer is not engaging with whether the subversives should be shot and thereby implicitly supports the status quo, regardless of whether the status quo is fair or just (ii) the observer misses the point by implying that the protesters are responsible for their fate and blames them for the unjust outcome. The protesters likely knew that they would be executed for protesting. Surely we should be asking why the sentence for protesting is death, not whether the protesters were too stupid to see what they were getting themselves into.
RE the criminal justice system...I know it's a cop out to say "I read a lot", but I am interested in its shortcomings and consume a lot on the subject matter. I recently read "Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System" which I think is a good primer on the bureaucracy of the justice system. It's a complex thing to dissect in a post, but from a very high up/more abstract POV the American justice system considers "justice" the rendering of sentences based on breaking of laws, not necessarily whether an outcome is compatible with what we consider "justice".
Example: a man is sentenced to 10 years for possession of marijuana. The justice system considers this to be justice because the man was aware that action X (possessing marijuana) leads to outcome Y (prison time) without really considering whether jail time is a reasonable or fair outcome for possessing a plant that is quite harmless by most scientific standards.
This turned into an essay...hope I clarified my point of view though!
I doubt the parent is happy about the result, but I at least would question why people would do something that would so obviously get them fired during a pandemic.
Amazon workers deserve better treatment, but, if you're a current employee, trying to affect change should be an internal process, not public. If all internal avenues seem to be failing, the smart move would be a public anonymous criticism. Whistleblowing, effectively.
It sucks that these people got fired for speaking out about something important that they felt strongly about, especially during a time of economic upheaval, but that's what you should expect to happen when you publicly criticize your employer and sign your name to it. They should have thought -- even for a second -- before they spoke.
Certainly not the same, but I've fired (in my mind unjustifiably) vocally negative customers before. Often said customers realize they need the service a lot more than they thought and end up more willing to work cooperatively to fix problems. Only something you do in extreme cases obviously.
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you. If you must talk against your employer in public, better go anonymous, if you have the courage to reveal your real identity, great! but be ready to bear the consequences. It's unfortunate, but most companies will do the same." [1]
> You have the right to report if your workplace is unsafe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
> If you have concerns, you have the right to speak up about them without fear of retaliation.
Whether or not Amazon ran afoul of the rules remains to be seen.
Warehouse workers are literally feeding America right now, so I agree with that part.
Few people who are doing things that will, with a high degree of certainty, result in harm to others for their own profit want others to be publicly pointing those things out.
Painting this as "trash-talking Amazon", however the fired workers' words are phrased, is hugely disingenuous. We're not talking about someone going out there and saying, "Man, Amazon is just such a loser! They're so ugly, their mama dropped them when they were born and wouldn't pick them up!"
Amazon is putting their workers' lives and health in danger, knowingly and deliberately, for their own profit. Anyone who is truthfully bringing the details of this to the public is a whistleblower, and needs to be considered as such and granted the full protection of the law.
Like...you know legality and morality are not the same thing, right?
I'm not saying they're idiots, and I'm not saying companies should fire employees for airing grievances... but publicly reporting on bad things your employer is doing isn't a good idea if you want to keep your job. I'm not sure why that's surprising to anyone, including the people who got fired.
Clearly Amazon is being a bad actor here overall, both in how they've been not caring about their warehouse workers' health, and how they fired these employees for making a stink about it. But, in general, I don't blame a company for firing employees who trash talk them in public. It's just... kinda common sense that this would happen? But in the specific case of a company doing something like Amazon is doing now, I really want there to be legal protections, because employees should feel safe from retaliation if there's something whistleblower-worthy going on.
Anonymous comments aren't worth near as much those with a name behind them, so I don't buy that as a solution.
How can we expect to improve as a society, if we fire everyone who has the courage to say something?
Most folks are going to just continue to keep their mouths shut. It's bad for everyone. I want others to stick up for me, and I hope you want others to stick up for you. I don't want them to have to weigh healthcare and feeding their family against sticking up for what's right.
(Note, this is not actually a jab at Amazon in particular.)
I'm all for open borders and immigration. The H1B problem right now is the worst of both worlds though. You have selectively restrictive immigration which means that if you're lucky enough to get an H1B you'll go through a lot to stay. More open borders would help the situation as people would have more labor mobility. Cracking down on H1B abuse would also help the situation and the only entity that can crack down is the Government because it's a tragedy-of-the-commons problem.
We need to be very clear when talking about it:
There is no abuse of H1Bs at the typical big tech companies we all know, like MSFT/Google/FB/etc. Their H1B employees get paid market rate, same as the US residents working at those companies. Those H1B employees are screwed over big time by the abusers in the category I am about to describe below and by general public who doesn't make the distinction and lumps them all in the second category. Not even mentioning the visa system that ends up screwing them due to that abuse.
