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Comment by bmelton | Hacker News Reader

The worker was grateful for the opportunity, and enjoyed his time at Amazon, though he felt unmotivated toward the end.

He was paid fairly, and presumably commensurately to either his skills, experience, or what he was willing to accept. He entered into the contract freely, was not abused by the employer in any way, and knew full well going in that his employment term would be most likely limited to 12 months. Yet still, he would like to return to Amazon for gainful employment.

How exactly was anyone taken advantage of?

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'Freedom' becomes a slippery concept when you're dealing with contracts of adhesion, though. Non-executive workers have little or no negotiating power over their terms of employment, and the greater the asymmetry the less of a free economic choice it is. Obviously he's not that happy about it or he wouldn't have written this screed.

Is there research to back this up? Ie is it really the case that 'non-executive' workers have no negotiating power? Is this true in all sectors or only some? Anecdotally I've seen instances where non-execs successfully negotiated a salary increase, etc.

Not that I'm going to dig out right now. I mentioned 'terms' because I wanted to address things like the contract period and so on, rather than just pay.

Check middle class salary increase the last 30 years.

Well, I don't know necessarily that he was unhappy with it, though clearly he thought it was stupid of them to do as it bore on product quality and all that.

Regardless of whether or not he liked it, I'm wondering why the OP can call it "taking advantage of". I just don't see that here, and thought maybe I was missing something, versus my bar just being set at a different height.

You don't know what taken advantage of means do you?

These days any given new graduate who didn't attend an ivy league is in a situation where it is extremely difficult to get a job.

The alternative to working as a contractor at Amazon is not working at all. This is the situation these contractors are in. When the alternative is being in extreme debt / homeless, a choice cannot be made freely. This is the situation that Amazon and Walmart are taking advantage of, employee these people as hourly, no benefits contractors.

Obviously there's the argument that Amazon and Walmart are being 'good' providing them with hourly pay when they would otherwise be paid nothing. This, however, doesn't mean they're not taking advantage of the people they hire as contractors. I would also not argue, but hold as a belief that it is extremely immoral to not pay the people who are struggling to help the company succeed, in order to pay people who are already wealthy more.

Before you explode with economic principles of how they are being paid what they're worth due to the harsh job market conditions, save your breath, I already know. The thinking is right from a market philosophy perspective, but these principles also weaken the company, and I would say are actually wrong from a perspective of building and growing a successful business.

> You don't know what taken advantage of means do you?

Yes, I do, and I'd appreciate you not starting off posts being invective in the future. I'd downvote you for that if I could, even though I acknowledge you make an otherwise neutral point.

I'm not suggesting that Amazon is being good or evil, but I don't see any advantage having been taken. As Nostromo stated in a higher-voted thread, the unemployment rate in Seattle is currently at 4%, which is pretty good.

> The alternative to working as a contractor at Amazon is not working at all.

I don't see that having been suggested in the article at all. Regardless, some temporary work on a real product right after college seems like exactly the kind of thing I wish had been around when I was younger.

What I'm not seeing is that there was anything exploitative going on. Amazon paid a fair market wage, or at least I didn't see anything in the article to suggest he was making Walmart level wages. I don't see that the working conditions were harsh, or otherwise problematic beyond the normal level of office politics.

If these principles weaken the company, then I again don't see how that is taking advantage of the article's author.

I'm not suggesting that these are amazing working conditions, or that it's doing Amazon any favors, but at the same time, I don't see that anybody was taken advantage of either.

Fun bit of trivia: in a Marxist framework, where the whole 'exploitation' thing came from, it's actually assumed that the worker gets paid a fair market wage. Exploitation doesn't actually rely on someone being paid less than their fair share.

I'm not saying that people here are using that term in it's technical way, but people have different opinions on what 'exploited' means, and it can cause friction.

Which is why I'm trying to figure out what, specifically, is being objected to. I'm getting the sense that there is a context beyond the article that I am not familiar with, which is fair enough, I suppose, but I don't see anything in the article to suggest that this employment was in any way unusual or exploitative, at least, not as I understand it.

Taking off my Marx hat, generally, people mean something along the lines of "an employer can take advantage of the fact that people will take any work rather than starve, and this drives wages down to a point that's unfair." In other words, an employer can exploit the fact that people are desperate.

