Amazon Staff Will Strike During Prime Day Over Working Conditions 138
Staff at a warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota will hold six hours of strikes on July 15th (the start of Prime Day) to demand less stringent quotas and the conversion of more temporary workers into permanent employees. Engadget reports: The quotas make the work dangerous and unreliable, according to the workers, and permanent work will help create a "livable future." Workers in the U.S. have protested before (including a December protest in Minnesota over support for East African workers), but not during crucial sales days -- you've only really seen that practice in Europe until now. The company has declined to comment on the strike.
Not seen, read the union ad (Score:5, Insightful)
"you've only really seen that practice in Europe until now. "
Nobody ever notices anything about a strike.
It's a logistics firm, avoiding disturbances caused by hurricanes, inundations, storms, blackouts, strikes and other stuff is their core business.
It's what they do.
The warehouse I get my stuff from in Europe is covered by multiple strikes a year, nothing is ever late.
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'The warehouse I get my stuff from in Europe is covered by multiple strikes a year, nothing is ever late.'
"That's good. As long as you get your shit on time, that's really all that matters. Glad to see that American ideals are creeping into Europe."
The Germans are on strike because they just don't get that Amazon is a logistics firm, they insist that it is like a Mall and they want to get paid like service people, even if there's never any customer for miles around.
Also, strikes are useless, they have dozen
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I hope the Unions adapt in Europe and start looking on a European level instead of on a national level.
And thus, the Federalization of Europe will continue until its just like the United States, whose States also had significant autonomy at one point.
The unions will push for a normalization of labor laws across the E.U. so that the unions have teeth across the E.U. Just another step towards becoming Federated.
The Brexit folks were not wrong.
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Your stuff may still arrive on time, but it has a cost for the company (and thus you via higher prices, because obviously it's not coming out of their profits).
Also what warehouse is this, my Amazon stuff is almost always late.
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"Your stuff may still arrive on time, but it has a cost for the company (and thus you via higher prices, because obviously it's not coming out of their profits)."
Not at all. The distance from Belgium, France warehouses is the same as the German ones.
They switch it around all year long to compensate for strikes, holidays (countries have different ones) school vacations (ditto for countries, massive traffic), flu waves etc.
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That implies they have excess capacity at the other warehouses in order to cover the strikes.
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Amazon does not maintain excess capacity, but they do maintain an on-demand capacity.
Capacity is added to a given location as need arises. All that is required is a bunch of people who want to work. Hire them, but don't give them as many hours as they want.
Part-time workers sign up for on-call work because they want more hours. When there is a need, Amazon calls them in and they work.
They need a real Union (Score:5, Insightful)
Long term means bye-bye (Score:4, Insightful)
so that they can strike for weeks on end.
And Amazon would not simply replace them why?
The reason why unions could do that before has a lot less with workers being paid, and a lot more about illegal intimidation tactics for people who cross the strike line. The legal system these days takes a much dimmer view on putting people in hospitals, which is the real reason why unions are fading away and a strike on Amazon will have no teeth.
Re:Long term means bye-bye (Score:5, Insightful)
And Amazon would not simply replace them why?
If the strike is legitimate, you're not allowed to fire them for striking. That's actual law in most of the world. If the workers have a collective bargaining agreement, the employer has agreed as part of that agreement not to hire temporary workers to substitute striking workers.
Re:Long term means bye-bye (Score:4, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Long term means bye-bye (Score:4, Insightful)
So, because they DON'T have a collective bargaining agreement (AKA "a union") they could be terminated at will by their employer for failure to report for scheduled shifts.
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Ah yes, unions are fading away because they're a bunch of violent bullies. It has nothing to do with the decades-long, well-financed mudslinging and crackdowns. Once again Stupor Kendall has no idea what he's talking about.
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Scabs are definitely a thing, but they aren't as ubiquitous as you make them out to be. The system always took a dim view on attacking scabs. If anything, it was union busting that they were lenient about. Your argument that that is why unions are fading away is wildly speculative and ignores that even without striking a union can give at least a modest wage increase compared to ununionized workers and protection against being fired without just cause.
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Can I get a legitimate source for your assertion that unions are in decline because they can't use violence. Thx, that would be great.
Or is this, yet again, another 'hunch' you pulled right out of your fucking ass?
I know which one I'm betting on
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Your ruling class have noted how you have absorbed their propaganda and and are now repeating it as though it were true that the unions are responsible for violence.
You are exactly the type of person they will need to murder strikers if they refuse to go back to work.
Here's an example [wikipedia.org] of what you will be doing.
If anyone gets concerned about Americans murdering their fellow citizens, we will just start another Red Scare. [wikipedia.org] They always work.