Where the real H1B abuse happens is at those giant consulting companies like Accenture, Tata, Wipro, etc. They hire tons of software devs and pay them about $40k/yr, while flooding H1B visa pool and making it way more difficult for people in the first category to obtain a visa due to the sheer number imbalance.
Not only this creates a false image and leads to general public blaming the first group for all the visa abuse stemming from the second group, it makes it really difficult for the people in the first group to get their visas. There is a yearly cap on H1B, and it is much more difficult to obtain it when overwhelming majority of visa applications are filed by the latter group. For a price of one average engineer in big tech (let's say $160k/yr for easier math, even though the real number is very likely higher), a consultancy agency can hire at least 4 engineers and send 4 H1B visa applications respectively.
H1B visa is for "outstanding talent" that is difficult to find locally. This holds absolutely true for tech giants, as hiring a competent person is really difficult, witnessed it myself. But I find it difficult to believe that an "outstanding talent" would go work for a consulting agency and get paid $40k, while they can switch to a big tech company and get paid at least x4 that amount.
Luckily, it seems like the rules are getting tighter for the latter group, with their denial rates skyrocketing, while the usual tech company H1B approval rates are staying as high as usual (close to 100%)[0].
0. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/it-consulti...
And how did you read that comment and come away with immigrants are to blame?
Alienating a fraction of that workforce will impact them, I think.
612k engineers. Let's assume that Amazon aims to hire the top 20% (I would expect software engineering skills to follow a power curve), so roughly 100k qualified workers.
That's pretty small if you're looking to employ 2-5k of them. That's a lot of competition given that there are likely at least 50 companies making Amazon-type offers.
I'm not saying they can't hire people if 10% of that pool decides they won't work there, but I'd imagine they would want to extend their pool to maybe top 30% at some point.
Amazon does a wide range of software development from robotics, backend AWS, internal software, and front end web development. So, most developers have relevant skills even if some positions are much harder to fill. That said their dev teams have many non programmers like systems administrators and testers etc so I suspect it’s closer to 2k US developers than 5k. As it looks like many of their openings are in Canada, Ireland, India, etc.
Amazon becomes their best available option, and once they work there for a year or two, improve their skills, get some experience, and get tired of dealing with hell that is working at Amazon, they get hired at all those companies they couldn't initially get into. No one says Amazon is incompetent at tech, quite the opposite. There is a lot people can learn while working there, and all those other competing tech giants know it.
I've heard of very few moves the other way around, and in every single such scenario I personally witnessed, there was a lot of very specific circumstances for the person that lead them to that point.
There isn't a shortage of tech talent looking to work at Amazon.
Many, many projects could use someone who is good at compilers. Just look at all the terrible code that processes command lines, for example :-/ Or all those miserable config file formats. Or really, any sort of text processing.
Compiler guys also tend to be good at writing fast code, for the simple reasons that compilers have to be fast, and compiler guys know what code is generated from each construct, and will pick the faster ones.
The UX designer probably work in a cushy Amazon corporate office with free snacks and drinks, but amazon warehouse roles are probably under more spartan and strict conditions. How does Amazon warehouse work conditions compare to other warehouse work conditions. That's the better comparable.
If any programmer was thrown into a construction or blue collar work environment they probably won't like the work conditions. But for cost reasons they can't extend the same benefits for people who sort packages the same as people who write code or design screens.
The best way to protest an employer is to not work for them. As UX designers who made it into Amazon they probably have other choices.
No, the best way to protest an employer is to speak out. "Not working" for a company like Amazon where there is an endless supply of people desperate for work does absolutely nothing. Remaining silent is what keeps the status quo going.
The rest of your comment reads like something a paid shill for Amazon would write.
And then this is besides the point, but Amazon doesn't give out free food and drink like Google does.
That's not why. Salaries are largely driven by supply and demand. If there are enough people willing to be employed at a low pay level there's no incentive to increase it.
Sorry but this is totally ineffectual compared to speaking out and organizing people on the job. Also quitting in protest doesn’t exactly make it easy to get the next job.
You might not believe it but Amazon does not offer free snacks or drinks (at least not in HQ)...
I guess AMZN must be feeling like they are vital infrastructure right now and won't get called on this sort of thing. And under the management of the current President the NLRB may not be able to prosecute such cases as vigorously as they have been known to do.
