They will spend money on literally anything else except wage increases.
And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles as if the heavily unionized UPS drivers don't also do this.
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/what-do-you-do-w...
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles.36...
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles-in...
Turns out public bathrooms aren't always available around suburbia, and leaving a truck unattended is a bad idea. I'm not trying to lick boots here or anything, but the constant shitting on Amazon's non-tech business gets really uninteresting. As if it's all generated by a GPT-3 bot.
There are plenty of lower paid jobs for those only interested in being a chair filler.
But the pay is quite good for the required skillset.
But all that says is "people don't want to work on amazon". It doesn't say why they don't want to work there. The parent post made a specific claim (ie. "the workload is however much worse"), which is consistent with worse working conditions, but not proof of it.
1. Low pay. As this thread pointed out Amazon actually pays above average for the warehouse industry. It doesn't make sense that their turnover is higher than other warehouse if people leave because the pay is too low.
2. Dislike of "big tech" and corporate capitalism more generally. Basically these are people who saw someone complain on twitter and quit. I doubt people that would quit of morals would take the job in the first place, this seems like a non-issue.
3. Unprepared for the workload that comes with warehouse work. All warehouse work is tough, if this is your first warehouse job you might not be ready for physical labor. This seems reasonable to me since Amazon advertises their warehouse jobs more than other warehouse companies.
4. Amazon's workload is higher than other warehouses. Given what we know about the workload on their white collar workers and the stories I've heard about the warehouse work this seems like the biggest contributor to their high turnover to me.
Interested in hearing what you think the cause of their turnover could be.
Fit able bodied workers willing and able to put in a full day of hard labor have more options and are therefore more expensive. Aka if you get laid off of a 25$/hour construction job you might temporarily work at Amazon while looking for work, but you’re not staying for years. Amazon workers may therefore be under paid for their capabilities independent of industry norms.
5. Double the workplace accident rate of the rest of the industry also plays a role. You don’t just lose workers directly as people also quit out of fear for their health.
6. It’s in part a seasonal job. Amazon doesn’t need or want a steady workforce and can play with their quotas to lay people off without paying for unemployment.
Arguably not the same industry (but devastatingly adjacent): have a look at FedEx warehouses. Recently as low as $13.xx/hr, same sort of grueling work, plus the privilege of not knowing whether you'll need to show up at 4:00 AM or 7:00 AM. You don't get to know that until the night before, when you call a phone number around 8 or 9 to listen to a recorded message that will tell you. (Even then, you might show up only to find tape over the time clocks with a note that they're going to be starting later, after all, with the expectation that you'll just hang out off the clock in the meantime and then start at the new designated time.¹) And you have no idea how long you'll be working, either (except that it won't be 8 hours). 5–6 hours is possible. ~3 hours is probable. So you'll need to work 6 or 7 days just for the chance that you might get close to 30 hours. Ridiculously high turnover, as expected.
1. Yes, really. This is begging for a DoL inquiry; "Package Handlers are always paid for TIME WORKED [...] In the future please meet with your manager before just leaving. Thank you." — says a FedEx Ground facility's Area Manager, "Crystal", in an email.
Average Warehouse Worker Hourly Pay “Avg. Base Hourly Rate (USD)” $14.99/ hour and $19.57 is top 10%. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Warehouse_Worker/Ho...
As to the job sucking, “Amazon warehouse workers suffer serious injuries at twice the rate of rivals, study finds“ https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/study-amazon-workers-suffer-...
If you want verification: "We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks.” https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xeba/amazons-new-algorithm...
In other words they are concerned that are pushing people to do their jobs faster than humanly possible but assumed they could make that pace sustainable by rotating jobs over the day rather than say reduce the pace to a sustainable level.
According to their own data, Amazon only had higher rates of "light duty" injury (most of which are not "serious" as they claim). This is easily explained by Amazon's need to report all cuts and bruises due to the targets on their backs, while others gladly omit them--especially say, unionized ones where the leaders would logically tell them to keep cuts and bruises silent to juice their numbers.
[0] The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC) is a democratic coalition of four labor unions: Service Employees International Union (SEIU), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), Communications Workers of America (CWA) and United Farmworkers of America (UFW). Together, SOC-affiliated unions represent more than 4 million workers.
