[HN Gopher] Amazon's plan to "neutralize" unions with ex-inmates...
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Amazon's plan to "neutralize" unions with ex-inmates and
"vulnerable students"
Author : hownottowrite
Score : 147 points
Date : 2022-07-31 19:45 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vox.com)
| themitigating wrote:
| This headlines made me think (thought unlikely) that Amazon is
| hiring ex-cons and dropouts to beat the shit out of union
| organizers.
| zugi wrote:
| I read the article expecting to see terrible actions by Amazon
| fighting the union.
|
| Instead the article was about the Teamsters union convincing
| local governments to block Amazon from opening buildings, and
| Amazon "fighting back" by increasing their hiring of needy ex-
| cons and minorities from local colleges, ending their marijuana
| drug tests, and otherwise working to ingratiate themselves with
| their comminities.
|
| The Teamsters don't come out looking like the good guys...
| dotopotoro wrote:
| They seem to be very positive influence on amzn
| zugi wrote:
| Nice, that's a good way to look at it!
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| > The Teamsters don't come out looking like the good guys...
|
| This is often the case.
| dahdum wrote:
| Anyone hiring ex-inmates in large numbers is doing society a
| great benefit, whether it's altruism, PR, or both hardly matters
| to me. It's not easy managing that cohort and few businesses are
| even willing to try. Many of those that are have worse work
| conditions.
|
| I'm 100% on board for tax cuts or subsidies for businesses who
| keep the formerly incarcerated employed.
| vintermann wrote:
| Altruism and PR aren't the only options. If the explanation is
| "they'll be less likely to dare to ask for better treatment"
| then I think that's a problem.
| [deleted]
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The memo doesn't seem to suggest hiring the formerly
| incarcerated, it only mentions creating partnerships with
| organizations that work for the formerly incarcerated.
|
| It doesn't say what that partnership would entail, but
| something like donating to an outreach program for the formerly
| incarcerated doesn't deserve tax breaks.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I think you missed this part:
|
| > "....By creating a pipeline of workers who would
| immediately benefit from our benefits compared to other peers
| in the region, we are creating spokespeople that can improve
| our reputation, while helping our communities most
| vulnerable."
| [deleted]
| kcplate wrote:
| So apparently "neutralize" is the big bad trigger word here
| despite this quote?
|
| > Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien told Recode in July
| that his union is intent on " _disrupting_ [Amazon's] network
| until they get to a point where they _surrender_
| zugi wrote:
| hospadar wrote:
| Do you honestly believe that Jeff Bezos, one of the
| wealthiest people on the planet, who just shot himself into
| space on a private rocket, is worried about his personal
| safety because of the president of the teamsters?
| zugi wrote:
| Uh, no I do not, it just seemed like a relevant movie
| reference...
| mrxd wrote:
| I'm a huge supporters of unions, but Amazon has been very open
| about their opposition to unions. The fundamental argument for
| unions is that companies serve shareholders at the expense of
| workers. Opposing unions is some kind of shocking corporate
| malfeasance, it's just the nature of capitalism.
| baskethead wrote:
| Purposefully manipulative headlines like this are why I don't
| trust most articles from sources like vox.
|
| The headline is used in a way to make it seem like Amazon is
| targeting students that are vulnerable to them, meanwhile Amazon
| is targeting those that would benefit the most in society,
| because they are most vulnerable to economic issues, like ex-
| inmates and students. Vox is doing its best to manipulate their
| words to make things look as bad as possible.
|
| I wish there were a feature where I could automatically not see
| articles from certain content providers because they are so
| skewed and biased.
| 300bps wrote:
| An ad that locked the browser on my iPhone telling me I won't
| various prizes lowered my trust of Vox as well.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| Next time you're at a union meeting, ask them about any boxes
| they own at sports stadiums. Ask if you as a paid union member
| can use the box that you are paying for with your dues.
| jjeaff wrote:
| While I don't like things like luxury boxes for the big wigs, a
| union exec would have the same justification as any business
| exec would. In fact, a union exec might have even more
| justification as I can imagine nearly their entire job is
| schmoozing executives and politicians.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| An even better opportunity for the executives and politicians
| being schmoozed to meet a real dues-paying union worker.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| You could make the same argument about bags of coke and
| keeping hookers on retainer.
|
| At a point you need to draw the line admit what is simply
| corruption.