So yes, it may have been a contract that they 'voluntarily' agreed to for a wage they 'voluntarily' agreed to, but that doesn't mean it's not a shitty position, and we should try to do better, as a society.

And that would be a fine argument, I suppose, if I'd seen anything in the article about the wages.

Like I said though, if that's the case, it's either outside the scope of this article, or I just missed it. Is that indeed the case, that Amazon is paying exploitative wages for these positions?

In this case, it's not the wages, it's the fact that they can't work for more than 11 months and that there's no chance of upward mobility. A person with no experience is given a 'real' job while a temp isn't even considered.

There is a recent book called "End of the Good Life" ... it has one too many stories in there but covers the problems faced by temporary workers (who are typically young workers). I was surprised to learn what a huge problem this is in Europe.

That of course assumes there's a price that is "fair" and you have a magic ability - personally or "as a society" - to figure it out while ignoring the markets (because the markets are "unfair"). I wonder how one does that and doesn't end somewhere in the vicinity of Detroit.

Please explain how the markets are unfair?

As for my 'personal' judgement on what is fair, I always defer to those entering the terms of the contract, so long as those contracts abide by law. If you offer me $10 an hour to do something I might ordinarily charge $100 for, and I accept that $10 an hour, and the $10 an hour does not break any law, then to me, that is fair. I am by no means authoritative on the subject though, so I appreciate any insight you may have.

I'm not saying the markets are unfair. I'm saying that's what exploitation theory assumes (which theory I am in no way supporting or endorsing) - the base for "exploitation" theory is that the market price diverges from the supposedly "fair" price, and the difference is the measure of "exploitation". This presupposes that a) "fair" price is known and b) it is different from market price.

Two points:

1) The general (non-Marxist) idea is not that 'the market price is unfair, so we should set different prices ourselves', but rather that the market isn't magic, and does not appear ex nihilo, but is impacted by many things. Some of those things (such as law about hiring, firing, welfare, safety, and so on) can materially affect the negotiation in a way that is patently not fair. For example, if unions had the kinds of powers some ascribe to them (ability to set wages however high they wanted with all staff being unfirable no matter what they did, with employers being powerless slaves) that would be obviously unfair. The power dynamic in many countries (including the US) is roughly that slanted at the moment, but in favour of employers rather than employees - in the US, for example, this is the effect of things like no cause firing, binding arbitration agreements, 'temp' positions and 'internships' being allowed to be offered in place of actual jobs, no real socialised healthcare, limited unemployment insurance in most states, low minimum wages, no 'union shops' in most states, anti union laws, limited occupational health and safetly laws in many states, and so on. So, to make things 'fair', these things have to be fixed - then the market will be 'fair'.

2) The general (Marxist) idea is not that 'the market price is unfair, so we should set different prices ourselves', but rather that capitalist-worker relationships are always unfair and exploitative due to the worker always having to sell their labour for wages, rather than capital, where the capitalist simply gains more money through the actions of capital - neatly setting up a coercive power structure. The (tl;dr version of the) Marxist response is not that this means that we have to set 'better' or 'fairer' levels for wages, but that we have to destroy capitalism and abolish wage slavery.

>>> can materially affect the negotiation in a way that is patently not fair.

Here you have to define what "fair" means. One of the definitions would be using extra-market coercion to influence the price - see unions example - is not fair, since it uses forceful coercion to benefit one side. However, unions often claim they need the coercion to reach "fair" prices since otherwise it is "unfair". So what is "fair" here? How you find out if voluntary agreement of two people is "fair" or not?

>>>> we have to destroy capitalism and abolish wage slavery.

Since the only other alternative that we've seen so far is non-wage slavery (at least until we find enough people that agree to work for free that we can create non-scarcity economy) this makes this definition of "fair" rather unappealing. The problem here is that voluntary structures tend to become markets, and calling non-voluntary arrangements "fair" has to rely on notion of fairness of those who apply coercion to support the non-voluntary nature, which very soon devolves into very peculiar understanding of "fairness".

I think you're looking for points to argue on and prove your superior understanding of economics and fair labor, and in the process brushing away important points and ignoring the insights of peoples' comments.

You've asked for more context, so here's what I have that is not talked about in the article.

Leading up to 2006-2007 and the financial crisis, these entry level jobs were salaried positions with standard benefits. Obviously this sounds expensive for a company, and there's plenty of arguing around whether this is worthwhile, but arguing won't help build the context.

