Ask HN: I work for AWS. How do I encourage change for Amazon warehouse workers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I work for AWS. How do I encourage change for Amazon warehouse workers?

320 pointsawscompassion213 comments

Ideally without getting fired.

I've voiced some of my concerns to management but that hasn't gone anywhere. I know I'm not alone amongst my coworkers in feeling concerned for Fulfillment Center (FC, Amazon's term for their retail warehouses) employees. How can we in AWS organize and campaign for better working conditions for our FC teammates?

This is of course inspired by Tim Bray's recent departure from Amazon (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23065782). I'm a software engineer (surprise surprise) if it matters.

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Honestly, you have pretty little real leverage. Warehouse workers are going to have to form a union and threaten to really shut down amazon's profits, in order to defeat these profit-motivated outrages. It's always been like this. People have to self-emancipate.

To aid this you can help promote support for unionizing and other related things. But that's fairly secondary. I think using your position as an employee to call out Amazon's abuses can be a good way to direct media attention but without worker power, attention on its own doesn't actually do anything. But Amazon firing its employees has given them a lot of bad press. If it happens to you it might be a good thing politically. That does suck though, if you can't afford it be careful.

Related to all of these topics I want to plug https://www.taxamazon.net/about, which doesn't solve the issue of warehouse conditions but does help address one other externality of Amazon's relentless drive for profits at the expense of all other issues. Raising consciousness around their tax-dodging helps people realize their worker relations are terrible and vice versa, and passing this ballot initiative will do a lot of good on its own.

Edit: do get plugged in to Tech Workers’ Coalition if you aren’t. I just wanted to be sober about the challenges and opposition warehouse workers face and the necessary strategy for victory.

>Honestly, you have pretty little real leverage. Warehouse workers are going to have to form a union and threaten to really shut down amazon's profits

The way that unions fought capital in the early 20th was they went on strike and remained on strike until capital conceded to demands or they were shutdown by "detective agencies" ie strike breakers. Staying on strike cost money - food, rent for strikers. National unions like the wobblies and AFL-CIO would funnel national dues to locals. Are there even really national unions anymore? Personally I would donate money to Amazon workers striking if there were a call for it even though I wouldn't be in their hypothetical union.

Edit: lol downvotes from shareholders triggered by the word "strike"

Yeah that's absolutely important, and donations like that have been important for keeping strikes going. But unfortunately we're not at that point yet.

But we never will be because the professional/middle class is a buffer between labor and capital right? That's the beauty of divisive class politics that pits the middle class against the working class - we're discouraged from identifying with working class problems so that we don't support them in their fight.

Compared to the upper upper class we are all working class. The sooner we realise it the better.

The whole upper/middle/... arrangement is confusing the issue. IMO, we should rather be talking about the worker class and the rentier class, defined solely by the proportion of their earned vs unearned income. Basically, if you can lose a job and still pay your living expenses, then you're in the rentier class. If you have to sell your labor to pay your bills, you're a worker - even if you sell it for a lot of money.

> If you have to sell your labor to pay your bills, you're a worker - even if you sell it for a lot of money.

There are useful distinctions even between this though. What Piketty refers to as the "patrimonial middle class" has significant assets during and at the end of their life, but still needs to sell their labor to pay their bills. This distinction aligns more closely with the traditional lower/upper/middle arrangement (they'd be upper-middle class). This article[1] (unfortunately paywalled if you don't have an Economist subscription) covers it pretty well, but it's pretty well-trod ground at this point: there's a substantial chunk of the population that isn't rentier/leisure class, but often aligns with them politically, and your proposal's elision of this group means it's missing an important dynamic in class politics.

[1] https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/06/29/why-the-...

Yes it is these upper middle class that need to realise they are in fact closer to a tramp than to Trump/Bezos/Gates in terms of their finances.

Eh, I'm not so sure. Early retirement is in reach for much of this group, as long as it's accompanied by an adjustment in living standards; that's practically what defines them.

If the rentier/laborer divide is the _only_ important distinction, why is it so relatively easy for this group to skip across the line?

It isn't they could be wiped out by one piece of bad luck.

The interesting thing about capitalism is how it is driven forward by its own internal logic and motion of ever-expanding profits, which in the long run doesn't allow the middle class to comfortably exist without chipping away at their standard of living. We're slowly getting towards a vibrant class politics even in the US.

I am less optimistic than you. Early 20th was vibrant class consciousness. I don't see anything like that now. What I do see is simply the fall out from 100 years of neoliberalism.

Arguably Trump voters in many ways are very class conscious and his working class voters are well aware of their working class status. They have voted for Trump because he promised things to them that Obama and people before him failed to deliver.

I don't buy that argument. I think it's basically the elite's attempt to impose some rationality on Trump's slice of the electorate, when it's pretty clear that his popularity has visceral/emotional/anti-intellectual roots. If it was about his promises, they wouldn't vote for him again because he hasn't delivered on them. The border wall he made the centerpiece of his campaign is nowhere, and most of his other plans have failed. But his people still think he's wonderful and will turn out in droves to vote for him.

I don't think the core of what I said is about _fulfilling_ said promises -- they're obviously nonsense -- so much as Trump's deliberate marketing to the working class.

He's selling one thing, but delivering another. His first public appearance as president elect was to walk into a $$$ steak restaurant in Manhattan where he walked around letting every wealthy person in there know he was "going to lower your taxes." A couple weeks after running basically anti-semitic ads attacking the global elite and wealthy bankers and George Soros and what not.

Trump's voters are the opposite of class conscious since they fail to see (are discouraged from seeing) their commonality with other poor disenfranchised people (who happen to be black, Hispanic, etc). I also don't know Obama failed to deliver something since he inherited Bush's recession and managed to turn it around.

Obama may have "turned the recession around" but did the gap between the rich and poor get bigger or smaller at the end of it all?

One significant change since that era of unionization is that programmers can't actually shut down the business with a strike. If programmers stop working, that doesn't actually directly impact revenue—if a group of factory, warehouse, or service workers strike, then the business halts until the strike is resolved. SRE/Ops could take down revenue generation, but that starts to be something with legal liability. Laws prevent businesses from hiring new workers to break a strike, but if you sabotage the code, then my understanding is that there could be criminal charges against you.

That's not really relevant in the context of Amazon's _warehouse_ workers unionizing, but I think it's an interesting constraint for us as software developers.

>a group of factory, warehouse, or service workers strike, then the business halts until the strike is resolved

Well indeed I am suggesting a warehouse worker that we as software engineers support financially

I don’t work at AWS bit I think youre being a bit optimistic about the level of automation most services have. If there are no SREs present for a month, things will break at even the most sophisticated tech shops.

I meant this as a commentary on the strike as a tactic for tech workers generally. SREs and Ops are the teams that seem most able to effectively use a strike to disrupt revenue, to be sure. Many services, though, would be able to operate for months or longer without intervention.

Your statement that ‘Laws prevent businesses from hiring new workers to break a strike’ is not legally correct. The Mackay Doctrine (from the US Supreme Court in NLRB V Mackay) explicitly formulates the right of employers to hire replacement workers. There are some requirements on this action by employers but just wanted to get the legal facts out there.

Cheers for the correction, though I'm loathe to learn that's the state of labor law.

> Mackay Radio has been called "the worst contribution that the U.S. Supreme Court has made to the current shape of labor law in this country."

> Nearly every criticism of Mackay Radio is aimed at the Court's "duplicitous distinction" between firing and permanently replacing striking workers.

Interesting, too, that the decision apparently contracts the laws it was interpreting. This is a grim section to read[0]. Reading this, it seems like the case was approached with a predetermined result in mind, and apparently 2 of the justices declined to participate.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Mackay_Radio_%26_Tel...

Tech is a depreciating asset, if you don't have programmers adding to that asset, you will eventually no longer be a tech company.

There’s an interesting nuance to that though: I have built a lot of one-off tools for my clients that get the very occasional update, but basically continue to hum along maintenance-free. A month or two ago I finally was given a chance to shut down an Ubuntu 10.04 server because the client decided they no longer needed the tool that was running on it; the software outlived its usefulness. Could they have invested money into improving it? Maybe. Would it have been a good investment? Really hard to say.

There’s a big labour dispute going on in my city right now. 700-odd refinery workers are locked out (the employees announced a strike, the refinery locked them out to prevent unpredictable disruption), and the refinery is running on a skeleton crew of replacement workers. Because of blockades put up by the picketers, the refinery has chartered a fleet of helicopters for emergency transport. Additionally, the replacement workers are living in a camp on-site. Overall, the refinery was running at about 80% capacity, and even when factoring in the additional overhead from the camp and helicopters, their profit margins apparently went up due to the reduced labour costs of not having to pay the entire 700-person staff.