Whether we realize it or not we've been moving towards a neofeudal world where a large employer will effectively be the government and where individual workers will not have meaningful rights in their employment; and this will be as true of software engineers as it is of warehouse workers.
At the time it was purely out of principle, but apparently it was a good decision for my self-interest as well.
I wonder how long they can keep this stuff up before they start seriously damaging their desirability as a workplace, the way Facebook has?
I think this is going to get more popular as time goes on... I'd rather work for a company that's not abusing it's workers/the government.
The thing is, as long as you're on dat kooliad diet it's easy to look past all of Amazon's transgressions and unlawful, unethical, behavior because it's happening somewhere else so it's easy to rationalize why Amazon would act the way they did. Most employees that I worked with cared about one thing, the money, and the stock is hitting ATHs in a global pandemic.
So how long can they keep it up? Pretty damn long and I don't expect anything to change unfortunately.
PS, Remember, it isn't a faceless corporation, it's full of HN readers
I am incredibly far away from the world of SV/FAANG, so tell me, is FB really becoming a less desirable place to work? It seems to me like it's a pretty small minority of people that would refuse a $1XX,000 paycheck on grounds of being a ethically dubious snowflake in the avalanche that is Facebook.
Maybe I'm being an idealist punk for feeling this way but I'll take less pay to be able to live with myself... Especially in regards to the places that I've given a hard-no: Walmart and Facebook as these companies are actively hurting my country every day.
https://twitter.com/AMZNforClimate/status/125013592573822566...
1. get a burner phone 2. get a cheap laptop and put linux on it 3. setup a non-domestic vpn on the device 4. don't use this equipment with any accounts tied to use 5. use the burner phone via vpn in order to establish social media accounts. 6. use these social media accounts over vpn to make your statements...
In addition, you may want to stow the prepaid phone and laptop in a place that you don't own, such as a public locker, etc... and/or use it only away from home.
This often doesn't work or is much more difficult than it sounds.
Many social networks don't allow anonymity and they detect attempts to stay anonymous.
In an extreme case your account might be blocked soon after creation and you might be asked to upload a photo or ID scan.
Even then, as long as you aren't working for the social network in question, it's less of a risk... highest risk is using the devices you have signed on with your work accounts, or using your real name.
With the oncoming onslaught of unemployment, they will only get more brazen in the reduction of workers rights and baseline dignity.
I have some sympathy with your view but doesn't that end up marginalising people who stand up for things?
Bullshit. The entire history of the labor movement chooses to disagree. Employees have far more influence than customers in influencing company direction.
It is the moral and ethical responsibility of individuals enjoying cushy paychecks to ensure they don't come from creating harm to others.
What you're saying is that corporations should be able to bribe employees into accepting an unlimited amount of harm, when in many cases replacing employment and continuing one's own livelihood would be threatened by doing so.
That's horse shit and somewhere deep down, you fucking know it.
I'm I misremembering or was that story "fired for violating paid quarantine" proven to be iffy at best? I'm looking for confirmation.
Edit: Found what I think I was looking for [0]
> Here is the key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th. Over the weekened he said he is organizing a strike, so over the weekend they order him and only him into quarantine. A full 18 days after his 5 min exposure. From my reading of it, this almost certainly looks like retaliatory action due to the strike, and a company using the excuse of quarantine to cover it up. Key excerpts from a much clearer article. And yet again, why you never 100% believe a company's PR response when they're trying to cover themselves. They tell just enough truth, but use it to intentionally mislead.
> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strik....
>> According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March. Had Smalls been exposed that day, a 14-day mandatory quarantine would have made him eligible to return as soon as 25 March.
>> Smalls said Amazon did not send him home until 28 March, three weeks after the exposure.
>> “No one else was put on quarantine,” he said, even as the infected person worked alongside “associates for 10-plus hours a week”.
>> “You put me on quarantine for coming into contact with somebody, but I was around [that person] for less than five minutes,” he told Vice.
>> According to Amazon, no one else was fired. Smalls said he was considering legal action, calling it “a no-brainer”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/13/amazon-...
As much as we criticize them for what we see as poor UI and UX they have data supporting their decisions. So long as it drives more revenue they consider it positive.
The data might also settle on local maximums.
I mean consider a simple sort by rating. It's an explicitly exposed, well test feature. It may behave as designed, and may behave in a way that maximizes profits, but it does NOT behave the way a user expects it to behave nor would prefer it behave.
User experience designers should be ethically bound to do no harm to the user like doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/13/amazon-...
edit: This is mentioned half way through the article.
This is disturbing, and the only solution is for the government to step in and make it illegal to fire someone without just cause.
