Workers of Amazon Divergent | Hacker News Reader

Workers of Amazon Divergent

nytimes.com

I use Amazon warehouses to sell women's apparel, and have in the past used them to sell jewelry and furniture in different companies. They put every other warehouse to shame in terms of speed, accuracy, and price.

Most manufacturers I know of in the U.S. who want to expand internationally will be sending their best sellers to FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) Germany to avoid high international shipping costs, knowing that FBA will manage orders at reasonable prices. In additional, Germany is a great hub to ship to the rest of the E.U. from with FBA.

Here's some more data on Amazon's international breakdown: http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d1d0c715782bd290d9afaf7.... Japan and the U.K. are the closest markets to Germany's size.

The first picture shows Amazon Germany. The working conditions and payment at Amazon are shit, but lol about the Union:

15.05 Leipzig - 600 of 2000 on strike

29.06 Bad Hersfeld - 300 of 3300 on strike

17.06 Leipzig - 250 of 2000 on strike

21.07 Bad Hersfeld - 300 of 3300 on strike

....

Amazon claims that the strikes wont harm them - And I believe them - German Unions sucks!

PS: Not all German unions suck - I'm an FAU (Free workers union - anarchists union) member, and founded a Betriebsrat (workers council) in 2001 that had over 95% in election against Ver.di. Ver.di is the Gleichschaltung (see wikipedia)of 5 former better unions.

What makes the FAU better than other German unions?

We are more radical, we do accept sabotage and direct action as an important part of our fight. Its an revolutionary syndicalism union and part of IWA/AIT. Its independent of the industry banch. e.g. if Amazon would have FAU, then the strike would likely effect computing systems bringing the complete delivery to halt. And not just 10% of the workers, who are standing at the door and changing nothing. The FAU is the best union for freelancers and temporary workers, and we are the only one who did win a strike for temp workers.

The main difference in German unions to other countries is, that other countries did fight the unions, and the unions did fight back. But in Germany the government embraced the unions and socialist since WW1, and the unions are a system sustaining since then, comparable to the church in other countries.

Yeah, because destroying someone else's property when they won't do what you want is a good thing. /s

Seems to work well for the US

you've just explained why FAU is worse

Aside from eBay, are there are any good alternatives to Amazon with comparable speed/convenience/selection? It sucks that such great results from a consumer perspective can't be had without borderline sweatshops on the fulfillment side. I'm willing to pay a few bucks more, I just find Amazon addicting due to the other aspects of the experience.

From my experience with warehouses/fulfillment centers, all the other options are same or worse than Amazon with regards to worker treatment. Besides, on Amazon plenty of merchants do their own fulfillment, and those that do fulfill with Amazon are going to fulfill with Amazon on eBay or Rakuten or their own website anyway. To do so morally you'll have to look into the fulfillment details of any individual company you do business with.

Single page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/business/workers-of-amazon...

If you don't want your employees to unionize, don't treat them like shit.

I used to believe this (I have been in two unions), but after having interacted with them from the other side of the table, I now call bullshit. They are nothing more than a negotiating device. Which isn't normatively good or bad...it just isn't the noble protect-the-downtrodden cause they like to portray themselves as.

In Europe it may be the opposite. At least here in Scandinavia. One need to remember that being unionized is the norm, and is not at all looked down on like someone does in the us. If you treat your workers well you will attract more intelligent people, that can easily choose jobs. They tend to be members in a union already before you hire them.

Many students will join a branch specific union already during their schooling, so employees will be semi organized already before they start.

Many unions have political arms with tight bounds with the ruling political parties, so if a company doesn't want to cooperate with a union they may find that the whole state apparatus comes at them. Most state employees is members, and the employees, union, other unions, other companies, state and local politician will bound together and slowly bleed dry any company not confirming. Soon the company will have to fight everything from building permits taking forever to get thru to all kind of supervisory organization starting to take an interest into their practices.

Anyone wanting to read about how this can look should try finding an analysis of what happened to Lidl her in Norway :)

I'd say corporations have way more power here in the U.S. than unions. For Heaven's sake we don't even have a national healthcare program. Proper healthcare is typically one of the bigger union fights from my experience.

Union is definitely a dirty word here. The people who are most against the unions tend to be the people who would benefit the most. Unfortunately they've been tricked into thinking otherwise. It's not uncommon for you to take a job at Target or Walmart and have to watch an anti-union video or two.

The Taft–Hartley Act really restricts union behavior. It makes it so you can't do things like solitary strikes, you have no typically notify your employer 80 days ahead of time if you plan to go on strike, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Management_Relations_Act...

At the end of the day it's all about striking a balance between labor and management. My plan is for all the companies I run to be ethnical especially in regards to treating my employees well.

Not linked/mentioned in the article, but somewhat related - an article on working conditions in an Amazon warehouse in the UK, from Financial Times, February of his year:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ed6a985c-70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab4...

This article has some really sloppy writing. Probably an intern or overworked copyeditor. I guess Amazon doesn't pull much weight in the 24 hour news cycle..

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