Then the demand for refined petroleum products dropped dramatically due to COVID. I haven’t heard much about what’s going on now profit-wise, but they have dropped production significantly. We’re now into month 5 of the lockout, and it’s the workers that are demanding to go back to work, not the refinery bending over backwards to try to get them back.

All in all, I guess what I’m getting at is... don’t assume you’re not replaceable just because you built the engine that makes money for your company. Any company worth its salt has an established Business Continuity Plan that addresses what to do in a whole number of disasters, and labour disruptions are in those plans.

IWW is still around, and even unionizing some shops.

> without worker power, attention on its own doesn't actually do anything

I don't think this is true. With enough bad press, it starts to make a difference both on the consumer side and the hiring side. I've turned down Amazon recruiters solely based on ethics before, and I haven't held an Amazon Prime membership in years. And I know others who avoid using Amazon unless they really have no other option.

I agree this is a real effect - to some degree. But the degree to which it causes them to reform is the level of bad press/taking shortcuts which optimizes profit. Not abusing their workers in factories, well, that's a lot of workers and a lot of money; so far they've found it more profitable to try to buy good press. How long will that continue? I'm not sure, but probably a long time. I would caution people to not rely on that given that Amazon has been known to be pretty bad for quite a while with little reform. Rather than finding some optimum on Amazon's terms, if its employees are sufficiently organized they can force their own terms, although their ability to do that does depend to some degree on public perception of it.

I'm just saying it doesn't have to be either/or. Bad press has a real, if currently small, effect. Organization could have a bigger effect but is also harder to accomplish. All avenues should be explored.

> Warehouse workers are going to have to form a union and threaten to really shut down amazon's profits, in order to defeat these profit-motivated outrages. It's always been like this. People have to self-emancipate.

I agree with this! However, it would be very nice if Amazon engineers were organized as well. I know CWA has an ongoing effort to organize tech workers. They're a pretty good union--still what I'd call a "business union," but one of the better ones that understands their power comes from being organized enough to shove the boss around a little.

https://www.code-cwa.org/

I don't buy into this "they must lift themselves up by their bootstraps" narrative. It is often an easy excuse for people complicit in a situation to avoid working towards helping the more vulnerable. There is zero reason this type of action needs to originate with warehouse workers. Do you think it would be any less effective if the tech workers at Amazon organized a strike similar to the one you are suggesting the warehouse workers execute? There are numerous reasons why those tech workers are in a better position to actually strike since they have more job security, generally have more financial security, and would likely have an easier time finding a new job if Amazon retaliated.

This is true, a solidarity strike by tech workers would absolutely make an FC action more effective and durable. However, how can striking SWE effectively bargain for other people? They don't have the same understanding of FC workers material needs. FC workers must take the lead in fighting for themselves, but other workers can ally with and assist them. SWEs beginning a solidarity strike could show FC workers that resistance is possible. It would be crucial to network with FC organizers to ensure the solidarity strike is achieving FC workers' goals.

This is why labor struggles are so difficult. The most powerful movers are the most exploited and dispossessed people, but they don't want to risk what little they have. They are the most powerful because they control the actual production of the company, without them management is helpless. At least in America, I don't want to make a more general claim as people are willing to strike over much less in other countries due to the strength of the labor movement, it's really only when people have nothing left to lose do they fight. We can talk to people in that position, we can discuss how we can support them, but ultimately it's their decision whether to fight or not.

EDIT: I'd say my advice to the OP is the most important thing you can do is to network labor organizers (meaning anyone willing to fight for each other, not just with professional unions) between SWEs and FC workers. You should talk regularly and plan how to achieve a series of goals bearing in mind that the FC workers should be in the driver's seat on most decisions. Your goal is to build worker solidarity and worker power independent of management.

If one is going to be an organizer, do so out of band, under psuedonym for organizational purposes... use a foreign registrar, and devices not tied to your personal identity logged into any AWS resources.

I would setup a site (behind registration privacy), registered with a foreign/eu registrar, and probably hosted in the EU.

Get a cheap low end/burner phone for any text/organizing. Encourage others to work from non-primary devices as much as possible. This is to minimize backlash.

Being an organizer is the single biggest risk there is here. Keeping your identity secret and working to bring people across the organization together will expose you otherwise. At this point, AWS has the resources of many governments and will be working to expose you.

This is just my $.02, but I agree... the boots on the ground have to protest for themselves. Keep the discussion on point to the actual work conditions, and less about ideology, you will lose support if you don't keep the focus and control the narrative.

Just a note on ideology: ideologies come from a systematic rationalization of the material interests of some group. If you find an ideological clash, it's because your material interests probably are in conflict with someone else's. This is an excellent reason to make sure FC workers are in the driver's seat on decisions so that their material interests are expressed forcefully.

> However, how can striking SWE effectively bargain for other people?

It seems like it should be possible, if FC workers are involved, for SWEs that have the means to go without pay for a while, and greater financial leverage to strike on behalf of FC workers who are more vulnerable, and the FC workers determine the terms. Not that organizing something like that would be easy.

> The most powerful movers are the most exploited and dispossessed people, but they don't want to risk what little they have.

By that logic, then technical folks, particularly devops people, are in a very strong role to make change. AWS is a very significant portion of Amazon's profits, and it will crumble to the ground if they mass strike just as much as Amazon's retail sector will crumble if the FC workers mass strike.

You think AWS can maintain 3+ 9s with 50%+ of their operations people striking? Look at what simply shifting to remote work has done to Github uptime over the past month: 99.6% after months of 3+ 9s. Their uptime would likely stop dropping quickly, particularly if strikes extended into weeks.

Actually, one of the guiding and most famous principles of the working class movement since the mid 19th century in Europe was/is: "That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves."

So I wouldn't just discard it as an excuse to not do anything. I'm not super well versed in the details, but I think the main point was, that only self-emancipation really frees one from foreign rule and oppression.

That does not mean, that you can't do anything, and they have do everything themselves. But you have to be aware that your view of what is best for them, might differ from their view of what is best. While I agree that a tech worker strike and such is more impactful, I would consider not just asking the typical people that frequent hacker news how to help warehouse workers, but also, you know, warehouse workers.

Edit: for another example, I might be perfectly willing to put my job on the line for such a cause. But with my actions do I endanger someone else's job who can not afford losing it? If so I should not just storm ahead without coordination.

To be clear, I am not saying the warehouse workers should not be involved. I said action doesn't have to originate with them. They deserve a seat at the bargaining table and other groups shouldn't resort to paternalism. However warehouse workers shouldn't be the only people with any responsibility to get everyone to the bargaining table and they certainly aren't the only group who can speed up that process.

I think we completely agree.

Discussion like this, just reminded me that the "left" worldwide has somehow managed to loose huge swaths or the entire support of the working class in the last decades and are now often considered ivory tower elitists.

I think it is good to remind oneself, that if you want to help, you should sit down and listen to the people you want to help, and make sure that your action can actually have tangible impact and are not just to make yourself feel better.

I posted a reply to my own comment elaborating on this a bit. I definitely agree that OP should get active and try to help this process. But I also think that expecting success for warehouse workers short of their own militant organization is a mistake and that that's the most important angle to try to help, if that makes sense.

I'm starting to reassess my comment. On some level it's true, worker organization is absolutely key and there's no way around that. But it's also important to focus more on what you (the OP) can do. I think that as an Amazon employee, you have somewhat more attention and credibility in public perception, and strategically using your position to publicly criticize them and support worker organization efforts could be fruitful. But it might get you fired. Trying to build support for unionization at work is good, but, legal or not, that will get you fired if you're caught. Getting involved with Tech Workers' Coalition is good, although their actions are limited. I think the best thing you can do is get fully involved in building the broader political, working-class movement against corporate predatory behavior, which I believe is inherent to capitalism. That is part of the purpose of the Tax Amazon campaign in Seattle. If you're here and interested in speaking about that please get in touch on social media. So, get involved with working class organization (you are a member of the working class after all) is a more nuanced answer. Sorry for the initial overemphasis on class struggle fatalism.

What you were supposed to do was not go work at Amazon, just like plenty of us won't work for Facebook, etc. Amazon being a terrible place to work isn't something new or foreign to us SWEs. Hell, every time they tried to interview me they'd tell me about how AWS is "run like a startup" and has very little do with the rest of the company. That's telling right there.