I believe in many European countries employers aren't allowed to fire their employees unless there is proof of underperformance. It seems that we need to adopt something similar. It's already illegal to discriminate against someone based on their race, I don't see the problem with making it illegal to fire someone over their opinions on working conditions and politics. Corporations should not be running the country.
It's however true that you can't fire without cause and that courts usually demand strong evidence for such cause. So people would be more likely to sue.
That said, I still find Amazon's behaviour totally shameful, legal or not.
Whether you agree with their stance or not, I think it's admirable that they stand up for others who are presumably lower on the employment pole, at the risk of their own jobs, especially given the current economic situation.
Putting your name, reputation, and economic security on the line -- especially in a world where anonymity is easy -- is a sign of backbone and reinforces the message that you are delivering.
The flip side to being a general union buster and hard-nosed employer advocate during "peacetime" is that you lose the moral high ground in crisis and have no where to turn to but more employee-alienating policies. I mean, let's be honest: Amazon's warehouse workers look like heroes right now. And they need stuff, that they don't need under normal circumstances. And the public, on the whole, wants to give it to them. Yet without an existing healthy relationship, the only tool in the union's box is to threaten work stoppage. And the only tool Bezos has is to fire people trying to keep a lid on the thing.
And now we've seen that it's metastasized, and he's having to fire tech workers now too. Needless to say, this isn't where Amazon management would have wanted to be.
So folks: the next time a union calls up and wants to sort out a deal, talk with them and work something out. In the current world, it's hard to see anything but good guys and bad guys. And the workers are the good guys.
But Amazon can't have that now, because the only resolution that they can see here is either victory or complete capitulation to a hostile union. And in the process their alienating their engineering class too.
Normally, tech employers don't have many hundreds of thousands of employees. You'll always be able to find anecdotes to support any narrative you want when you're looking at that big of a workforce.
>Normally tech employers don't fire people for complaining about company policies
I've worked in tech for a long time, at a lot of different companies, and consulted for many more. Tech employers fire people all the time for complaining about company policies. You just don't hear about it because...
>and it's almost always news when they do
No, it's really not. When some 20 person startup lets someone go because of a disagreement, it doesn't appear in WaPo. It does happen whenever Amazon or FB or Google are involved because those are big names. But just because you don't see it in the news when every other tech company does it, does not mean it isn't happening.
>A general sense of shared cause and cameraderie is part of the way the industry is "supposed" to work, and part of that is a culture of reasonably open discussion of this stuff.
This sounds wonderful and ideal, but I've never experienced this at any of the tech companies I've worked at, even the big name Silicon Valley ones.
>But Amazon can't have that now, because the only resolution that they can see here is either victory or complete capitulation to a hostile union.
The world isn't this black and white. I assure you from talking with my friends at Amazon that there is plenty of open discussion about the working environment, while also plenty of satisfaction and happiness with their job. And a couple of particularly outspoken people being fired hasn't changed that in the past, and I strongly doubt will change it now.
https://www.amazon.com/UNITED-BARGAIN-DIVIDED-BUMPER-STICKER...
Personally I think we should draw a clear line between these two types of actions. When we don't do that, we weaken legitimate free speech.
Just to be very clear: I am in no way agreeing with Amazon, just correcting a confusion about the applicability of the US Constitution and amendments.
In other words, you are wrong to say "there is no free speech issue; the First Amendment protects the free speech from the government, nothing else". You would be right if you inserted "constitutional" or "legal" before "free speech issue".
The real substance of the issue is found in 'what kind of repercussions do you see as acceptable for exercising free speech', to which there are, in my opinion, many valid answers.
(Genuine question; I obviously don't agree, but I'm curious as to what moral principles you're applying here.)
Government ought to be “small” (functionally and structurally limited).
Government ought to defend the natural rights of its citizens from physical force initiated by criminals and international aggressors.
A government that does not fulfill these duties is evil. The Constitution clearly prevents the government from using guns to break my free speech. Does it also require the government to use its guns to protect my free speech from criminals? Ethically, this is the government’s duty. If the government isn’t doing this, it lacks a legitimate purpose.
Private entities do not have a duty to protect man’s natural rights. But, it is immoral for them to violate a man’s natural rights. Amazon didn’t violate anyone’s natural rights by cancelling a private contract because of public comments.
> Personally I think we should draw a clear line between these two types of actions. When we don't do that, we weaken legitimate free speech.
Refers to the free speech natural right.
> You are in confusion, there is no free speech issue; the First Amendment protects the free speech from the government, nothing else.
Refers to an amendment.
The amendment protects the natural right from state aggression. However, the right can be violated in ways not “made illegal” by the amendment.