During the financial crisis, as companies scrambled to cut costs as much as possible, a trend began to emerge. Companies realized that rather than give salaries and benefits for these entry level jobs, they could hire new grads and anyone else unable to find a job to be unpaid interns, doing the some level of work -- sometimes more depending on the person and position. I hope you would agree that not paying people for work is taking advantage of them. This is obviously more extreme than the contract practice talked about in the article. After it became clear companies were taken advantage of the job market to get free work out of desperate people, states began making legislation to make unpaid internships illegal. Here in California, it is illegal to not pay an intern if their work contributes to the business in any way.

Now that businesses can no longer get free work, they have reacted by filling these positions with hourly contractors who get no benefits whatsoever, no PTO, no sick days, nothing. Salaries for these contractors are often very low. 25-35k a year based on the hourly work. Salaries aren't being dictated by the value of the work the employee provides the company, but by the difficulty in getting (and really going through the process of finding a new job, possibly relocating, etc.) employment elsewhere.

The contrast between these positions 6-7 years ago and these positions now is why people say (feel) they are exploitative.

> I think you're looking for points to argue on and prove your superior understanding of economics and fair labor

False. I do not know why you seem intent on being invective and assuming bad faith. I have never once proclaimed any superior understanding of economics, and in fact, have specifically stated the contrary on more than one occasion here at HN.

I simply don't see anything exploitative in hiring people for a fixed amount of time, for a certain amount of money, so long as the terms of both are freely negotiated up front and do not violate the terms of the law, and are not broken through deceit.

Thank you for the background on the rest. The point you made about California law though, is actually federal. The US Department of Labor sets the terms on what constitutes a valid internship, and the last I checked, California has no specific provisions above or beyond that. If you're referring to the recently decided Searchlight case, that was decided that the specific behavior was exploitative, not that internships are in general, where they abide the terms of the Department of Labor.

We used to call these little economic downturns "corrections" and I think the term still applies here. 6-7 years ago, people with marginally skilled "entry level" office jobs were overpaid.

Old Soviet joke: in capitalist America, man exploits man. In the Soviet Union, it is the other way around!

I don't generally upvote jokes on HN, but I giggled like a schoolgirl at that one.

Social, cultural and political context.

The entire concept in which Amazon use temporary contract workers is seen as an exploitative abuse of the power by the employer the majority of societies outside the US.

The use of the term "wankers" leads me to believe that pasbesoin is not American, which means there's a pretty big chances he's used to different employer - employee relations and probably stricter laws limiting this kind of thing.

Personally, I don't consider this kind of thing to be "employment". It offers neither the security of being an employee, nor the freedom of being fully self-employed.

> The worker was grateful for the opportunity

Uh-huh. And if I give you no food for a week then throw you a dog bone you'll be grateful for that too.

What a disgusting way to behave.

Again, there's been nothing to suggest that these were sub-par working conditions. Except for the length of the engagement, which is fairly normal, I don't see anything even remotely unusual about this working arrangement.

Employing someone for 11 months so you can avoid paying benefits is disgusting.

Just because it's not "unusual" doesn't make it acceptable.

If he was hired on the promise that his contract would only be 11 months, and he knew that up front, I don't see why it's a problem. If he were just randomly fired after 11 months so that they could avoid paying the difference, then I would completely agree with you.

I would be very interested to know just how transparent they were about that. At one extreme I can see some vague handwaving saying 'this is a contract position...you get what that means right? so sign here...' At the other you might get a HR person saying 'yes contract jobs can lead to full-time opportunities' even though that might only happen for one person once a year.

I would too, but I've worked in plenty of situations, as much as two decades ago, where there was a contract, and the potential for future employment. Once you get on site, you start asking the actual employees how serious the potential is, but the contract length is known full well ahead of time.

Again though, I just don't see anything odd or unusual in this setup. It's pretty much the exact same setup that companies like Manpower and Adecco have used for decades. I don't know anything about the wages at Amazon, but I'm far more laissez faire on that than I suspect much of the rest of HN, and that's fine, but clearly Amazon isn't breaking the law here.

It's also a moronic move by out-of-touch executives. I saw a stark example with a QA team that was almost entirely temps. The team was at least 2-3x as big as it needed to be because these stupid 6-12 month stints resulted in a continuous stream of new hires who had to be trained from scratch and were completely unmotivated.