Don't let them have our engineering talent even if they offer you the moon (like Brays $1mil/yr). They should be fighting to repair their reputation to even be able to hire SWEs/etc but because people pop out of College and want to go make $120k (or people who only care about their income and not ethics) they have no problem keeping that boat full of new blood.

I cannot fathom making $1m as a SWE over 5 years while the massive majority of my company are treated like cannon fodder and it's well known throughout.. oh, everywhere. It's really easy to quit and sound like a hero in that situation. You're not a hero. You were still part of the problem that we've known about for a long time.

I've been at AWS for almost 3 years now and I don't share the negative sentiment. From what I'm seeing, in general, management tries to do the right thing. I think it's more likely that given the size of the company and the public spot light it is in, incidents that happen everywhere are given more than average attention.

Can you clarify why you see "run as a startup" as a bad thing? I'm genuinely trying to understand your perspective.

Given how a key Amazon value is being "frugal" or often times called "frupid" internally, they regularly have little resources for FTEs let alone the workers in warehouses.

I'm not here to convince you that Amazon sucks or something, I was really directing it to the thread OP who is upset that they're not helping as much as they'd like to.

The way that AWS is tossed around/described almost makes it feel like a class-gap between Amazon employees. "Oh, don't worry, you're with AWS, we pay for our employees parking and give them healthcare, you're not part of those Amazon shlubs who have had articles upon articles released about how poorly they're treated. But you're kinda cousins, so you should care about them, just don't care about them too much. We're all the Amazon family!"

For my more applied response to "run as a startup" being bad - after working in 10 startups and losing half of my lifes holidays/weekends/etc launching apps that never make money just sounds like you're going to try your hardest to work me to burn out. So, I don't really like that sentence nowadays even in non-AWS worlds, but I'm no longer in my 20s back when I let companies bleed me dry. Don't let companies do that to you, it's not worth the mental health issues that come with it. Not saying AWS is like this nowadays, but plenty of startups are.

> The way that AWS is tossed around/described almost makes it feel like a class-gap between Amazon employees. "Oh, don't worry, you're with AWS, we pay for our employees parking and give them healthcare, you're not part of those Amazon shlubs who have had articles upon articles released about how poorly they're treated."

I Google around a bit, and found this article [1] from 2017 where an Amazon VP commented that his benefit package is the same as that of warehouse workers.

> For my more applied response to "run as a startup" being bad - after working in 10 startups and losing half of my lifes holidays/weekends/etc launching apps that never make money just sounds like you're going to try your hardest to work me to burn out. So, I don't really like that sentence nowadays even in non-AWS worlds.

Thanks for sharing that. I'm not trying to convince you either, just sharing my perspective to ensure a balanced discussion. When people say "run as a startup" I think they mostly refer to the positives, i.e. having a lot of autonomy and a surprisingly low amount of politics (for the size of the company). People at AWS work hard but it's not crazy and from what I've seen it certainly doesn't rise to anywhere close to your startup experience. One particular about work at AWS is that if you're in a service team you'll be oncall for some amount of time each quarter. Operator culture is very important here. Oncall duties will vary by team, and I think workload will also be different for different teams.

In my experience (having worked at a startup myself too), I think the biggest two differences between a startup and AWS are: i) AWS actually has processes (called "mechanisms" internally) and they generally work, ii) when you're building a product, it will usually be successful. This is because the process to get to a product definition (the "working backwards" process) is extremely rigorous and rarely results in products or features that are duds.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-benefits-201...

Amazon is a shining example of the differences between the professional managerial class, and the working class. Despite those differences, they are more similar than they are different: they're both in the precarious position of needing to work to make a living, their compensation is divorced from the value they create, and their compensation is never enough to leave the working class.

Recent College grad here(January, 2020): I thought I was crazy being one of the few people that tried to stay the hell away from Amazon. I've heard so many mixed reviews about their working culture. I spent six years in college and absolutely don't want a company like Amazon to make me hate myself as a programmer. Programming is very dear to my heart and I only want to use it for good.

Congrats on graduating! I started my career during the 2008 recession. I hope things are going more smoothly for you.

My biggest advice and what I wish I'd known back then or heeded better:

Networking will be your savior during this. Find open source projects that you're passionate about and work toward contributing to them. Just help out where and when you can, even if it's just helping to moderate chats, webinars, etc. Depending on the size and organization of the project you'll meet and work with other contributors that use that project in their day-to-day lives at their companies in production. These will be your feet in the door at companies that actually use your passion-project plus you'll learn an incredible amount through osmosis.

A lot of open source projects bring in interns, GSOC, etc type of stuff. They won't expect you to hit home runs. Don't be upset if you're put on documentation duty or editing in the beginning. We all need those skills and some of us engineers get so in the weeds that we forget how to do those more soft skills.

You probably already know all this, I have no idea what compsci courses are like, I didn't have the opportunity to partake in college.

Best of luck bud.

I'm not trying to defend Amazon, but the picture many of us have is inaccurate (I own a recruitment marketing company and have recruited for and against Amazon over the past five years in many markets). Prior to COVID, Amazon was one of the best-paying warehouse jobs and was putting immense upward pressure on restaurant, retail and low-end construction job pay. In many markets, Amazon was paying warehouse workers $16-$17/hour where the prevailing wage was $12-$13. The working conditions story wasn't as good for Amazon, and most companies were competing with Amazon by on benefits, policy (i.e. no seasonal layoffs, late, sick, vacation, etc) or culture (we're family friendly, free cookout every day, etc...).

Fake news has really taken this Amazon thing and run with it, fanning the flames of false outrage. Disappointing to see.

Historically ALL corporations that have reached a certain size are likely to get media attention for good and for bad.

This goes for Standard Oil (and probably every oil company since), AT&T, IBM, microsoft, walmart, google and tesla.

I remember the story about some guy saying he had to piss in a bottle at the amazon warehouse...I believe that story, but I also believe if you take any random sample of half a million people, at least 1 person in that group will be peeing in a bottle that year. And then there’s the whistleblower who was trying to gather support when he was getting paid to be at home for 2 weeks...

Firing whistle-blowers is pretty egregious. If we can't try to fight for a better world after all this is over, what are we even doing besides just idly watching hundreds of thousands die?

It's because Bezos is political active, and pretty conservative (though he hates Trump). ...so the political forces are fanning the flames of discontent online.

I don't believe any of these anti-Amazon posts are organically appearing on the front pages of Reddit/HN/Twitter/etc...

It's all just bots.

People care because some folks put their ethics above their wallets.

Never underestimate the strength of anti-capitalist sentiment - it's a common thread in issues like this.

Even people who should know better, like Tim Bray, keep trotting out lines like this:

> So they're gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism.

If you think about it from the perspective of an ideological war against capitalism, certain facts (like people ignoring Amazon driving wages up) start to make more sense.

I'd like you to demonstrate how capitalism will solve warehouse workers' problems in this scenario.

I'd like you to demonstrate how that's relevant to my assertion of anti-capitalist bias.

(Though for what it's worth, the same way it's solved problems of poverty throughout the world: https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1528)

You can serve as a shadow union organizer, provide organization and a plan for warehouse workers. Study what the Teamsters did https://teamster.org/content/first-teamsters-building-union 1. Organize offsite meetings for influential warehouse workers, convince them to become local union reps for each warehouse 2. Those leaders recruit lower level members to join the union and pay part of their wages into a fund used to recruit more union members and hire outside leadership (lawyers, others experienced in forming unions) 3. Quickly grow your membership while building a war chest but not actually hurting operations 4. Organize a strike that actually stops the ability for more than one critical facility to ship and receive products 5. Block access to the facility for any scabs or temporary workers that the company hires 6. Be ready and willing to negotiate with management, understand what you actually want.

> 5. Block access to the facility for any scabs or temporary workers that the company hires

Everything you mentioned other than this involves withdrawing or threatening to withdraw your own labor. Which is perfectly reasonable, because you have no obligation to work for an employer, and if they're not willing to meet your expectations, you don't have to continue doing so. However, if somebody else is willing to do a job that an employer is offering, you have no right at all to prevent them from entering into an arrangement. You really just become a gang at that point.

That's not how it works. Scabs who break the line are harming workers' ability to organize and demand fair working conditions. The onus is on the scab to find employment elsewhere, because by crossing the line they're not only harming the people striking, but the workers they represent as a class, including the scab. Don't cross picket lines, and don't let people cross picket lines – you're undermining human beings fighting for humane treatment – you included.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you withdraw your labor from an employer, and can’t act as though you have some ongoing exclusive right to provide that labor. By the same logic you provided, the organizers are harming the class of all people willing to take the employment on offer. When seeking employment, you have no onus at all to first check with the class of all potential candidates for that role to determine whether they all consider the tabled offer to be fair. The only judgement you have to make is whether you do.