There will always be a struggle between labor and employer where each will seek to maximize their share, it's the system we have set up. I really don't think people should be faulted for pushing for more when it's literally a companies goal to pay people as little as is functionally possible.
Amazon is the target because they are the largest. If you increase the wage Amazon pays, you increase the wage their competitors pay.
The meme that “fiduciary duty” means “maximise revenue at all costs” needs to die. This is a falsehood that has been debunked repeatedly.
Having the patience to push and set legal precedent isn't a superpower. Not sure what your point is here.
[0] 'The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits', Friedman
[1] https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders-C...
Does Elon want SpaceX to be super profitable or does he want to make life multi planetary? (They aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s weird to think that he is just trying to make as much profit as possible).
Why is it weird to think that?
SpaceX gives him the chance to truly make history. People will learn about our first manned trip to Mars and the first colony. Perhaps even for thousands of years.
And if you bump everyone to $20, things will get more expensive and then you'll have to bump them to $22, and then everything will get more expensive so you'll...
The "historic raises in the minimum wage" were also very conservative and decried by proponents of $15/$20/whatever minimum wage as being too low. A one time pay bump won't cause serious issues, but giving in to ever increasing demands for minimum wage (ie. $15 last year, $20 this year, $25 the year after) will.
Minimum wage used to ride regularly, then since 2005 has remained constant while in real terms reducing by about 40%
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-val...
Except that if you adjusted the minimum wage in 2005 to account for inflation, you'll only get $7.93 today[1]. I doubt the people clamoring for a $20 minimum wage today are doing it on the basis of "keeping up with inflation".
That’s the thing about free markets, workers get to say no. They can trade lower pay for a vastly less crappy job, or get better treatment for similar pay elsewhere etc.
What’s less obvious is Amazon benefited from building out their infrastructure more recently than other companies which let them target sweet spots with large untrained workforces which made their jobs more appealing locally. But eventually they needed to pay market rates.
>That’s the thing about free markets, workers get to say no.
I like how these sentences are consecutive.
> Amazon is trying to crush workers rights
What workers' rights are being violated when Amazon decides who may or may not be a future employee at an Amazon warehouse? That's what an employer should do. Amazon is not obligated to hire union-friendly workers.
> What workers' rights are being violated when Amazon decides who may or may not be a future employee at an Amazon warehouse?
You can try to distill the action in to its parts to rob it of its meaning. I could say “I’m merely holding this pointy object and moving my hand forward? Surely I should have a say over how I move my body?” But you would know you’re being stabbed all the same.
I don’t know why you want to pretend like Amazon’s efforts to crush unions are valueless. Workers are human beings who deserve some control over their workplace. Amazon is trying to prevent that. That’s what I and many are calling out as wrong and worth opposing.
EDIT: By the way the issue is not just about amazon’s hiring practices. I am referring to the wide variety of anti-union tactics Amazon is using to interfere with labor power. Take the point of this article. Amazon will try to make donations to sway political power in their favor so they can continue to get tax breaks without unions. These individual actions can be imagined as devoid of context and valueless, but the point of this action is clear: Amazon does not want its workers to have a say in their workplace.
It feels like there’s no shortage of people out to defend Amazon either.
We’re not talking about safety or child labor where there’s a moral duty to put up guard rails.
I have found a few articles which claim Amazon's contracted delivery drivers (which is a pretty sketchy practice tbh) work 14 hour days.
14 hour days aren't great, but I don't think it's particularly stunning. Nurses regularly work 12 hours shifts and often pick up more hours for overtime pay. Truck drivers drive a maximum of 11 hours a day, which is probably pretty close to what Amazon delivery drivers do once you consider time picking up packages and getting up to deliver them.
If delivery drivers work ~40 hours a week (~3 days a week on, 4 days off) that sounds like a pretty okay arrangement. If they're working 14 hours a day, 5 days a week, then that's rough. Based on some quick Googling it seems like they target a 40 hour work week, but maybe there are some articles of them being pressured/forced to do more.
