Amazon Workers on Strike from Black Friday to Cyber Monday | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Workers on Strike from Black Friday to Cyber Monday

wfxrtv.com

59 pointsBender16 comments

I hope Amazon workers win this fight to do labour with some dignity and without being exploited. I know somebody who works for Amazon HR (US) and they say that hire and fire, along with union busting, is in "full-on brutal" mode.

I hope the Amazon retail and fulfillment operations are separated.

What? The website would be a separate business from the warehouses?

The overwhelming majority of retail businesses use third party fulfillment. Amazon itself used to. It's clearly possible. Plus the website is retail, digital, production, publishing, and a cloud services provider.

I doubt that. Walmart/target/best buy/kroger/Nordstrom/staples/b&h/Costco/ etc don’t pay another business for dealing with the inventory.

Sounds like it would result in less accountability and efficiency, and an arbitrary line to draw.

> I doubt that.

You doubt that which is easily verified?

> don’t pay another business for dealing with the inventory

What do you think UPS and FedEx does? Shipping is not instantaneous and most of it is logistics. Warehouses are often rented. Amazon produces very few physical products and most are on consignment anyways. What model are you imaginging?

> Sounds like it would result in less accountability and efficiency

To have multiple businesses competing for these deliveries? I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion.

> and an arbitrary line to draw.

As stated, they _used_ to do this, it's not at all arbitrary.

Fulfillment operations is not just delivery to the customer, or owning the warehouse. All the employees that work in the warehouse, move stuff from warehouse to warehouse or warehouse to store, are all part of fulfillment.

Amazon does not deliver to customers. They pay separate businesses (they call them delivery service partners) to deliver to customers:

https://hiring.amazon.com/job-opportunities/delivery-driver-...

https://logistics.amazon.com/

FedEx does the same thing with FedEx Ground:

https://www.buildagroundbiz.com/

I think the confusion comes from the fact that the linked page is not a text article, its actually an AUTOPLAYING VIDEO for a small news station. There is not actual text content

Somehow, the 28 second clip managed to provide zero additional information.

Is there any actual content? The entire page is ads except a small bit of text saying that Amazon workers are expected to strike.

Slightly better source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/amazon-strike-black-friday-c...

No details on which workers are striking or what for here, if that's what others are looking for (it's what I'm looking for).

I think it's pretty reasonable to assume "better working conditions", given the near infinite stories of Amazon abusing workers in fulfillment centers.

There is a video that plays.

Website appears to be for a Local TV Station. They are notorious for just showing videos.

What a great piece of journalism:

> (WFXR) – Amazon worker strike expected.

> This year’s “Make Amazon Pay Day” is the fifth year demonstrations have been held over the holiday weekend.

It seems this happens quite often.

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