You're saying that creating and enforcing non-competes that not all parties are in a position to agree fairly upon is unethical?

I don't like non-competes at all, but I don't see how my comment refers to them.

The workers would be creating a non compete for their own positions, and enforcing it against amazon hiring the scabs. Their right to do so is questionable, just as normal non-competes are, but we'll see how legal judgement works out I suppose.

This is all very interesting stuff. Exciting time to be alive.

I guess in your hypothetical alternative reality where Amazon had signed such an agreement, that would be a relevant question. In this one however, it is not.

The picketers and strikers are actually helping the scabs, when the strike succeeds the scabs are free to apply for work at a higher wage. The absence of unions and their successful strike is literally the reason the wage gap is so large. Stopping access of scabs is even more critical in a low skill job such as picking items.

Using force and intimidation to coerce people into joining an organisation that gets to take part of their income, and dictate the terms of their employment is for their own benefit? How exactly is this any different from the classic protection racket? I'm not sure the people who were unemployed before a strike, and then still unemployed after it are going to buy into how beneficial this is for them. Nor am I convinced that the people who were happy with their working conditions, and were forced to take unpaid leave by the union that they did not join are going to see it that way either.

A lot of the tyranny that we have seen through our history on this planet has started off with somebody deciding that they know what's good for others better than they do for themselves, so they'd just be better off if you could make their decisions for them. The truth is that you don't get to make those decisions for other people, regardless of how important their compliance is to your own plans.

Unions are run like a representative democracy. The comparison with protection rackets is asinine.

It sounds like you have zero experience with unions.

No, that is how it works.

You can't stop people from seeking employment. Period. You don't have that right. It's crazy to me that I even have to type these words out. You think you have power by withdrawing your labor but you don't for the exact reason you're arbitrarily trying to forbid -- someone else will take your job because there are far more people willing to do it than there is demand for.

The onus is on you to find a job where your skills meet the price you're willing to take. Others will do the same, even if it means sidestepping you yelling across the street from the warehouse.

You are not wrong, but, given the low skill of warehouse workers there is always someone to take the job. If you unionize without incentivizing new workers to stop applying your effort will be wasted, especially with a company the size of amazon. Stopping scabs is literally the lynch pin of the plan. We absolutely have the right to picket and block the entrances, it's the entire point.

If your plan to improve your own working conditions requires you to obstruct others from seeking employment that they’d be happy to have, then you have a bad plan, and you don’t have any moral high ground either. Anybody at any level in any company has an incentive to deny others the right to compete with them. This doesn’t make you a hero to the laborers. You do have a right to picket, you have no right at all to obstruct others in their own search for employment, or in accessing their place of work. Collective bargaining gives you the ability to voluntarily combine your bargaining power. It does not give you any right at all to involuntarily strip others of their own.

If you want to know why employees themselves might be anti-union, and get confused as to why anybody would want something that you so clearly see as being against their own interests, this is why. If you don't like the union, it's not as simple as "don't join the union". Because as you demonstrate here, any union organiser with any ambition is going to make their first priority after forming the union to be pushing out non-union members, and restricting their ability to seek employment outside the CBA, by any and all means available (even regardless of legality).

> Block access to the facility

They're going to have to distance themselves from mafia thug tactics if they ever want to clear their name.

really hope nothing about this can be tied back to you at AWS.

If you want to help, build a one page site giving the FC people all the information they need to get the ball rolling at their levels.

I think at your level, the only thing that will catch attention is a principled stand i.e. resigning and in your exit interviews make it clear why you are resigning. Tim was the start, if tons of colleagues follow him out the door, it will be noticed, which means you need to find like minded people and all resign together.

> find like minded people

This is also known as organizing.

Organizing and then mass resigning has got to be the least efficient use of the potential organizing represents.

Organize and join a union that's already working with FC. This gives you a chance to hear, directly, what outcomes they desire, and advocate for it.

Software workers are notoriously reluctant to organize. They figure "hey, I'm well paid already, what is organizing going to get me?"

Let this situation serve as an answer to that question. Good luck.

Speaking solely and exclusively for myself, I've been skeptical of every organization attempt I've encountered in software because they all seem misguided. Too many talk about gaining political influence to push (insert unrelated policy goal here). A deeply disturbing number seek to create some kind of guild that can enforce (insert arbitrary personal moral code here) on all its members and render unemployable anyone who crosses it.

I do not find those attractive prospects.

I've yet to personally encounter a clear-eyed would-be SWE-union-organizer who is interested in sticking to nuts and bolts. "What's in it for me?" isn't a selfish question to be brushed off, it's the only question that matters.

That might be true... for you.

For Tim Bray, and our anonymous AWS poster, "What's in it for us?" is, clearly, also a salient question.

It's true that ultimately "What's in it for me" is the only question which really moves the needle. Here, the answer is "an opportunity to raise issues with management and not get brushed off".

Today the issue is the treatment of FC workers. There's no way that this is the last issue that will ever arise.

I've found that appeals to solidarity, by themselves, rarely move the needle for enough individuals to make a large-scale difference. Your experience may differ.

Union-to-union solidarity might perhaps be a different question - organizations reason differently than individuals. Of course, this requires that both organizations already exist.

So, again, what's in it for me? The chance to "raise issues" doesn't sound like something I would want to stick my neck out for. The chance to have someone lecture me about the importance of solidarity doesn't sound appealing... for me.

In software, every organization attempt I've seen seems to be about "fair pay" meaning same pay for same job, arbitrary promotion/demotions, working extra hours with no compensation and job security (i.e. protecting people based on seniority from layoffs). Most of the time, the first part of the deal, moving from salary to an hourly wage, is a showstopper.

Become a Wobbly or look at other alternatives:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Workers_Coalition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Workers_of_Amer...

I know that the Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) has done some significant organizing against Amazon, in the form of protests/drawing media attention, and in deeper/less visible aspects that more directly work towards warehouse worker protections. Definitely a good group to reach out to if this is a cause that's important to you.

Disclosure: I work at Amazon, for AWS, as a VP / Distinguished Engineer.

Even though you work at AWS, there are ways to get familiar with how fulfillment centers work, and what the working conditions are like by doing the various jobs in a two day on-site program called C2FC. It's been nearly 9 years since I last did this, and I find myself wanting to do it again. It used to be compulsory training for all L7+ employees at the company, but this has been relaxed as we have grown larger, so some people aren't aware that the program exists. I believe that it is open to all full time employees, though they are currently not holding sessions (as you can imagine COVID-19 makes this impractical).

Getting connected with the right owners can sometimes be a challenge at a place like Amazon. As you're in an engineering role, the Principal Engineering Community is a resource can connect you to other engineers inside the company that are working, hands on, on challenging problems that include how we build safe working environments for FC associates. The SDEs in the operations organization are customer obsessed, and those customers include FC associates who use the tools and technology to perform their daily work. You can consider transferring to work directly on technology that FC associates use, and directly with the associates who use them as your customer.

Raising concerns internally to the right owner, in good faith, has always been welcome in my experience at Amazon. If you aren't directly in an organization that is working on solutions, progress might not be visible to you. There are challenges where we all are not satisfied with the speed in which we are able to address them. But that does not mean that there aren't coworkers working earnestly in doing so.

If you would like to reach directly out to me, you can via email or Chime. My login is "msw". I try to keep an open door policy, as much as my schedule allows, and practice discretion in how I try to address concerns. However, I cannot promise to keep every conversation strictly confidential, as I am obligated to report probable violations of the Amazon Code of Conduct and Ethics [1] in my position (including any discrimination, harassment, or retaliation of any reports of misconduct or concerns that are made in good faith by an employee).

[1] https://ir.aboutamazon.com/corporate-governance/documents-an...

> However, I cannot promise to keep every conversation strictly confidential, as I am obligated to report probable violations of the Amazon Code of Conduct and Ethics [1] in my position (including any discrimination, harassment, or retaliation of any reports of misconduct or concerns that are made in good faith by an employee).

narc spotted

I think you have it backwards.

[edit] For clarity: I generally understand employee rights and protections, at least where I live, and I consider it part of my responsibility to communicate about them in concrete, factual ways, and to try to ensure that they are upheld.

> It's been nearly 9 years since I last did this [...]. It used to be compulsory training for all L7+

At least you are being honest you know nothing to the issue, as most engineers at Amazon.

> engineers inside the company that are working, hands on, on challenging problems that include how we build safe working environments for FC associates.

Have you thought FC associates may have an opinion on how their problems are to be solved?