Then one day an edict came down from on high that resulted in the sudden termination of several relatively effective temps partway through their programmed stint.

The excuse? "Development is slowing down for a while, we don't need as many."

I literally said "What the fuck?! We're spinning UP!". A couple weeks later they were scrambling to fill the positions again.

It's not unusual, but what I and some others find objectionable is this concept that people are get let go after 11 months to avoid a deeper contractual entanglement (eg become eligible for benefits or pension contributions or whatnot), regardless of performance.

This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent. That says that people who are wise enough get into management roles can get greater rewards without needing to be particularly (or at all) skillful, while people who choose to develop some operational skill or otherwise start at the bottom are suckers whose opportunities are decoupled from their competence or productivity - and there's a strong feeling that in many firms, this sorting takes place at the time of hiring, before the contract employees have an opportunity to become familiar with the corporate culture. Such a setup, where it exists, is deeply at odds with the meritocratic ideal that is heavily promoted in American culture, education and by most employers.

tl;dr treating employment like prostitution is destructive of goodwill between suppliers and consumers of labor.

The majority of the quality assurance/editorial people I know (that's the position this guy was in) at Amazon started out as contractors and were then promoted to full-time employment because of their performance.

While I think employing a contractor for 11 months to purposely avoid paying benefits is a dick move, its also the case that a lot of these positions don't exist for an entire year because the teams either a) automate them out of existence or b) send them out to Mechanical Turk.

This is particularly irritating to read about when full-time employees such as the manager in the story enjoy greater authority and job security despite being demonstrably less competent.

Agreed, though I think this is less a case of "this is an injustice to the workers" and more a case of "this is a dumb idea that leads to bad things all around".

It's nice how you do the "he was paid fairly with unicorns and rainbows, with sweet choirs singing him to his rest... .... ... ... (or what he was willing to accept)", front-loading the idea that the employment was an ideal situation rather than what the guy may have had to take at the time. You could say exactly the same thing about illegal jobs paying under minimum wage.

> That's a nice reframing of his entire essay, which was about how the employees were being abused and how that was making them feel shit and shipping inferior product.

I must have read a different article than you did.

I didn't see anything in there about how employees were being abused whatsoever. Yeah, he thought that the politics were goofy, but they always are. Yeah, he thought that it led to an inferior product, but that doesn't mean he hated it, or that he was abused.

I don't see how I've attempted to 'reframe' it in any way, but we each took dramatically different things away from that article.

> You could say exactly the same thing about illegal jobs paying under minimum wage.

Except those jobs would be... illegal? This one is, from what I read, not illegal in any way. I don't see how you can make a legitimate comparison between something perfectly legal and something expressly not.

I edited the comment within a minute, I thought I'd caught it before it might have been seen.

This being said, creating an environment that makes people do subpar work is something of an abuse. I've had to leave two jobs previously because the structure of the position meant it was impossible for me to turn out quality work. My initial pre-edit comment overstated this considerably, admittedly, but I do disagree that there was no comment on what can be considered abuse in the essay (eg promotions based on physical attractiveness)

Ah, apologies. I must have just refreshed the page in time.

> creating an environment that makes people do subpar work is something of an abuse.

I mean, I suppose that's a fair concern, but the simple fact of the matter is that MOST companies, especially large, bureaucratic ones, exhibit those same symptoms. Very few environments are 'optimal' working conditions, and what might be optimal for you might be miserable for me, and vice versa. We might be used to more amenable environments than the one exhibited in this article, but that speaks more to the luxury of other positions than it does the misery of this one.

> By saying this you're effectively making the argument that as long as a job is legal, it's not abusive.

Well, I mean, that's what the government has set the bar at, so yeah. The government has determined that working conditions meeting their rigid regulatory standards are not in fact abusive, as a matter of law.

If an employer is paying at the very bottom of the wage scale though, they're going to get bottom-of-the-wage-scale employees, which disadvantages them in the marketplace, or affects their competitive agility. Is it great? No, but I don't personally see that it equates to abuse.

Of note, I did not suggest that we couldn't (or shouldn't) boycott them for it, but calling a spade a spade, abuse it isn't, at least not to me.

Except those jobs would be... illegal?

I'm not talking about the legality of the job, but the argument structure. By saying this on the legality, you're effectively making the argument that as long as a job is legal, it's not abusive.

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