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Junior, I don't agree with Kendall on a lot, but I'm pretty sure you're making a fool out of yourself here.
Just sayin'
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Do you think Red Scares are not a tool they also use?
Or are you just another temporarily embarrassed millionaire?
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And when you're a slave to the unions...
Oh yes, as if that is a thing.
There's no leaving the union once you're a member. Ha.
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Sure, but how many days will that take? How much turnover will there be with the new staff? Even in the best case scenario dealing with replacing everyone is going to cause Amazon a good deal of problems. Worse, if they fire everyone, even those who didn't strike, they'll even further destroy their reputation and increase the incident of turnover. If no one actually strikes, because this could all just be rumor, and they fire everyone because they already hir
There's plenty of legal ways to deal with (Score:1)
Yes, some people will still break strike lines, but not enough to man all the stations. Amazon will lose money, lots of it. They might try to automate, but that'll increase the calls for a robot tax.
We don't have to keep bowing before the Job Creators begging for scraps. Together we can make a country where everyone has dignity. But it really does need to be _everyon
Re: Quit using the subject line as your intro (Score:1)
There's plenty of legal ways to deal with strike breakers. Social media for one.
Yeah, people that need jobs are worried about their picture on some left-wing shame page.
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Also, just get them to join the Union too, and then pay them not to work until the strike is up.
Typical blue-state thinking. Give me more for doing less. Don't forget to deduct their union dues for the rest of their working lives.
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Yes, some people will still break strike lines, but not enough to man all the stations.
They don't need to. Fill enough positions and move the rest of the fulfillment to other distribution centers.
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Amazon will lose money, lots of it.
Doubtful. Remember the other fulfillment centers.
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They might try to automate, but that'll increase the calls for a robot tax.
Doubtful. This strike will be over before it is noticed.
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We don't have to keep bowing before the Job Creators begging for scraps.
$15 an hour is scraps? It is probably already higher
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So, one thing that business executives don't understand is the history of the politics they are playing chicken with.
E.G. Wal-mart has stopped drug testing new hires out in Illinois because they can't hire anyone who isn't on drugs. Most retailers have followed suite. They've implimented drug rehab programs and binding arbitration agreements and other nonsense to cover their butts because of the possibility someone wigged out on cocaine might do something violent.
The point here is, underneath this discuss
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I remember when I was growing up and living in Seattle, the machinist's union would strike Boeing for weeks on end, every 3-4 years when the contract ended. And it always ended after 8-12 weeks of strikes and "negotiations" and Boeing giving in to the union for the raises they wanted. Then as I reached high school, I did a little math and realized that the raises that Boeing agreed to were, after being spread out over the 3 to 4 year term of the contract - about the same amount they saved on the lack of p
Re: They need a real Union (Score:3)
Essentially, machinists would strike for the equivalent of 12 weeks of extra pay over 3 or 4 years - and they would lose that much pay while they were striking. A net zero to the Company
Except, you know, the company list out on all the productivity of the striking workers during the strike, but yeah, a "net zero", except they paid 52 weeks salary for 48 weeks of work...
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No, his claim is that union machinists are lazy fuckers that work so inefficiently that they can cover a six week break on the first morning back by merely operating at the level of productivity non-union machinists provide by default.
I think he's exaggerating myself, it'd take them at least four days to catch up.
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As Norbert Wiener wrote many years ago: "Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor." Same guy who coined the word "cybernetics" and then realized that humans couldn't compete.
Just saw a really funny example of this race to the bottom by robotic slaves competing with each other. Two essentially equal ID photo booths quite close to each other. No economic justification, just a waste of electricity for the signage, but I do have to give credit to whoever is pe
note to myself (Score:1)
Buys something from Amazon on that day
Re: Prediction (Score:3)
They will route orders to other facilities, no consumer will be meaningfully impacted.
BTW, the 'heads-up' by the workers enables Amazon to work around this problem easily - maybe it should have been a surprise?
Jeff Bezos (Score:1)
He spends a billion dollar a year on fulfilling his nerdy pie in the sky dream about space but can't spend few million a year on improving the working condition for his workers. I want to see him explain that in his memoir.
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He spends a billion dollar a year on fulfilling his nerdy pie in the sky dream about space but can't spend few million a year on improving the working condition for his workers. I want to see him explain that in his memoir.
Rich people like to be rich.