I agree. Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22873029
What is your framework for analyzing natural rights violations?
Edit: In some cases 'ought to have' is nothing more than 'want to have'.
Agreed. Describe your thought process for deciding whether someone’s natural rights have been violated.
> I see two notions of 'rights' in common usage, one (which you call a natural right) is predicated on personal liberty and the other predicated on 'ought to have'.
Group A uses the ‘ought to have’ framework to rationalize co-opting the state in their conspiracy to plunder group B.
> Both are invented concepts.
All concepts are invented. I choose to use concepts that most accurately map “non-invented” reality.
> In practice, the first results in people taking increased responsibility for their own lives, increased empowerment, increased freedom. The other concept of rights, in practice, generally has opposite effects.
I agree with this analysis, but it’s not how I arrive at the ethical imperative to protect natural rights.
From the NLRB's page defining protected concerted action[1] (emphasis mine):
"A single employee may also engage in protected concerted activity if he or she is...trying to induce group action, or seeking to prepare for group action. However, you can lose protection by saying or doing something egregiously offensive or knowingly and maliciously false, or by publicly disparaging your employer's products or services without relating your complaints to any labor controversy."
So, let's say an Amazon employee were to simply tweet "Amazon is shit. Don't buy from them." and got fired for it. Then they couldn't defend themselves by coming back and saying "Well, actually, I was talking about working conditions for Amazon's warehouse employees." Fair enough.
With that in mind, here's what allegedly got them fired:
Emily Cunningham tweeted a thread[2] that begins:
"I'm matching donations up to $500 to support my Amazon warehouse worker colleagues. "The lack of safe and sanitary working conditions" puts them and the public at risk.
It's bad ya'll...".
The thread then goes into detail on that point. It could not be more clearly about working conditions.
Maren Costa tweeted[3]:
"I am matching donations to $500 to support my Amazon warehouse colleagues and their communities, while they struggle to get consistent, sufficient protections and procedures from our employer. DM or comment for match. https://chuffed.org/project/help-amazon-warehouse-workers-ex... # via @Chuffed"
...and that's it. Again, it's very clearly about working conditions.
Amazon doesn't get to make a policy against employees criticizing the way they treat their workers. That's how protections for labor organization work.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
[2] https://twitter.com/emahlee/status/1243441985173651456
[3] https://twitter.com/marencosta/status/1243585580736237568
Here is a different view: don't expose your most vulnerable and precarious employees to a deadly virus by failing to take the necessary precautions to protect them while they keep your company running.
> Imagine framing your employer as "the hand that feeds you", as if it is generously giving you a gift by paying you your salary in exchange for your labor.
What is your perspective on this? Are you self employed, providing some sort of raw material/product? How is your food, housing, and fun paid for? Have you ever been laid off or otherwise without work? If so, where did your income come from?
I don't have any side-gigs, so 100% of my income comes from my career. I can't imagine my situation is that rare. If I stopped working or were fired, I would have to immediately find a new job, otherwise my family would become dependent on the government programs (other peoples money/taxes from their hard work) and my own savings.
Every bit of money, and everything I've bought from it, has been from my employers, from pizza delivery to robotics.
Where should we be getting our money from?
I was taking issue with the specific idiom used. "Biting the hand that feeds you" often carries with it a moral dimension, and is usually used in cases where you repay kindness or generosity with some kind of bad behavior. If your employer hires you in exchange for a compensation package, they typically do so because they calculated that your labor would provide them value above and beyond what they are paying you. It's not kindness, it's not a gift, it's not to be compared to a master feeding his/her pet dog because of love.
edit:
I'd again suggest another perspective in response to this sentence:
> Every bit of money, and everything I've bought from it, has been from my employers, from pizza delivery to robotics.
Your skills, your time and your (presumably) hard work were the source of value that you provided to your employer in exchange for money and benefits such as health insurance. I don't know your specific situation, but maybe it's possible that you could choose to provide them to a different employer, maybe for even more money.
Notably absent: an answer to these.
There must be some middle ground. I'm guessing unions would help protect such speech.
People are not pets that are thrown bread crumbs at.
Criticizing your employer when you're not in a position to actually know what's going on, goes pretty far in proving a comment is disparaging.
Further employee affinity groups span organizations. It's not uncommon to have friends in different areas of Amazon (including warehouses). So they could be hearing about conditions from their friends. Amazon employees also have access to internal company information about COVID response.
I'm not taking a stance on whether the UX designers should have been fired. Just pointing out that a UX designer employed by Amazon has more access to information about working conditions in warehouses than 'the rest of us.'