Harsh work conditions in Amazon workplaces

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by kazenatsu, Feb 4, 2018.

  1. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    Bezos is a public enemy. The fact that he is rich makes him a dangerous threat to ordinary Americans who are now very afraid of a corrupt ruling political class that includes Bezos and most of the other billionaires. Screw them and screw their businesses.
     
  2. james M

    james M Banned

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    why dangerous? his company is very very useful to me not dangerous.
     
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  3. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    The corrupt American political establishment is very dangerous. Almost all Americans are very afraid of the political elite.
    Hence Trump.
     
  4. james M

    james M Banned

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    This is gibberish and not responsive to my question about why you think Bezos and Amazon are dangerous.
     
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  5. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    I posted this: "The corrupt American political establishment is very dangerous. Almost all Americans are very afraid of the political elite.
    Hence Trump." You reply:

    A clear direct statement of a documented fact is far from "gibberish".

    “Record High in U.S. Say Big Government Greatest Threat, Now 72% say it is greater threat than big business or big labor”, by Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup, 12/18/13.
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/166535/r...syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All
     
  6. james M

    james M Banned

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    ah, so now you are saying big govt and big business are the enemy. Well, it depends whether they are moving toward or away from socialism and that depends on how the people vote and what the Ivy League thinks.
     
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  7. james M

    james M Banned

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    why? I save money time thanks to him, and have huge selection thanks to him.
     
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  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This comes down to a debate between the consumer and the worker.
    One of the arguments for slavery, for example, was that if slavery were abolished, cotton prices would rise and ordinary consumers wouldn't be able to afford cotton clothing, which was in all the style back then (didn't really end up happening, by the way).
     
  9. james M

    james M Banned

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    totally 100% wrong of course. It comes down to understanding that new businesses help us and thus we encourage them; not make them illegal on theory that they hurt us.
     
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree that new businesses are generally a good thing, but sometimes a new business can make other businesses go out of businesses, simply because that new business treats their employees like crap, and can squeeze higher productivity out of them and keep labor costs down. In that case it's kind of a zero sum game (or worse so) because business and consumers are only benefitting at a direct cost to the workers.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2018
  11. james M

    james M Banned

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    sometimes??? Always!!. When a new business is formed the govt does not add money to economy. People have same amount to spend. What they spend at Amazon they don't spend at Barnes and Noble so they go out of business. progress is never bad. It is how we got from stone age to here.
     
  12. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    Big Business, for the most part, and Big Labor are dairy cows for Big Government and the corrupt political class.

    “Lobbyist can offer, in other words, an implicit preemptive payoff to powerful government officials. It happens not only on the Hill but in the boastfully anti-lobbyist, anti-revolving-door Obama White House. Scores of administration officials had by 2010 left the administration for K Street jobs without anyone so much as pointing out that they were defying a central tenet of the Obama political enterprise.” … “There's a payoff," Hess [Stephen Hess Brookings Institution] concluded using the word “payoff” with no apparent wryness.” Mark Leibovich, This Town, Penguin Books, 2013, pp. 163, 164.”
     
  13. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    Bezos is a brilliant businessman. Amazon will save its customers money so long as it has some serious competition left.

    "Amazon's decision to market a powerful face recognition tool to police is alarming privacy advocates, who say the tech giant's reach could vastly accelerate a dystopian future in which camera-equipped officers can identify and track people in real time, whether they're involved in crimes or not.

    It's not clear how many law enforcement agencies have purchased the tool, called Rekognition, since its launch in late 2016 or since its update last fall, when Amazon added capabilities that allow it to identify people in videos and follow their movements almost instantly."
    ABC, Amazon urged not to sell facial recognition tool to police
    By GENE JOHNSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS SEATTLE — May 22, 2018.
    https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/aclu-amazon-sell-face-recognition-tech-police-55351083
     
  14. james M

    james M Banned

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    actually there is always serious competition in retail. Do you understand?
     
  15. james M

    james M Banned

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    voters are free to vote out any part of the political class they want to. Do you understand?
     
  16. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Doesn't sound any better than coal mining and the pay isn't much. I guess working for a tycoon is working for a tycoon, that stays the same.

    In my early days I remember those industrial engineers who timed your movements with a stopwatch. But the paychecks kept coming and there was food on the table. Working fast beats the hell out of starving.
     
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  17. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    Note what happens to candidates who are not part of the corrupt political class when they run for office.

    "Perhaps the murkiest event in the timeline is Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of a special counsel after he personally recommended Comey’s firing in blistering terms. With Attorney General Jeff Sessions shoved out of the way, Rosenstein and Mueller then ignored their own conflicts and took charge anyway. Rosenstein is a fact witness, and Mueller is a friend of Comey, disqualifying them both.

    Flush with 16 prosecutors (including a former lawyer for the Clinton Foundation) and an undisclosed budget, the Mueller investigation has been a scorched-earth effort to investigate the entirety of the Trump campaign, Trump’s business dealings, the entire administration and now, if it was not Russia, maybe it’s some other country.

    The president’s earlier legal team was naive in believing that, when Mueller found nothing, he would just end it. Instead, the less investigators found, the more determined and expansive they became. This president and his team now are on a better road to put appropriate limits on all this."
    THE HILL, Stopping Robert Mueller to protect us all, BY MARK PENN, 05/20/18.
    http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/388549-stopping-robert-mueller-to-protect-us-all
     
  18. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    Bezos is, IMO, a fascist pig working to prop up the corrupt bipartisan ruling class and its dangerous Deep State.
    That is why I avoid buying products through Amazon.
    Again Bezos/Amazon sucks. Is that clear enough?
     
  19. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    And there are other jobs. The market should always determine wages.
     
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  20. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The sad fact is a lot of times these people don't always have a lot of better options.

    Maybe they could find another job, but it would be paying less than $12 an hour, probably less than $10.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2018
  21. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Working always beats not working. "Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it." Stephen Hawking
     
  22. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not if working at that job carries a fair likelihood of sustaining injuries that could later make it difficult to be able to carry out another job.
    When someone's earning near minimum wage, they can't truly afford to take the slightest risk of sustaining any injury.
    I met one kid, from a Mormon family with a good work ethic. He went into construction earning $14 an hour to earn some extra money and, when he was 19 there was an accident. A staple gun somehow bounced off a metal beam and went into his eye. His parents ended up having to pay over $90,000 in medical bills and he's still not sure if he'll ever regain full sight of his eye. He would have done his parents a big favor not to have tried earning that extra money.

    Really good looking guy too, could have been a male model, but now he has to wear an eye patch all the time. Just makes the tragedy all the more devastating...

    In the case of these people at Amazon, it's more likely to be a repetitive motion injury, especially for some of the employees over 35.
    This 21 year old in the U.K. was left with agonizing back pain after working 11 hour shifts and was unable to work:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ifts-giant-warehouse-left-agonising-pain.html

    This woman could end up homeless because of the injuries she suffered working for the company:
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/08/amaz-m08.html
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2018
  23. Ddyad

    Ddyad Well-Known Member

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    Then they need to move. Coal miners can usually make far more in Western mines but they choose not to move permanently.

    The miners and the companies would have both done better if the unions had negotiated for a combination of equity and wages. Too late now.
     
  24. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    It's a hard world.
     
  25. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I remember one time we had a group of family friends and one of them was talking about how they were going to remove the old asbestos insulation from the ceiling, they were going to do it themselves to save money. "Oh don't do that!" another person told her. "That's too dangerous for your health, you don't want to mess with asbestos. Hire a Mexican to do it!"
     

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