Not the main point of the article, but can I just say that's huge. That's... the same size as Google's entire full-time workforce.
Granted they're low-skill warehouse positions, not highly paid engineering jobs, but still.
The ability of a company to hire one hundred thousand people in a month is absolutely insane.
[0] https://www.nelp.org/publication/amazons-disposable-workers-...
[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-double-seasonal-hiring-...
[0]: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/benefitsoverview-us
They are shitty for a number of reasons, but that is certainly near the top of the list. Lack of agency and respect may top my personal list.
Fast food comes immediately to mind: I once got disciplinary action one summer, because I came in to work too much, and crossed over 80 hours in a two-week pay period, thus earning overtime.
Coworkers had called out, so I got called in. Did my job, then got punished and unscheduled because I worked "too much".
All so a mega-franchiser (who owns most of one particular national chain's stores across a large region) could ultimately avoid supporting (no one was scheduled more than 39.5 hours a week to avoid them becoming "full-time" and requiring benefits, scheduling wasn't handled in a timely manner, etc.) the people who do the essential work for their survival, day in and day out, keeping massive profits for themselves.
It really pisses me off, and these are just a few of the reasons it's shitty.
Your situation was shitty, in that you were left with no options but low-pay work, but the fact that the mega-franchiser stepped in to take advantage of that situation, by hiring you, didn't make your situation any more shitty.
Unequal power between two parties to a contract, where the more powerful party benefits, doesn't imply a zero-sum exploitive interaction. You're misattributing his shitty situation to the employer, when it in fact existed independently of the employment contract.
His shitty situation was that he didn't have a valuable skill to offer. He had one that was worth little, and the franchiser paid him for his skills accordingly.
How about not scheduling anyone full-time, but stopping just short to avoid supporting them?
How about not paying anyone outside of management above minimum wage?
How about not establishing regular schedules published in a timely manner?
So to reiterate: they offer low wages, and their actions are consistent with that objective.
Yet the workers all chose to work there, implying it was better than the next best option available to them. For the employees, they are better off for that employer offering the employment, than not doing so.
So my point stands. You seem to not have even addressed it, and instead made an appeal to emotion by repeatedly referencing the low pay the employer insisted on providing.
>>How about not establishing regular schedules published in a timely manner?
This is the only potentially abusive and fraudulent practice you cited, and I would support class-action litigation to punish employers who engage in it, and publicly funded advocates and watchdogs to assist low-wage workers who find themselves facing these kinds of practices.
The argument that low-pay jobs - that those working them willingly accepted - is by definition exploitation is, OTOH, an economic fallacy that misattributes the cause of low-pay and promotes regulatory restrictions on contract liberty that gravely harm society.
That's not how minimum-wage labor effectively works. The workers (many of whom have just entered the workforce, myself included at the time) apply for all the available jobs in their area and hope that at least one hires them.
At that level, the employers are in a race to the bottom, and rather than attempting to be a better choice to attract and support their labor force, their reliance on the workers' desperation means they all push the limits to see how much they can get out of workers for how little in return. It's the entire reason we even have minimum wage laws.
And they all do it. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about any given employer. I saw the same behavior, through my siblings' experience, at four different mega-franchisers.
> For the employees, they are better off for that employer offering the employment, than not doing so.
So, no. The employees aren't any better off being exploited by any given employer, when their only other choice is unemployment or identical exploitation by another employer.
The workers could work for themselves, hawking products on the sidewalk, or going door-to-door offering to do odd jobs.
The jobs being offered provide a better path forward for them, which is why they apply for them rather than being self-employed.
>>their reliance on the workers' desperation means they all push the limits to see how much they can get out of workers for how little in return.
All employers try to maximize how much they get for what they pay. The wage level makes no difference to the employers' basic objective.
But what the employer offers has to be worth more to the worker than what the worker gives up, or the worker won't work for them. There is no exception to this fact in any mutually agreed employment contract.
>>There's nothing particularly noteworthy about any given employer.
You said they're in a race to the bottom, so there must be differences between them.
It'll open up your eyes and your mind.
In many cases the new jobs require more skills, so the employers either have to train them or pay them enough to pay off student loans, so that's what they do. This is what has been happening for decades. The percentage of unskilled workers in the economy has been decreasing without a corresponding increase in unemployment.
Many such jobs are incredibly hard work, and many are far more essential to the function of our society than anything I do for a living.
I get that calling this "low skill" comes across as derogatory, I'm just not sure what to do about that. Invent a euphemism?
Of course readers will know that now "retarded" has the stigma, and phrases like "developmental disability" are used. But for a period of time, you might have heard someone saying, "don't call my child an idiot, they're just mentally retarded." It seems strange, but at the time it was a kinder thing to say.
The problem is that the words aren't really the issue: change the words all you want, they will tend to develop the same stigma. The problem is that lots of people think less of those facing developmental challenges, and when they want to be mean to an otherwise "normal" person, they will compare them to the challenged.
I don't think that's going to change any time soon. But until it does, I suppose coming up with a new euphemism every generation or so isn't too bad of a thing to help reduce some of the stigma, at least for a period of time.