| therouwboat wrote:
| Not american, but our union owns summer cottages that members
| can use. Otherwise unions are really simple, they get % of my
| pay, so more I make, more they make and its other way around
| with my job, less I make, more they make.
| michaelchisari wrote:
| Are you saying this as an argument against unions? Or as an
| argument for better, more democratic unions?
| hospadar wrote:
| While you're at it ask your corporate boss if you can use his
| private jet since it is your labor making him wealthy after
| all. I'm sure he'll be very generous.
|
| I agree that powerful people aren't great but it seems
| ridiculous to imagine that union bosses are the worst
| offenders.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| This article is both too cynical and yet not cynical enough.
|
| Of course Amazon is doing good not out of the goodness of it's
| heart but for good PR. This is true of literally every large
| corporation.
|
| But that doesn't mean the good they do isn't good.
|
| The way they are "neutralizing" them with ex inmates and
| vulnerable students is they're making a special effort to hire
| ex-inmates and underprivileged students.
| [deleted]
| Cyberdog wrote:
| On a parallel Earth, Vox has published an article praising
| Amazon to the high heavens for hiring felons and troubled
| youth.
|
| Nobody wants to hire ex-convicts, yet when they have nothing to
| lose (like a decent job) they're at far greater risk for
| recidivism. It's a bummer for the union people, I suppose, but
| as someone greatly concerned with how our society shows no
| shame in blatant classism with regards to ex-cons, I really
| wish Amazon the best with this program and hope it quickly
| spreads to other companies as well. That their reasons for
| doing so are not entirely altruistic just doesn't worry me in
| this particular case.
| huetius wrote:
| I totally agree with you about our society's mistreatment of
| people who have paid their debts, but I'm not sure I like
| what Amazon is doing here. It smacks of using people:
| treating them like props in order to secure private gain.
| civilized wrote:
| > It smacks of using people
|
| Work is fundamentally transactional. Those for whom it is
| more than that are lucky.
|
| > treating them like props in order to secure private gain
|
| I worry about moralizing on behalf of the marginalized.
| They should be asked whether they'd prefer the option to
| have the work.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Yes, well, such is the case with the Dave Thomas
| Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Product RED... Any good
| they do is all with the bottom line in mind.
|
| Meanwhile, the felon who gets a $15+/hour gig in an Amazon
| warehouse during the hardest time in their life, when no
| other employer in town will give them the time of day and
| the urges to fall back into those bad habits are creeping
| in, is probably not going to care much about being "used."
| guipsp wrote:
| (because they can pay them less)
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I really dislike sensationalized headlines like this. A more
| accurate one might say:
|
| > Amazon's plan to counter pressure from the Teamsters Union
| focuses on investing in non-profits.
|
| For those who didn't read the article:
|
| A leaked Amazon memo shows that the Teamsters Union is
| effectively putting pressure on Amazon by convincing its members
| to pressure politicians into not granting Amazon tax breaks, land
| grants, etc.
|
| Amazon is worried that this represents a real threat to expansion
| as having local politicians turn against them will almost
| certainly mean their competitors like UPS (who is friendly with
| the Teamsters) will outcompete them.
|
| So, Amazon is going to invest in local charities like those for
| ex-convicts and low-income students. This has two purposes:
|
| 1. Give politicians an excuse to give Amazon tax breaks (look at
| what they invest in the community).
|
| 2. Build positive sentiment with local members who will talk to
| politicians on Amazon's behalf. They'll be especially motivated
| to if Amazon threatens to pull funding from their non-profits.
| c3534l wrote:
| Sensationalized? This is disinformation.
| stonogo wrote:
| "Disinformation" that uses the exact phrasing from the Amazon
| document?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| You can absolutely misrepresent what someone is saying by
| using quotes out of context.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Except it is not.
| dave_sullivan wrote:
| They will spend money on literally anything else except wage
| increases.
| wahern wrote:
| Just to play Devil's Advocate: a company can cut donations or
| most other expenditures anytime it wants. An increase in
| wages is effectively a permanent commitment, and the only way
| to reduce wage expenditures is to cut the workforce. This is
| why companies tend to prefer bonuses, etc, rather than pay
| bumps, even for individual employees.
