Hacker News Reader

Slave work was also voluntary in a sense, it’s just that the alternative was your masters torturing and killing you.

Still is that way. You can refuse, but you will find yourself in nice tiny room with no distractions...

> If I disagree and shop elsewhere I'm effectively disagreeing with the workers and telling them I think they are making a bad deal and I don't want to contribute to their livelihood.

The fact that you can't order a product with any certainty that what you get won't be co-mingled fake trash from a third party is the best reason to stop ordering from them tbh.

You're making a lot of assumptions about the availability of other work. I'm glad you've been able move between jobs, but it isn't always easy or available.

You are probably also taking for granted a lot of the labor rights which were won over the last 100 years. For example, blacklisting used to be a thing, and it certainly did prevent job mobility, that was the whole point.

You are also right that you as a CONSUMER should not have to check every company's credentials before doing business with them. But you as a CITIZEN might want to have your government do this through things such as minimum wage laws and overtime laws.

We can all do better.

Everyone else in this thread frustrates me, but I understand it. Compassion is ingrained in us, while free market economics is not.

Nobody here is really thinking through what happens if they are successful at boycotting and destroying Amazon. What would they say to these people they're supposedly helping?

"I got you laid off! You don't have to work here anymore! You're free! Maybe you can't feed your family now but at least you can move your lips while you drive!"

This is silly, because you are imagining that Amazon could disappear with no other change in society.

Success in a boycott is not necessarily destroying Amazon. Success is making this decision cause enough financial pain to Amazon that they reverse it, and the next time some Frederick Taylor wannabe proposes something terrible along the same lines, everyone else reminds him of how much it hurt when they tried to stop the delivery drivers from singing along to music. Success is this weakening Amazon enough for their low-wage workers to unionize and demand representation on the board of directors and a bigger share of the profits.

If the workers want better conditions they can leave. If all options are below what we would consider moral then we should change laws. The solution to a problem in a free market is not inside of one company.

We can do that too. This is not a sophie's choice.

Why does change have to come through workers leaving Amazon? Why can’t it change via the workers negotiating with Amazon leadership?

It sounds like you assume that corporations are immutable things, whose contracts and policies may never be changed. But we are having this conversation because Amazon’s policies changed, and the workers it affects are complaining. Why isn’t “Amazon rescinds this policy change” a solution to this problem?

Why are these the only options? Because you said so?

Other truckers have UNIONS. Their cockpit recorders can only be accessed under strict guidance and policy - not willy nilly to piss off the truckers. Plus they get reasonable quotas so they don't have to bust their asses and drive sleep deprived.

> the solution in a free market...

... is to create a fair labor market. The labor market is not a free market, because companies have infinitely more leverage. If you're truly a free market activist, you must be pro-union. Introduce a little competitiveness into hiring practices.

I agree that boycotting Amazon is not the answer, but government action might be. And government action only happens if the politicians think enough of their constituency thinks something is a problem.