> FC associates who use the tools and technology to perform their daily work

This is not a technological problem: this is addressing fears people have for their health (no matter what you think about those fears), with concrete and simple actions that are mostly common sense (social distancing everywhere in the premises and protective gear). This failed PR speech clearly shows how far you and Amazon are to understand the issue.

> At least you are being honest you know nothing to the issue, as most engineers at Amazon.

It is, indeed, a common fallacy that technologists think that everything can be solved with a technical solution. The challenges here are much more systemic. From my privileged position I cannot truly understand all of the challenges faced by people who work warehouse jobs. Just doing their job for a few days in an education program is not a true simulation of their existence. You have to listen, and be emphatic, and try your best to help. And recognize when you're not going to engineer a solution to all of the problems of the world. For me, personally, it weighs on me.

Maybe I was more aggressive than I intended. I too, would want to do more on a number of issues.

Way back in 2015 there was an article in the New York Times [1][2] that included a quote from a former long time employee, "Amazon is where overachievers go to feel bad about themselves." While I personally didn't see many of the things covered in that piece, this part of the article resonated with me.

We do bold things, tackle really hard challenges, and also have intrinsic aspects of the business that involve managing risk of human life. As engineers I think we have a professional responsibility to be robust in how we solve problems, and also how we build safe systems. It is a huge responsibility, and one that I, and the people around me, take EXTREMELY seriously. From an outcomes perspective, is is healthy to never be satisfied with how well we are doing (and we, generally, aren't). From a mental health perspective, we also have a responsibility to be mindful of those impacts for those who build the systems, and those who run these businesses.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10065243

As already repeated here, unionize or find someone with the leadership capable of leading one. As an individual you may not have much power, but a group of AWS engineers collectively unionizing and protesting within the company is a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Union organizer Jane McAlevey recently did some webinars.

https://janemcalevey.com/speaking-engagement/organizing-for-...

https://janemcalevey.com

If you find recordings, or future events, please share.

My intro to McAlevey was this interview:

A master class in organizing https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/3/17/21182149/jane-mcaleve...

I did the Camp Wellstone general purpose organizer training ages ago. It was superior. https://www.wellstone.org

Meta:

The book The Logic of Collective Action transformed my thinking about unions, orgs, work, etc.

TL;DR: What to do about defectors, a la game theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

Wish I'd read this book ages ago.

I think the only way to change Amazon's behavior is to hit them where it hurts: their bottom line. Right now these practices continue to be profitable - there are no consequences - and even among other giant corporations, Amazon stands out as worshipping profits at all other costs. I'm confident that no amount of internal advocation/culture-shifting will change that. The incentives have to be realigned.

So what to do in your position?

You could quit and encourage others to do so. However, a lot of people would have to quit over this issue for it to start registering on management's radar, so that might not be very effective.

The other major option I think is whistleblowing/bringing attention to the issue/garnering bad press for the company. This is what Tim Bray did, but there are other ways of going about it. You could organize a protest along with your coworkers, for example. However, there's probably nothing you can do that wouldn't expose you to risk. And Amazon has shown how it deals with dissenters.

What I would do personally is start looking for another job, and once I have a contract signed, then do something bridge-burning like organizing a protest or writing a blog post or whatever.

> You could quit and encourage others to do so. However, a lot of people would have to quit over this issue for it to start registering on management's radar, so that might not be very effective.

A few months ago I was invited to an AWS recruiting event. For kicks, I accepted and went to listen to their spiel. There were quite a lot of people there. I'd say that for every software engineer at Amazon who quits in protest, there are 100x that waiting to take their old job. And with the market downturn we're experiencing right now, it'll only get worse. We have less leverage now than we've had in years.

Yes, there are lots of people out there who don't care remotely about the greater good. Maybe even more than there are people who do care.

But there's also a defeatist phenomenon - a Prisoners' Dilemma sort of thing - where people who do care, and could make a small difference at relatively small personal sacrifice, don't do so because their individual drop in the bucket won't matter on its own. I think there are lots of people who find themselves in that mindset, and I think if they all decided to take that extra step then a very real difference could be made. So my personal rule is to always take that extra step when I can afford to, no matter whether it will make a difference on its own, because I think of the other thousand people who might find themselves in the exact same situation, and how if we all took that approach it would start to matter.

So for me: I could afford to turn down an Amazon recruiter on principle, so I did. And I told them why. Maybe I could've made more money, but I don't really need more money, so it wasn't a huge sacrifice. Now, each person's circumstances are different, and the economy right now raises the stakes across the board. If you can't find a job, I don't blame you for taking (or keeping) one at Amazon. But if you don't really need to, consider taking a stand, and maybe the next person will too.

I have thus far managed to turn down Amazon every time one of their recruiters comes calling, but I won't lie, it probably has more to do with their reputed office culture and their views of side projects than the plight of their warehouse workers. I just don't know enough about the warehouse conditions to have a particularly informed (and therefore strong) opinion.

Maybe so, but recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding new employees is expensive. If turnover at AWS suddenly spiked it would inflict some pain on the company.

Yeah there are always people applying, but institutional knowledge would suffer, hr costs would rise, and they may have to spend significant time finding the right person for the job. Especially if more people avoid AWS because of the culture.

Also whistleblowing generally means you have some sort of new information to share.

“Amazon’s warehouse conditions are slightly worse than industry average, says software developer who has never been to a warehouse” is hardly going to hit the news!

Plus the way Amazon is structured, the fulfilment division will be almost entirely separate from AWS. I doubt you leaving will even get mentioned to someone who has influence over FC working conditions.

Why not create a mobile app to allow all amazon workers to communicate and organize anonymously.

Could create an amazon-whistleblower subreddit, where people can post and shame managers on reddit, though might break the doxxing rules of reddit. So maybe create your own platform and create subs for different groups w/in amazon.

I'd do it all anonymously or get someone else to do it for you in their name who has no connections to you...

I'm actually wanting to create a platform like this...if I had time/money to do so. Think something like talkyard closer to reddit though w/ nested sub reddits... so you could have like a reddit for Farm Animals and under it Farm Animals > Goats, Farm Animals > Cows, and Farm Animals would show all posts from Farm Animals, Goats, and Cows..and even Goats > Baby Goats.

The goal is to use it for managing unions actually, allowing thought on issues of governance, question/answers, suggestions, and other 'types' of content blocks but I'm one dev, and not the best on frontend tech, though I'm full-stack/vue I always get caught up w/ the minute details.

>Why not create a mobile app to allow all amazon workers to communicate and organize anonymously.

Isn't it ironic that the internet, which should've been a boon to labor organization, has been quite the opposite.

This is something I'm actually working on at the moment (website rather than app). I agree that tech alone isn't going to solve this issue, but that's not the same as saying tech doesn't have a role or isn't a prerequisite

This situation is not a technology problem.

Technology merely facilitates what people want to have in the first place such as in the Arab Spring situation. Unfortunately, most of the anger and violence in the US to incite change is likely to come from our right rather than our left.

Don’t host it on AWS, though.

> where people can post and shame managers on reddit

How will this help at all?

I'm inclined to say that you're better off finding ways to organize outside of the context of work. Big corporations aren't going to change until there's an organized worker's movement in the US that can pressure the government to pass laws. Pressuring a single corporation to (appear to) change their policies is a losing game. You don't have to be as ambitious as trying to affect national politics, but maybe get involved in political activism in your city.

Agree that organization is probably the biggest impact.

Perhaps start by anonymously raising awareness and rallying fellow Amazon employees via public blogs, social etc.

Talking with people 1:1 in areas safe from management overhearing is much more effective than online awareness raising. For the most part, politics happens in person. You don't sign up to fight for someone based on a flyer. Try to get offsite if you can.

Totally fair point, but I assumed this would break the constraint of remaining anonymous, and a meeting with the wrong person could start some unwanted chatter or even a report up the chain.

Plus, in person organizing is a lot trickier during a pandemic!

I disagree with this. Your 9–5 spent powering the machine that mistreats these workers probably vastly outweighs whatever wins you're able to eke out on nights and weekends. See also "Ethics can't be a side hustle" [0]

[0] https://deardesignstudent.com/ethics-cant-be-a-side-hustle-b...

I suspect that if 1,000,000 people across the country decided tomorrow to refuse to work for an unethical company, the benefit would be pretty marginal. They would just find someone else. But if 1,000,000 people got involved in political activism, even if only on nights and weekends, I think that it could really change the country.