| echelon wrote:
| Companies also want to retain the ability to fire at will,
| with simple HR processes, and to reward based on
| performance instead of seniority.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > and to reward based on performance instead of seniority
|
| Or reward based on bootlicking, office politics and
| sexual favours. If you think companies are efficient and
| promote based on merit, I have a casting couch to sell
| you.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Just a few months ago Amazon raised the maximum base salary
| from $160k to $350k
| missedthecue wrote:
| They were the first to $15, literally leading a nationwide
| wage increase for low skill labor, and now they pay closer to
| $18 by me. For people trying to hate Amazon at any cost, the
| goalposts keep shifting. If Amazon announced $20 minimum
| tomorrow, there is no doubt in my mind that people would
| still be griping.
|
| And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry
| leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles as if the
| heavily unionized UPS drivers don't also do this.
|
| https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/what-do-you-
| do-w...
|
| https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-
| bottles.36...
|
| https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles-
| in...
|
| Turns out public bathrooms aren't always available around
| suburbia, and leaving a truck unattended is a bad idea. I'm
| not trying to lick boots here or anything, but the constant
| shitting on Amazon's non-tech business gets really
| uninteresting. As if it's all generated by a GPT-3 bot.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| > They were the first to $15[...] now they pay closer to
| $18 by me
|
| This is bullshit.
|
| I'm sure there's some Hollywood accounting justification
| for this claim, but over 10 years ago close to $18/hr is
| what you could expect to make as associate working in the
| distribution center of another big corporate behemoth:
| Walmart. We're talking low-skill grindwork smack dab in the
| post-economic collapse, and that $18/hr figure does not
| account for the "veteran" workers on the receiving end of
| the more-or-less guaranteed annual pay bumps that come with
| just continuing to work there (making $20+/hr). Again, not
| now in the current post-COVID era (because otherwise who
| cares), but over 10 years ago.
|
| It blew me away when a few years ago I learned that Amazon
| was only paying something like $13.
|
| So Amazon is $15? Who cares. Almost every fast food place
| around is paying close to that now, I'm told. $15 is so low
| that _no one_ was getting paid that low at the Walmart DC
| that I 'm familiar with, which (again, since it bears
| repeating) was _over 10 years ago_.
| hkt wrote:
| Relating to those pay bumps: Amazon has targets for staff
| turnover, which will potentially purge anyone who gets
| incremental pay increases even if they start doing that
| (which AIUI they don't really)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| If the workers want unions... why not just let them have
| unions? Amazon is hell bent on suppressing worker power.
| Acting like Amazon isn't doing anything wrong here is
| wishful thinking. We can keep pretending like the needs of
| the workers are immaterial to the functioning of society or
| we can let workers have some modicum of control over their
| workplace conditions. But right now Amazon is trying to
| crush workers rights and that's deplorable even if you're
| tired of hearing about it.
| hwers wrote:
| That's because $20 is still humiliatingly low for the
| workload
| leetcrew wrote:
| $20/hr is increasingly difficult to live on in higher COL
| areas of the US, but annualized at 40 hours per week,
| it's pretty close to the US median individual income. a
| household with two adults making that much would be well
| above the median household income. "humiliatingly low" is
| an exaggeration.
| bequanna wrote:
| They do actually require that you work, yes.
|
| There are plenty of lower paid jobs for those only
| interested in being a chair filler.
|
| But the pay is quite good for the required skillset.
| rr808 wrote:
| I'm not sure which planet you are on, but warehouse
| workers earn way less than $20/hr in most of the US,
| Europe or anywhere else.
| Retric wrote:
| Many warehouses pay well over 20$/hour and others
| significantly less. What's rarely mentioned is while
| Amazon's compensation is roughly in line with industry
| norms, the workload is however much worse.
| kolbe wrote:
| Care to give some support for this intangible and
| unverifiable complaint?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Just take a look at amazon warehouse worker turnover
| rate. No other company in the industry comes anywhere
| close. Amazon's strategy is to gamify work and force the
| workers to put the pedal to the metal until they burn out
| and quit.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| > No other company in the industry comes anywhere close.
|
| Arguably not the same industry (but devastatingly
| adjacent): have a look at FedEx warehouses. Recently as
| low as $13.xx/hr, same sort of grueling work, plus the
| privilege of not knowing whether you'll need to show up
| at 4:00 AM or 7:00 AM. You don't get to know until the
| night before, when you call a phone number around 8 or 9
| to listen to a recorded message that will tell you. And
| you have no idea how long you'll be working, either
| (except that it won't be 8 hours). 5-6 hours is possible.
| ~3 hours is probable. So you'll need to work 6 or 7 days
| just for the chance that you might get close to 30 hours.
| Ridiculously high turnover, as expected.
