I don't think the sins of Amazon are any worse than most other major U.S. retailers.
I can’t think of a metric where they aren’t worse than the average retailer.
Per man hour? Amazon is rich and super high volume relatively speaking. I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses handling consumer goods because the cost of hiccups is so high and they have a huge target on their back.
If anything the dehumanizing algorithmic tracking and optimization crap they do annoys me far more than the safety stuff.
Amazon’s extreme turnover rate is also significant. Someone that’s been doing a job for longer has both the skill and physical capacity to avid injury doing the same tasks as a new employee. This compounds over long shifts as people get tired, so limiting new employees to 8 vs 12 hour shifts would make a real difference among other options.
I used to work for Amazon a few years ago. I'm uncertain whether it was 12 pounds or 12 kg, but when a *tote weights more than this, you are supposed to handle the tote with two people.
*A tote is a small container of items, like this yellow one: https://media.wired.com/photos/593256d9aef9a462de9820d8/mast...
The bigger issue is that no one is actually asking for help because of culture.
This is the correct impression. Amazon warehouses are almost always a step up in both pay and quality of life vs. the other local employment options.
Source: many friends work(ed) the industry. Amazon was seen as trading your autonomy in for a better overall place to work.
The memes about their warehouses being the worst in the world only really exist in white collar circles.
I could never work for them in such a job, because I require too much autonomy to be happy. I don't deal will with strict metric systems that they enforce. However, others really do enjoy that aspect of not having to put an ounce of thought or problem solving into their dayjob.
The other personality I've noticed is someone who prefers a much more "sane" (boring but very predictable work) working environment with a ton of rules around it. They enjoy being treated more like robots.
I could be projecting here, but I've seen more than a dozen or so datapoints - of course directly connected to my personal bubble so there is bias at play.
I'd absolutely never take an Amazon warehouse job. I'd be looking at jobs like you describe.
What is everyone ordering that is subpar? Do people not just buy the same brands they’d buy at Walmart or target?
If you buy cheap stuff that was drop shipped off AliExpress, but reputable name brands from walmart… why not buy reputable brands from amazon?
Amazon has had wage theft issues, but I don’t know how they stack up on undocumented workers or the average retailer which includes Costco etc not just tiny corner stores.
Wage theft: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22262294/amazon-flex-wage-... more wage theft: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/11/15/murmurs-amazon-settles... you can find a bunch of these going back years but this is what I was initially thinking of: https://www.fastcompany.com/3020175/employees-sue-amazon-ove...
If you say you linked a statistic, it seems reasonable to me to assume that you linked a statistic.
Also, statistics include facts like more than average not just specific numerical values.
PS: Though I have also linked to the numeric value before just not in this comment chain.
It's important to be looking at the same numbers when having a discussion about those numbers.
For more detail, I have taken statistics, even tutored PHD students.
Showing your work is required if the answer is 4.415 or more than average. A sample refers to a single element, statistic encompass a sample, a parameter covers to the full population.
You will often hear statistics communicated as something like “more than four times as likely” and assume it’s referring to 4<X<5 but they can also be used in cases when a measurement exceeded the range at which you can quantify it. As in you checked the rain gauge and it was full, in such cases the only option is to use > X.
None of the stuff you mention actually means anything when you try to apply it to policy if you don't know how the result was achieved, what it's actually measuring, and what the baseline is. Any good statistical analysis will cover this as well as things like biases, corrections, and confidence. Otherwise I could give you a fact of my opinion is more liked than your opinion...
The samples that make such a calculation true. That’s what you’re missing an actual statistic X>Y is based on the underlying data.
Further someone can just as easily make up X = 27.24 +/- 0.01 with a 95% confidence interval as X > Y, it’s the actual data that makes something a fact rather than an option.
“None of the stuff you mention actually means anything when you try to apply it to policy if you don't know how the result was achieved, what it's actually measuring, and what the baseline is.” Again that applies equally to all statistics and you can provide them just as easily with either format.
THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKING TO SEE! Which you didn't initial post!
https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...
If the US labor US labor force is ~161.2 million workers and had 8B/year in wage theft then the average per 1 million workers is ~50 million. Seeing multiple payouts well over 50 million suggests Amazon could be worse than average here.