When you're refusing to work for an unethical company, you're playing a very different game than when you get involved in political activism. You need a very high percentage (>10% of an industry?) of people to commit to refusing to work for an unethical company for it to make a difference. On the other hand, a very small number of people engaging in political activism can change the consciousness of the entire country very quickly. Think of the way that a few people hanging out in Zuccotti Park changed the way that we talk about wealth in America. Nobody knew what the "99%" was before that.

As an AWS employee I doubt there's a ton you can do to influence Amazon's physical product side. What you could do is try to influence AWS to stop being the backbone for ICE and DHS's extremely cruel deportation policies. Since I went to an AWS Summit in NYC and walked through protesters shouting "Cut ties with ICE"[1] I've done my best to divest myself from AWS solutions, though it's slow going. Get AWS more employees to stand up to AWS over ICE and DHS.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/12/no-tech-i...

Do you refuse to support all businesses that sell to DHS abd CBP?

Right because Azure or [shitty tech contractor co owned by Senator’s favorite donor] won’t eagerly step up to fill that void. Maybe pg should do a “submarine” style essay on how politics works... (hint: follow the money.)

Unionize! Anyone can join/form a union, and I think in the US it's illegal to fire you because you are involved in a union.

Depends on the state, some states are humorously called "Right to Work" states. Washington state where Amazon is headquartered would be a good place to start a union that includes workers from across the workforce. Pilots and Flight Attendants should barter together against the airline, right?

Right to work means employees can't be forced to join a union. It is federally illegal to fire someone for unionizing. https://www.ueunion.org/org_rights.html

What's wrong with Right to Work? I shouldn't be forced to join a cartel to sell my labour on the market.

I think I made a mistake in my assessment of what "Right to Work" means, but I have noticed at least in Colorado that unionization is actively discouraged and a lot of corporate propaganda indoctrinates workers into believing (via video training and paid actors) that unions are bad and to be avoided. I find this a dark pattern and shady practice, it may not have anything to do with "Right to Work," but I think that they hold hands to some degree.

i think what Tim Bray did was best. As an engineer there you are a resource that is enabling this machine. The best way to stop the machine and get noticed is to stop output.

Until AWS realizes their refusal to take action will erode both their bottom line and their talent pool, nothing will change.

change needs leaders!

Amazon is not cruel because of evil in someone's heart that manifests itself in the form of intentionally creating harsh workplace conditions. It is a situation arising out of the dilemma of profits vs employee welfare in the context of difficult circumstances.

Most folks here will probably suggest some kind of antagonistic approach like unionizing, etc. but I think it is a better approach to try and figure out a profitable way to have employee welfare in these circumstances.

You can assign some monetary figure to the current situation by factoring the PR, the escalating tension and perhaps an inevitable revolt. See if that money can be spent in a way that can create a long-lasting operations improvement that makes the employees' jobs easier and adds layers of operational efficiency or redundancy.

To do that you'd have to dive deep into the specifics of the situation and understand the motivations of all the competing interests at play, with the goal of coming up with a solution that makes everyone a little happier. I saw a few comments here that talked about going and volunteering at the warehouse to understand things better. That would be a great start.

Unionizing is only antagonistic if you think management really does want to screw over workers. In a healthy workplace, the union absolutely wants the business to succeed and profit, so that the workers can also benefit. Unions are a way of representing one of the competing interests that you identify.

This is often (though not always) true for single-company unions, but not for unions made up of employees at multiple, competing companies. The game theory gets complicated when you're using one negotiation as leverage or signalling for your next negotiation at a competing firm.

Taking care of employees needs to start with the business continuity planning department [1]. Usually either in Operations or Finance. Find them and talk to them. Ideally they should already be doing it. Disruptions to fulfillment due to outbreaks and mass sickness should a priority for them. And Amazon of all orgs has the ability to supply it's workers with PPE (they're already reserving high-quality PPE on their site for medical and essential workers).

Worst case scenario is they've decided it's cheaper to risk an outbreak in their fulfillment centers and just fire the sick employees and hire replacements from among the ~30million newly jobless, even accounting for the expense of resulting lawsuits. If that's the case, not much you can do besides quit or put together a class action lawsuit (or join one of the existing ones).

But if that's not the case, then maybe you'll learn something useful from them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_continuity_planning

Attempting to negotiate with Ops or Finance at this stage is doomed. They have made their position clear; it is time to counteroffer.

A union is what you want here, that can credibly threaten real pain. Depending on how that needs to be communicated, after the people with the purse strings take you seriously, then you sit down to talk.

A counter offer is negotiating.

What you can get done in large orgs depends fully on your network. Without a network you don't have influence.

All the people with influence in the org can be ranked in importance by how large their networks are, and how strong their links with others are within those networks.

So start building a network or find someone who does it well and help them. The kind of people who can pull stuff off are influential in one large group or have a connect with many small group. So find them or learn how to be them. It takes __time__ and lot of __work__.

People like to believe there is some quick shortcut to gaining and exerting influence. Understandable because these days networks can spontaneously emerge with just a single post or pic or tweet going viral. But these spontaneous forming networks are ephemeral. They can loose their structure and integrity as quickly as they gain them. The powers that be know this and just have to buy time till it happens.

So there are no shortcuts. Problems like the one you want to solve will keep showing up. This is not the first time or last time you are going to encounter this stuff. But if you want to influence outcomes, you have to do the work of building your network.

Just like building skills, connections, resources to fix software issues. If you haven't built those up over time you can't just show up and say I just wish I could do something about this bug.

And last point, as you build up influence pick small bugs you know you and your group can fix first. Prove to yourself and the group you can get it done. Only then pick more complex bugs.

People who pick the complex stuff first get stuck in a trap. With complex stuff there is always someone else to blame, and that takes focus away from whether you and your group have built up enough skill to be working on the bug in the first place.

I assume you're in the US? If you were in Europe (e.g. France or Germany) I would recommend to join a worker union, as they have larger leverage against companies and can (often) protect you against direct retaliation (though I've heard that union members will be "shadowbanned" from rising too high in most organizations).

Here in Germany Amazon fights vigorously against further unionization in its warehouses, I think that's a good indication that they're actually concerned about the union and see them as a threat (which is good).

I'm not very familiar with the union situation in the US but from my limited knowledge it seems they are less strong there, which really is a shame. Maybe you can donate some money to one though and support them so they can be more effective in their fight? Here in Europe most unions are not very tech-savvy so they are really happy to get help from people that are good with technology. Good luck!

You want to do the right thing, and that’s commendable, but you have to recognize that you may not have enough information, particularly as a virtual outsider, to force your own management decisions in this case. It may seem like Amazon is being greedy here, but they creating many jobs that otherwise wouldn’t exist for people who live on the margins of the economy. And by driving down costs, they’re driving down prices. That may not matter too much for you, but it matters a lot to most people.

Look, there could be adverse effect from what you’re trying to do. The going narrative is that Amazon is evil and is just abusing it’s workforce. I doubt work is great in a FC, but there are plenty of worse jobs out there that don’t get as much attention. And just imagine what it’s like working in most other parts in the work. For many people around there world, a FC job would be a dream.

I don't think the claim is that Amazon is evil, or that the alternative to permitting bad practices is Amazon laying people off.

The idea is to make things better. Labor laws, union efforts, and employer initiatives have proven again and again that this is a positive sum game.

Put another way: Amazon's ability to provide jobs is negatively impacted in only a very small way by fixing bad practices. They just need to be incentivized to do that.

(Probably a dangerous idea and don't suggest you actually do this, but if I was to put on my black hat...)

I think the most impactful thing you can do is try to harm productivity by wasting engineering time and resources.

Anonymously post a manifesto about how AWS employees are organizing to maliciously waste time, introduce bugs into the AWS codebase and otherwise cause downtime and degradation of services because of FC issues. Bring it to as many managers as would be inconspicuous saying, "Hey, it looks like some coworkers are trying to damage the business and waste time because of FC issues, thought this should be on your radar." - begin sowing distrust. Use your inside knowledge to make the threat appear credible, but coming from a different team. Say they are planning to:

Report bugs introduced by your most talented coworkers as potential acts of malicious sabotage or cybersecurity threats. Report and escalate every minor security policy violation you see to the highest level possible - over-applying policies in places where there is ambiguity but it is not technically necessary. Ignore the errors of and speak highly of coworkers that are ineffective and/or make many errors. Start pedantic-but-seemingly-reasonable arguments in code reviews. Accuse other coworkers raising valid concerns of being pedantic, unreasonable, impractical, yagni, yak shaving etc. Try to get people to hold unnecessary meetings on issues that don't require one - ideally where you don't have to attend.