| gruez wrote:
| >Just take a look at amazon warehouse worker turnover
| rate. No other company in the industry comes anywhere
| close.
|
| But all that says is "people don't want to work on
| amazon". It doesn't say why they don't want to work
| there. The parent post made a specific claim (ie. "the
| workload is however much worse"), which is _consistent_
| with worse working conditions, but not proof of it.
| Retric wrote:
| Just because you don't like a statement doesn't mean it's
| unverifiable, objectively:
|
| Average Warehouse Worker Hourly Pay "Avg. Base Hourly
| Rate (USD)" $14.99/ hour and $19.57 is top 10%. https://w
| ww.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Warehouse_Worker/Ho...
|
| As to the job sucking, "Amazon warehouse workers suffer
| serious injuries at twice the rate of rivals, study
| finds" https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/study-amazon-
| workers-suffer-...
| rxhernandez wrote:
| Just because warehouse owners have the leverage to make
| it impossible to demand more doesn't make it any less
| humiliating.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Well, clearly their mistake was failing to consult hwers
| on Hacker News when evaluating the market for warehouse
| labor.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > "whatabout" the urine bottles as if the heavily unionized
| UPS drivers don't also do this.
|
| Anecdotal I guess, but every time I see either an Amazon or
| UPS driver at my house they seem pretty relaxed. They pull
| into the drive, walk to the door with the package, and walk
| back to the truck. They don't seem rushed. Maybe they pee
| in a bottle in their truck but based on my observations
| that's probably just the easiest thing for them to do, at
| least for the males.
|
| When I delivered pizza in the late 1980s I _ran_ back and
| forth from my car to the customer 's door. 30 seconds saved
| could mean being ahead of the next driver getting back to
| the store, where it was FIFO.
| Retric wrote:
| Amazon is far from the first company bumping to 15$/hour.
| Even when they finally joined the 15$ club they where still
| underpaying people at the time as shown by their retention
| statistics.
|
| That's the thing about free markets, workers get to say no.
| They can trade lower pay for a vastly less crappy job, or
| get better treatment for similar pay elsewhere etc.
| parineum wrote:
| > as shown by their retention statistics.
|
| >That's the thing about free markets, workers get to say
| no.
|
| I like how these sentences are consecutive.
| aldebran wrote:
| That's because the higher pay comes at the cost of peeing
| in bottles aka losing human dignity.
|
| It feels like there's no shortage of people out to defend
| Amazon either.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| If someone is willing to sell their dignity (which I
| guess is now defined by whether or not you urinate in a
| bottle) then why should we stop them?
|
| We're not talking about safety or child labor where
| there's a moral duty to put up guard rails.
| rtpg wrote:
| Because what happens is every single company will start
| doing this in practice. Not to mention that overworking
| people to the point that they do not believe they can
| even take a real rest break is a safety issue.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Does any job have dignity anymore?
|
| I'm a white guy on a team of a all Indian developers and
| I spend half of my time kissing butt to fit in, just so I
| can get the basic information I need to do my job.
|
| Before that I was a truck driver and peed in a bottle and
| that actually had more dignity then kissing butt all day.
|
| Single moms useing only fans to keep paying these
| skyrocketing rents.
|
| They literally made half the work force submit to
| experimental vaccines or get fired.
|
| This is 2022 America.
|
| There's no such thing as work place dignity in the
| majority of jobs anymore.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Did you read the comment? It claimed that amazon is not
| the outlier here.
| jacksnipe wrote:
| The goalposts are "good working conditions". You can track
| this with retention, which is notably terrible at Amazon.
| suby wrote:
| I'm sure people would still be griping, but nothing is
| static. The cost of everything keeps increasing and
| honestly, depending on where you live even at 20 dollars an
| hour it will be hard to make ends meet.
|
| There will always be a struggle between labor and employer
| where each will seek to maximize their share, it's the
| system we have set up. I really don't think people should
| be faulted for pushing for more when it's literally a
| companies goal to pay people as little as is functionally
| possible.
|
| Amazon is the target because they are the largest. If you
| increase the wage Amazon pays, you increase the wage their
| competitors pay.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > when it's literally a companies goal to pay people as
| little as is functionally possible
|
| The meme that "fiduciary duty" means "maximise revenue at
| all costs" needs to die. This is a falsehood that has
| been debunked repeatedly.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The only point of a company is to maximize shareholder
| value. You're right, that doesn't always mean "maximize
| revenue at all costs." It usually does though, because
| especially as a growth company that's what shareholders
| want. Obviously there are competing priorities, but
| overall most shareholders want to maximize discounted
| profit, and all their priorities reflect how that should
| be done.