Increased shared hatred of the employer leads to increased employee cohesion?
One I've seen that I think might have promise is "white people" being the outgroup for "white people." Any collection of white people forms an ad hoc in group where some nondescript "everyone else" is the outgroup. Now everyone has a shared thing to hate but everyone you interact with becomes temporally part of your ingroup so you're never hating an specific person or group of people. And even though it's impossible to actually become part of the outgroup you still have some of the fear that if you embody the negative traits that are ascribed to the outgroup you might join them so it also gradually norms.
monopolies are bad, for consumers and for competitors. Even if you build your monopoly "fairly" by inventing a better mousetrap, putting the competition out of business is a reward that that is unfair and does not belong to the owner of the mousetrap. For example, Amazon could be split into 3 smaller Amazon mousetraps that compete with each other. Is that unfair to Jeff Bezos? No, he would own the same percentage of mousetrapping companies as he did before. What he would not own is a monopoly.
The sins of Amazon the monopolistic competitor are worse.
Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers, and if you're forcing consumers to buy inferior mousetraps, you're not helping.
I'm arguing for it because it's an example of "third way" regulation, regulation that should be embraced by left wing socialist and right wing capitalists.
I really do think the expiration is coming up on Amazon too, with the same 15 year run. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the bad guy.
Sadly, I don't see Amazon losing any steam, but I sure hope it does.
Personally I get stuff from Amazon almost daily because I don't want to go to, e.g., Walgreens to buy toothpaste and dishwasher detergent. For a large number of items, there is no benefit to inspecting the item prior to purchase. Going to store for such items would be a waste of time.
Moreover, I can buy the thing immediately ftom my phone. No need to set up going to buy x as some chore in the future.
Tip your delivery person sometimes.
Ironically, small family shops use WAY more child labor, unpaid labor etc as a percentage than Amazon. They also produce more plastic per item, take only cash to evade taxes, etc.
In 2019 Amazon paid zero taxes receiving a net $129 million refund from the federal government, in 2018 they received a $137 million refund after paying 0$ on a net income of 11.2 billion dollars.
In 2020 they paid a net tax of $162 million on $13.9 billion of pre-tax income a net tax rate of 1.2%.
To imply Amazon (or any corp) are floating by with a total tax load of ~1% is either profoundly disingenuous or profoundly naïve.
The SS tax that gets deducted from your paycheck is only half the amount. Employers are required to pay the other half.
If you're self-employed, you pay both halves, and that is one of the penalties of being treated as self employed.
Additionally, receiving a refund indicates that Amazon overpaid on their income taxes and that the government agreed.
Also additionally, the figures you are throwing around are income taxes only. Amazon likely pays many other taxes far in excess of the net worth of anybody involved in this conversation. Implying that Amazon "paid zero taxes" without further qualification is wholly dishonest, and you know it, and you should stop doing it.
Also getting a refund does not imply you paid any income taxes can get refunded even if they send in 0$ money as was the case for Amazon in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The refund simply refers to getting money back.
That's not $180K deduction, but a $180K credit.
She'll rent the place out for a meager profit, so doesn't have to pay the rest of the mortgage. Essentially, the taxpayers bought her the house - she got a house + cash out of the deal.
Small business owners definitely play games with taxes.
Cost Segregation
Bonus Depreciation
(There's a third one I can't remember).
She basically utilized all three. The larger the value of the house (over $1M in her case), the greater the benefit.
This is also because they are high income earners (one of them has a regular job), and they've manipulated things so that they can apply the deduction to the W-2 income (not usually possible). The federal tax bracket is 35+% - not sure if they can apply it to their state's income tax, but if they can, it's another 10-11%. So you don't need a massive deduction to get the equivalent of $180K refund.
Write off practically the entire vehicle (sometimes the entire vehicle) in the first year... making it nearly or completely free.
There's a lot of credits and deductions available to those who seek them out, or are in a position to best use them. They are not loopholes - these provisions were explicitly laid out by Congress.
Family, ownership, and business are concepts that overlap and mean much different things than a $1 trillion company with countless nameless faceless employees around the globe, that you can buy shares of.