You don't have to actually do any of these things, just act concerned and warn coworkers and managers to keep an eye out for these malicious behaviors. If you could convince management that 2% of their AWS workforce was attempting to engage in these behaviors, it would create a culture of distrust that would waste huge amounts of resources tracking down false leads and dealing with unfounded accusations - and the existence of the meme in the culture would likely inspire some jaded engineers to actually engage in some of these behaviors without direct coordination.

This all seems like fraud. IANAL but this is potentially criminal activity.

Of course, I'd never suggest they'd actually do this - this is all just speculative fiction.

I think it could be effective though - employee wouldn't have to actually engage in any of these behaviors (besides spreading the meme), and it would sow distrust and make others suspicious that mistakes may be malice.

This is basically the cloud equivalent of calling in bomb threats.

I would counsel against both.

I think equating this with violence is superlative, but certainly has some equivalency to industrial sabotage.

So more like cloud-based extortion?

It is commendable you want to make a change in the world.

Unless you are essentially famous though, I’m not sure that as a regular Amazon employee you carry much more weight than someone campaigning directly in FC, or someone external campaigning for better worker relations and employee rights.

In fact, because of who you work for, it’s going to be much harder and messier than most for you to objectively campaign on this issue. Not only could you get fired, you could lose any chance of a good reference and generate quite a lot of ill will with folk you’ll encounter in your career later on.

In all honesty you might find it better to put your energy into another issue. You can have just as much impact without compromising your current working relationship, and without being accused of double standards: biting the hand that feeds you.

Unionise.

This. Unionise. Work with unions that organize warehouse workers. Coordinate a strike across all Amazon business areas.

Unless you can directly band co-workers together and voice your position collectively do nothing and keep your head down. It's not worth losing your job over.

I know it sounds cynical but the only way you can get managerial attention is if it hurts workers productivity (like the Google walkout two years ago) or if you can hurt their bottom line. If you go at it alone you'll barely get the right kind of awareness. See what happened to James Damore when he went against the machine solo. Irrespective of your views on his stance his exit gives a flavour of how things could go.

What you could do anonymously is help workers organise their protests, help them circumvent AMZN s in-built policies that prevent this.

I want you to succeed but at the same time needlessly falling on your sword helps noone.

Vote out republicans. Not just the president but every Midterm, local election. Encourage others to mobilize to elect a blue Senator.

Ideally a Clinton, so we can get PNTR with China back?

Go work at the warehouse after your day job? So you can see what the problems are from your perspective as an engineer ...

HomeDepot makes all their developers do this at least once a year, from what I've heard. I've always liked this idea (although I do wonder how effective it is?).

HD app has in-store GPS for finding stuff so it seems to be working.

Should be how every company works ... you will be surprised at what you will learn just walking around. It does take some initiative from the person -- do you just want a job or do you want to be the BEST in your job

This is a pretty good idea. I'd be surprised if there isn't already an engineering / SW team doing this to create better tools / conditions. Maybe there's a way to pull request your ideas into this effort (presuming an effort exists)?

There is an internal program at Amazon to do this. You can go work in an FC for a few days to see what it’s like.

I’d recommend it to all Amazon employees.

Hey awscompassion, I am not surprised that you tried expressing concerns with internal management and were ignored... the only things that have gotten movement from Amazon (on climate change, warehouse worker safety) were actions taken by employees that did not follow Amazon's verified™ feedback mechanisms. A few people have been retaliated against, but thousands more have taken action and have so far been safe in their numbers.

In Tim's Blog post he talks about Amazon Employees for Climate Justice as an organization of corporate Amazon workers he supports. You should reach out to them, either DM them on twitter (https://twitter.com/AMZNforClimate) or their gmail (amazonemployeesclimatejustice@gmail.com).

It's true, 2 of their leaders were fired by Amazon which was a big reason Tim quit AWS. The firings might scare you. If it does, Amazon is getting exactly what it wants ... scaring away other employees who care about other humans by only having to fire two vocal dissidents. If you want change to happen, if you REALLY, ACTUALLY feel compassion and want change, you can't allow yourself to be intimidated and bullied by anti-labor forces within Amazon.

But besides the 2 members who were fired, there are many more sympathizers who are organizing for both warehouse worker safety and climate action who have not been fired. There are lots of things you can do through AECJ with varying levels of power/risk/exposure, including actions that would be very low-risk for retaliation by Amazon. Get in touch with them and make a difference!

It's like chess, they won't move where you want them to move, until you force them to move there. How do you force them to move?

Strikes are a historical way of doing it. It forces them to move, but only after exhausting all other possibilities. Study the early history of the creation of unions in the US. You might be surprised to discover it was extremely violent, typically coming from the corporations. This violence typically occurred after the union was successfully formed and in operation.

The first trick with unionizing a non union company, because the US political parties have turned their back on them for the last 50 or so years, is undetected coordination. Companies will discover union leaders and remove them from the equation. Some companies will sense a union forming and close the entire operation and move it to a new location with new employees. They will also add plants posing as workers but really reporting to management. Also, the threat of moving the factory overseas is an overpowering factor for the company.

The end goal is strike, or at least show you have the ability to strike. That is the move that forces the company to at least think about moving where you want them to. To strike, you need to coordinate and early on, it needs to be undetected.

> Companies will discover union leaders and remove them from the equation.

Could someone from outside the organization take the lead?

You could certainly try it, but you'd have to be able to figure out and filter who the management plants were, otherwise your site/app could be used by management to actually discover workers who are trying to unionize.

>the threat of moving the factory overseas is an overpowering factor for the company.

Probably not for fulfillment and distribution

> Also, the threat of moving the factory overseas is an overpowering factor for the company.

Fortunately, FC centers are required by their function to be located near consumers so Amazon has extremely limited flexibility here.

A really valuable starting point for this question of organizing is to talk to someone who is a labor expert. They can share strategies, ramifications, safety protocols, etc. and can think with you about how this applies to your situation. Organizations like Tech Workers Coalition (TWC), Boston Tech Workers for Justice (BTWJ) and the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) can all be valuable groups to reach out to for this support.

What if you started collecting data to show your bosses that Amazon’s treatment of FC workers is starting to impact the AWS business? For example, I’ve long since stopped ordering from Amazon because of the way they treat warehouse workers but I still used AWS. A few weeks ago I decided to quit AWS, too. Not because of any issue with AWS but because I don’t want to give any money to Amazon.

Switching platforms is a bit like switching cellphone providers or a bank - the customers are “sticky” and will put up with a lot because the transition is a giant pain in the ass. I’m just one small player but I’m sure there are others. And the longer Amazon fights against treating their employees like humans the more collateral damage there will be to all of the Amazon brands.

I wish it were as easy as appealing to management to do the “right thing” but sometimes it helps to show people there’s something in it for them, too. If AWS management knows their otherwise well-run division is taking collateral damage because of bad warehouse PR they might be moved to lend their voices to the cause as well. Make the warehouse worker problems AWS management problems, so to speak.

I imagine it's next to impossible for a rank-and-file to get access to sensitive business data like that. And anything from outside the org is anecdata or will be treated so by management.

One option is to get closer to the problem.

Fulfillment Tech org just threw away their OP2 (Operational plan) for the year and have a huge number of new priorities to help FC associates in light of the covid situation.

I really respect Tim Bray and the step he's taken. But unless you're willing to take that kind of step, no one in the upper echelon will give a care what you do or say. And even then, probably only if you're an L8 or higher.

Talk to your colleagues.

There are internal mailing-lists for employees who care about this, as well as environmental issues. The lists also have plenty of people who are only there to sneer and astroturf; being on the list is unlikely to get you into trouble.

A much less useful but worthwhile activity is participating in Amazon shareholder meetings and voting on resolutions, and perhaps more importantly, encouraging your colleagues to do the same.

> Talk to your colleagues.

Along with this, know your rights:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_concerted_activity

Know that the actual laws relating to this concept depend entirely on what US state you work in.

Also, a reference found via a reddit post after looking further into this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Law_for_the_Rank_and_Fil...

https://www.reddit.com/r/IWW/comments/f5uw7d/concerted_activ...

> There are internal mailing-lists for employees who care about this, as well as environmental issues. The lists also have plenty of people who are only there to sneer and astroturf; being on the list is unlikely to get you into trouble.

Weren’t they going after people who posted on such lists, as well as closing the lists down?

yeah, I feel like I saw something on vox or vice about that.

They are enforcing moderation for large mailing lists which must be performed by moderately senior people (L6+). They've also removed emails and calendar invites from people's exchange accounts for the recent organizing events.