| onethought wrote:
| That's not true though. The shareholders are people so
| what they want are as varied as what people want.
|
| Does Elon want SpaceX to be super profitable or does he
| want to make life multi planetary? (They aren't mutually
| exclusive, but it's weird to think that he is just trying
| to make as much profit as possible).
| Lich wrote:
| > but it's weird to think that he is just trying to make
| as much profit as possible
|
| Why is it weird to think that?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| One can also consider that the state is also a party
| because they license and privilege corporations and
| stockholders.
| suby wrote:
| Your two sentences in this thread is hardly debunking
| anything. What is Amazon maximizing if not profit? It
| certainly is not employee share of revenue or employee
| well being.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Corporations are allowed to exist to create a positive
| net good. ie: the social contract works so long as we can
| plausibly reason that they, you know, actually benefit
| people more than they harm. Maximizing profit is a lie
| told to children for reasons I won't get into, but when
| it displaces the social contract, the end result is a
| justification of all sorts of socially pathological
| behavior, this included.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Everything you just said stopped being true in the 70s
| and 80s. Yes, B-corps are a thing, but the laws as
| currently constructed encourage profit extraction above
| nearly everything else.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| That would be true if people believed economists like
| Milton Friedman created reality instead of what was
| really much more mundane. Those who do so are attributing
| supernatural powers to a mere mortal.
| pjmorris wrote:
| Corporations have no fiduciary duty to produce a profit.
| Thinking that they do has been attributed to Milton
| Friedman's 1971 NY editorial [0], but some argue that the
| notion can't be pinned on him [1] It's more accurate to
| say that fiduciary responsibilities are to ensure the
| corporation doesn't violate the law and that the firm
| doesn't go out of business [2].
|
| [0] 'The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase
| Its Profits', Friedman
|
| [1] https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi
| ?articl...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth-
| Shareholders-C...
| macintux wrote:
| The point is that there's no law that says companies must
| maximize profit at the expense of everything else. The
| fiduciary duty is to be responsible with shareholder's
| money, not to maximize return on investment.
| verall wrote:
| It doesn't matter if it is the law or not if Amazon is
| made up of a large group of managers with competing
| interests that all boil to maximizing profit in order to
| meet their individual key goals. The GP said nothing
| about it being the law, simply that it is how Amazon, as
| a giant megacorporation, acts in practice.
| otikik wrote:
| It does matter because assuming it as a matter-of-fact
| prevents discussing or even conceiving alternatives. It
| prevents you from asking: What _should_ the companies
| fiduciary duty be? (Perhaps respecting the law and not
| busting unions?)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > The cost of everything keeps increasing and honestly,
| depending on where you live even at 20 dollars an hour it
| will be hard to make ends meet.
|
| And if you bump everyone to $20, things will get more
| expensive and then you'll have to bump them to $22, and
| then everything will get more expensive so you'll...
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| A wage-price spiral would be preferable to the asset
| inflation that two decades of zero-interest policy have
| brought us.
| 300bps wrote:
| I think you've just invented the Wage-Price Spiral.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage-price_spiral
| chownie wrote:
| Except that's not at all true. Historic raises in the
| minimum wage did not cause an inflationary response in
| goods nor currency.
| gruez wrote:
| >Historic raises in the minimum wage did not cause an
| inflationary response in goods nor currency.
|
| The "historic raises in the minimum wage" were also very
| conservative and decried by proponents of
| $15/$20/whatever minimum wage as being too low. A one
| time pay bump won't cause serious issues, but giving in
| to ever increasing demands for minimum wage (ie. $15 last
| year, $20 this year, $25 the year after) will.
| XorNot wrote:
| Minimum wage _should_ be going up all the time to keep it
| inline with inflation. That 's the point of minimum wage.
|
| Minimum wage used to ride regularly, then since _2005_
| has remained constant while in real terms reducing by
| about 40%
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-
| nominal-val...
| snewman wrote:
| This is so exaggerated as to be silly. The cost of
| "things" has many components, and only a small fraction
| of them trace back to the hourly wage of low-paid
| domestic workers. Increasing low-end wages by 10% does
| not result in 10% additional inflation.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Considering that at the same time that inflation has been
| at the highest in years, corporate profits have been the
| highest ever. Maybe those two are much more related than
| wage and inflation?