Amazon is big enough that it can create systemic problems where free market doesn’t work. If everyone in a town is being run out of business, people feel they have no choice but to take up that job.
I would agree, but how do you reconcile that with many desiring legalization of sex work? Surely that is 'worse' than urinating in a bottle?
Does Amazon run other local warehouses 'out of business'? I wouldn't imagine there to be much competition between local warehouses unless there was a shortage of labor.
We should be building a better society for future generations, not for a few billionaires.
I thought of this specifically when I wrote my comment, which is why I added the bit about "moral duty". Selling your kidneys is harmful. There's the inherent risk of surgery, not to mention it's a part of your body that you would otherwise keep.
I think the examples you are giving are things we should protect against, but I do not believe that urinating in a bottle is comparable at all.
You're going to urinate no matter what. The only thing different here is where it is at. Many people choose to go camping and urinate outdoors. Most choose a toilet. Some people (even those that aren't on the clock at an Orwellian-esque company!) choose a bottle when they are desperate, e.g. on a road trip.
I'm gonna stop you right there and point out that while nobody ever puts a gun to one's head when it comes to taking a job, it's never that cut and dry. They may not normally be willing, but they may be desperate enough under the right circumstances. That desperation, hell even willingness in and of itself, doesn't justify on-the-job abuses.
Of course I say this as a software engineer, so I'm very privileged and probably a bit disconnected from the choices these workers have to make.
I'm a white guy on a team of a all Indian developers and I spend half of my time kissing butt to fit in, just so I can get the basic information I need to do my job.
Before that I was a truck driver and peed in a bottle and that actually had more dignity then kissing butt all day.
Single moms useing only fans to keep paying these skyrocketing rents.
They literally made half the work force submit to experimental vaccines or get fired.
This is 2022 America.
There's no such thing as work place dignity in the majority of jobs anymore.
This is bullshit.
I'm sure there's some Hollywood accounting justification for this claim, but over 10 years ago close to $18/hr is what you could expect to make as associate working in the distribution center of another big corporate behemoth: Walmart. We're talking low-skill grindwork smack dab in the post-economic collapse, and that $18/hr figure does not account for the "veteran" workers on the receiving end of the more-or-less guaranteed annual pay bumps that come with just continuing to work there. (They were making $20+/hr.) Again, not now in the current post-COVID era (because otherwise who cares), but over 10 years ago.
It blew me away when a few years ago I learned that Amazon was only paying something like $13.
So Amazon is $15 today? Who cares. Almost every fast food place around is paying close to that now, I'm told. $15 is so low that no one was getting paid that low at the Walmart DC that I'm familiar with, which (again, since it bears repeating) was over 10 years ago.
Anecdotal I guess, but every time I see either an Amazon or UPS driver at my house they seem pretty relaxed. They pull into the drive, walk to the door with the package, and walk back to the truck. They don't seem rushed. Maybe they pee in a bottle in their truck but based on my observations that's probably just the easiest thing for them to do, at least for the males.
When I delivered pizza in the late 1980s I ran back and forth from my car to the customer's door. 30 seconds saved could mean being ahead of the next driver getting back to the store, where it was FIFO.
Or reward based on bootlicking, office politics and sexual favours. If you think companies are efficient and promote based on merit, I have a casting couch to sell you.
You say that like it's a bad thing. (Also, generally unheard of in the types of places we're discussing; you don't get paid more for being good. You get paid more for be good enough for longer.)
Just to take one silly example, when I worked at the phone company we weren't allowed to move our phones ourselves any time we moved desks. That was a task that by contract had to be performed by a union lineman. So a guy would show up, eventually, and unplug your phone from one desk and then plug it into another.
That kind of nonsense was in place all throughout the company. All kinds of ridiculous details were written down and enforced. The phone company barely even tries to be competitive, so whatever, I guess. You probably pay for that in your cellphone bill, but it's not the end of the world.
But if you're actually trying to be nimble and efficient, then that kind of stuff makes it a lot harder.
Anecdotally a friend of mine said that the warehouses pay very well, especially in smaller towns where there are less opportunities for young people who need short term work or flexible working hours.
Do competing warehouses pay better?
Isn't the retention rate at Amazon warehouses abysmal?