I don't think leaving Amazon is the answer. As an outsider, it is encouraging to know there are insiders who want change. Amazon is not going anywhere. It will continue to be part of our society. If all the good employees like you leave, they will be replaced with soulless employees and could make the problem worse. Do your job and push for change as much as you can without getting fired.

Knowledge isn't just power anymore, learning how to use knowledge is power.

Amazon appears to be restricting the less economically privileged class of their society from having access to knowledge to delay, defer and downplay changes. It's reminiscent of other larger societies that have done the same.

If factory workers don't have access to the knowledge and support that you do, they can't use it. Put your higher salary into indirect/external workforce education targeting warehouse workers. Put together information, pay for some ads, target Amazon employees, you and others can likely reach their phones.

If Costco can pay and treat their people well.. why not anyone else.

I've certainly curtailed my Amazon spend, and other technology leaders I know have done so personally too over the past year. Covid has accelerated other retailers opening up their online services and I look forward to seeing what that brings.

Prepare to be fired.

By this I mean, build yourself a safety net. Save money explicitly for a period of unemployment. Build relationships that could turn into new jobs. Document your work well to protect against claims of poor performance. Depending on how serious you are, reach out discretely to a lawyer.

There is a dangerous narrative that reformers are brave soldiers throwing themselves on hand-grenades. This is not how reform comes about. Careful planning, preparation and timing all go into making effective change.

The tipping points often do require sacrifice but not impulsive sacrifice.

The names and acts we remember are often just one of numerous similar acts by people who have practiced and prepared.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/oct/04/9

by not working for amazon

Work with Amazon Robotics to automate them out of a job. It's only a matter of time anyway.

Have we considered that maybe we should take a personal responsibility in improving other people’s lives, rather than a corporate one?

Why not find a factory worker with a family and offer him or her a portion of your salary?

You have two options: what Tim Bray did, or organize so that you have more leverage. The second way is probably more effective (there are plenty of developers willing to take over your comfy job at AWS who don't care about anyone but themselves and having a cushy job, so unless a lot of devs quit they're not likely to care), but it's also the harder and longer way. The Communication Workers of America do a great union organizers training, try reaching out to them.

Try and get Amazon workers to unionize.

That might bring something.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but HN may not be the best place to get advice. HN is its own bubble of existence. I love it, and I trust its advice on anything tech, but not something like this. It just isn't a core competency. We tend to look at the world with extreme lenses, either banana republic or absolute dictatorship.

Buy them beer. If they are having trouble communicating among themselves then meeting at some outside neutral location to discuss collective action is the best thing they can do. Giving the bartender $500 for some drinks will sure help make their gatherings more popular.

Once this virus business is no longer affecting bars that is.

I would strongly encourage you NOT to quit. There will basically always be people who take your place. Tech workers at Amazon have unique leverage to change the company that no external groups do. I work at Amazon and I'd rather you stay and fight the good fight!

Without getting fired? ... you need to trust your coworkers and cripple operations with a "blue flu" for a day or two. You (theoretically) can't get fired for being sick but you'd better be pretty careful to organize this anonymously.

The person you need to convince is Bezos, if you manage that, no other person at amazon can can override it.

That being said, better working conditions is relative, I'm pretty sure amazon warehouse working condition is better than working in factory in china.

I've met other AWS software engineers who are asking themselves the same question. If you want to organize chances are that lots of other people want to do it as well. You should start off by talking to some of your coworkers.

Not that I'm advising you to do this but the most impactful thing you would be able to do would be to use your access to find non-public information about labor abuses etc. and leak it publically.

Organize! Start a union! (or more likely, get illegaly fired by Amazon for attempting to organize)

Find a lawyer first and be ready to go to the press & to court when they fire you for union activity.

Union. That's the only answer. Workers of any kind and level have little to no leverage. Only a union can get that leverage.

You should first recognize that you have virtually nothing on the line here.

You are part of an elite, high-income managerial class that is insulated from pesky things like "working conditions". Sending an email to your manager or liking a post on Facebook is meaningless.

If you're sincere you'll actually risk something to stand for your principles. Demand that conditions meaningfully change or find employment at a place that doesn't make the world a worse place to live.

Amazon pays their warehouse workers more than competitors. All the negative reporting about them seem to ignore this fact.

https://www.shopify.ca/careers

Line up a new job and resign along with respectfully explaining your reasoning, ideally publicly.

This is how I read the 'real' question: ---------------------------------------

"I am conflicted about recent Amazon events and the departure of a high level executive.

However I do not have the same convictions and fortitude as Tim Bray. How can I rationalize staying at Amazon without feeling bad about my decision?

I really like the : people I work with/pay/perks/other."

A bit harsh possibly.

These things are complicated, being torn is what makes it an ethical decision. He could just walk out of there and burn a bridge, and if he hates working there that would be a lot easier.

His empathy is reflected in the difficulty of the decision and his situation is likely different than Tim's. Lets not put people down because they are looking for options before jumping.

Solidarity through unionization.

you can quit and write the reason in exit interview. I think thats most you can do.

Beware, I have a feeling Amazon is one of those "if they say they wont rejoin or recommend the company in their exit interview we won't allow them to be rehired" companies.

> Ideally without getting fired.

Well that’s not really possible. By definition “things that take a moralistic stand against existing company practices” is equivalent to “fireable violation of policy” - it’s Moral Mazes 101.

To be in good standing with a large bureaucratic employer is to either explicitly agree or tacitly decline to disagree with the company’s existing practices. Any deviation is defined as problematic behavior.

The only thing that will cause change is if Amazon is legally required to change or else loses profits unless it changes - and in the latter case that may not be enough because people already very rich may not value that lost profit as highly as they value authoritarian control, sociopathic delight in debasing other people, or just digging their heels in against external forces mandating change.

It’s also unlikely that tech workers quitting will do much. Amazon can restaff in a zillion different ways and at this point could hire more mediocre talent and function in more of a maintenance mode and continue to be successful for a long time.

> this point could hire more mediocre talent and function in more of a maintenance mode and continue to be successful for a long time

Eh, not sure about that. IBM went downhill fairly quickly once they stopped getting the cream of the crop. Oracle was able to stave off problems for a while, but only because of the lock-in issue. Amazon doesn't have the benefit of lock-in (with the exception of some parts of AWS).

Don't fight AWS nor Amazon. Instead use the money you earn there for good, build your own "nonprofit" that does what you perceive to be good. Don't try to change others or force them to your "ideology", esp. if it's the source of income you depend on.

Honestly, STFU or leave like Tim Bray! Join the ACLU! :D

Don't be a schmuck, fight for their rights!

I'd rather work for Facebook than AWS.

Why?

Amazon is an evil company that exploits that exploits it’s employees in factories. Facebook doesn’t.

Exercise your shareholder right to vote.

more vacation days

What are the bad working conditions? Someone showed me some petition signed by 8000 Amazon employees, but the petition was mostly about climate change, no bad working conditions.

Is there somewhere these bad conditions are documented?

I think such clear, public documentation would go a long way to changing conditions.

Do you have access to google.com?

https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/inside-the-hellish-workday-of-...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-wo...

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazo...

https://time.com/5629233/amazon-warehouse-employee-treatment...

This would be considered awesome conditions by most people around me (in CZ, EU). It's common to work in horrific warehouses that sometimes don't even have proper thermal/humidity control; having a clean, warm and structured place to work, with OK wage on top of that, is a luxury to them.

Are you arguing that Amazon workers should not have their working conditions improved or that Czech workers need to unionize too? Or are you arguing that Amazon should move fulfillment centers to Europe?

I think the argument is against the classification of "bad". Its not bad compared to working condition in CZ.

Like matz said, this is simply not "bad", it's still way way better than what is normal around the world. Things can and should improve, but calling this bad seems disingenious.

Many Americans consider their country to be "exceptional" and even those who don't go so far might think that working conditions in the US should have a higher minimum bar than working conditions in countries with a gdp/capita only a third the size.

That's the way to go, but still even many other jobs in the USA itself are way worse, so calling this "bad" seems weird.

I read the first link and it is not convincing - reporting after 11 days of work and complaining about 15-20 miles of walking per day. I would say - this sounds awesome for a lot of people who need to go for gym just to keep in any shape. It is just not for everybody. So if somebody can pass a verified (not just googled) link I would appreciate as well.

Create a logic bomb in the AWS servers that turn off all fans while overloading the CPUs, at the same time as you make the servers send out false reports saying that temperatures are normal. That will get their attention.

Why campaign, when you have the power to do something? If your not willing to use the power you have, then I think you should quit and do something useful with your life. Asking them to change, while still supporting them is pathetic.

Prison time?

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