A few years ago a super rich guy in New York City (can't find link) got nailed for tax evasion because he imported a very expensive painting for his house through his corporation to avoid paying the (relatively paltry, for him anyway) taxes himself. Trump is/was notorious for stiffing contractors on his various projects. (not flaming, just noting an easily Google-able fact)
But you're right, considering its size, it probably wouldn't eat into Amazon profits very deeply to pr
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A few years ago a super rich guy in New York City (can't find link) got nailed for tax evasion because he imported a very expensive painting for his house through his corporation to avoid paying the (relatively paltry, for him anyway) taxes himself.
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." -- Leona Helmsley
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wouldn't eat into Amazon profits very deeply to provide better employee benefits and/or to treat them bette
Even better, they could reinvest the profits in expanding their business, thus creating jobs and increasing the demand for labor. Then the market will take care of the pay raises.
Reinvestment is better than charity because job growth will raise wages at all companies, not just Amazon, and consumers and shareholders will benefit as well.
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You sound like a Trump economist. Tax cut for the rich will allow them to invest more money to create more jobs. Classic trickle down economics. It didn't work when Reagan was President and it didn't work for Trump also. Rich just pocketed money.
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Re: Jeff Bezos (Score:2)
Run the numbers on increasing every warehouse worker's pay by $5/hr and I think you'll blow past 'a couple million' pretty quickly.
That's $10K/per worker per year -I bet they have more than 2-3,000 warehouse workers around the world.
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Jeff would be smart to spend the money on better robots.
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That's $10K/per worker per year -I bet they have more than 2-3,000 warehouse workers around the world.
So $30MM on $239B in revenues.
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Correct. Therefore the "robots" of automation don't need to get as inexpensive as before to become cost effective.
If people want more money they should have skills above that of a box shuffler or fast food worker. Their hourly rate cap is their issue. Not their employers and not ours. Because those costs are sure to be passed on to the consumer.
Six hours of strikes? (Score:5, Funny)
Should be 5 or 7 hours -- 'cause, you know, they're Prime.
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Re: Six hours of strikes? (Score:2)
Being "twice a prime" makes it non-prime, cause, you know, it's divisible by 2.
with no union protections... (Score:1)
temporary workers will be replaced, and blacklisted from ever working any amazon site again. not showing up for your assignment is valid grounds for dismissal, and they won't get unemployment via amazon or their agency (for contract workers).
actual employees that don't have sufficient time off accrued and don't follow company policy for requesting that time off will be fired, too. and you know amazon will fight any unemployment claims here as well, just to teach them (and potential future problem employees)
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I fail to see the relevance of this.
Choosing not to employ someone you previously sacked involves no misrepresentation.
CEO Jeff Bezos (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: CEO Jeff Bezos (Score:2)
Bezoar didn't start the company to enrich others, and how exactly does Enzo's convert his billions in Amazon stock shares into cash?
Oh, and you forgot about the mind-nummingly immense tax bill he'd have to pay on the income from selling his shares of Amazon.
Re: CEO Jeff Bezos (Score:2)
"...how does Bezos..."
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Enzo's? You gonna stand up Hopper on your next date?
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Amazon has 650,000 employees. For every additional $Billion spent on wages, they can each get an extra $1500/year. Amazon made a profit of $3 Billion, so the shareholders (of which Jeff is the main one) could forgo that and instead give everyone a $1.50-$2.00/hour (depending on number of hours worked) raise.
Or they can just keep their profits and continue competing with other employers for staff. I know people who would love to work for $15/hour at an Amazon warehouse, but the local fulfillment center isn't
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Instead of pay rises they could improve working conditions. Reduce the amount of walking staff have to do, allow them to take bathroom breaks, that kind of thing.
Re:CEO Jeff Bezos (Score:4, Informative)
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His worth is not in cash. Sure he keeps a few million in cash for ready spending on the life of a Billionaire but the vast majority of his net worth is in the Stocks that keep him in
So, (Score:2)
Strikes at fullfillment cernters don't do much. (Score:2, Troll)
Threatening to strike on a major sale day doesn't have nearly as big an impact as they think it does. Fulfillment workers don't directly interact with customers and their absence doesn't directly impact sales on a specific day. Yeah, there are some jerks out there who will throw a big fit if their same-day shipping doesn't show up, but for most people it will just mean a small delay in getting what they bought. I'm a Prime member and I don't care if they strike. My order will be waiting for them when they g
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My order will be waiting for them when they get back.
More likely it will just go to a fulfillment center that isn't on strike.
I hate it and I want it to be permanent... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't like the job, but I want it to be permanent... ???
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In other news... (Score:1)
Amazon about to report the permanent closure. of its facility in Shakopee, Minnesota.
I would strike too, if I were an Amazon employee. (Score:2)
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It's Democratic primary season (Amazon take note) (Score:1)
Now why can't . . . (Score:2)