| WheatM wrote:
| [deleted]
| baskethead wrote:
| Most people that work for Amazon in the warehouse like
| working there. All you're hearing are from the union plants
| that are coordinating with media that both want to see Amazon
| fail. Meanwhile the fact that unions are having such a hard
| time gaining traction show that most of the members feel like
| they don't need it. The idea that you can intimidate hundreds
| of thousands of workers across the US is ludicrous.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| > Most people that work for Amazon in the warehouse like
| working there.
|
| Isn't the retention rate at Amazon warehouses abysmal?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Because everyone else quits after a month?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Could it not also be that unions are having a hard time
| gaining traction because Amazon is taking illegal anti-
| union measures in their warehouses? The NLRB gave merit to
| complaints of illegal activities like threatening workers
| who were voting to unionize:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdejj/amazon-repeatedly-
| vio...
| dionidium wrote:
| Obviously, companies don't want to spend more on labor than
| they have to. But I doubt that's any company's major concern
| with unions. The issue, as I see it, is the lack of
| flexibility once unions take hold. Now you have a large
| democratic body with a lot of control over hiring and firing
| and with undue input about who in the company does what and
| according to which rules, which means, ultimately, over the
| company's ability to address novel challenges.
|
| Just to take one silly example, when I worked at the phone
| company we weren't allowed to move our phones ourselves any
| time we moved desks. That was a task that _by contract_ had
| to be performed by a union lineman. So a guy would show up,
| eventually, and unplug your phone from one desk and then plug
| it into another.
|
| That kind of nonsense was in place _all throughout_ the
| company. All kinds of ridiculous details were written down
| and enforced. The phone company barely even tries to be
| competitive, so whatever, I guess. You probably pay for that
| in your cellphone bill, but it 's not the end of the world.
|
| But if you're actually trying to be nimble and efficient,
| then that kind of stuff makes it a lot harder.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| This is very interesting. I've heard that warehouses have
| poor conditions, but not poor pay.
|
| Anecdotally a friend of mine said that the warehouses pay
| very well, especially in smaller towns where there are less
| opportunities for young people who need short term work or
| flexible working hours.
|
| Do competing warehouses pay better?
| verisimi wrote:
| Hey, I gave to a charity. Why don't local politicians give me
| tax breaks?!?
|
| Honestly, this sort of idea is such an anathema to the idea of
| fairness, and an indictment of politics.
|
| Be a big enough company, and then you can effectively bribe
| politicians into giving you money from local tax payers that
| you can then use to destroy those same local businesses and
| communities. Genius.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Hey, I gave to a charity. Why don't local politicians give
| me tax breaks?!?
|
| Aren't charitable donations tax deductible?
| verisimi wrote:
| I don't think that amazon is doing that. Nor Elon.
|
| They have offshore tax operations AND demand special
| treatment, subsidies or tax breaks for deigning to operate
| in some area.
| pera wrote:
| Why do you consider the headline sensationalist? They are using
| the same language used in their memo:
|
| > _provide political cover for local policymakers, neutralize
| organized labors' attempts to grow their coalition of third-
| party validators and spokespeople [...]_
| [deleted]
| aldebran wrote:
| I disagree that it's sensationalized. The intentions do seem to
| work towards neutralizing.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Tax breaks and land grants are giving Amazon a massive
| advantage over all local businesses.
|
| Even if you are against labour right and purely pro-business,
| how is a local shop suppose to complete? You are just
| destroying you local businesses in favour of a multinational
| that pays almost no taxes. I do not understand why this
| practice is allowed.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Quotation marks implies they are directly quoting from the
| leaked memo, i.e. not a sensationalized headline.
| luckylion wrote:
| That's not how quoting works. You can't just quote one word
| and then put something else behind it. There's a difference
| between "neutralizing unions" and "neutralizing labor's
| attempt to ..."
|
| It's like the difference between "we need to kill him" and
| "we need to kill his attempt to pass a law that would..."
| pera wrote:
| > _There 's a difference between "neutralizing unions" and
| "neutralizing labor's attempt to ..."_
|
| The term _neutralize_ as used here (i.e. "to counteract
| the activity or effect of : make ineffective", Merriam-
| Webster dictionary) actually make both sentences nearly
| identical.
| [deleted]
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| "labor" as a noun is a synonym for union
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