Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disabilities

Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by danite on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:39PM (#19488185)

Very skeptical that this is due to Amazon's generosity and not just because they can tap into an underpaid and underemployed workforce. They don't seem to be giving these people access to the jobs that actually make money at Amazon. I'm very wary of feel good stories about employing people with disabilities in low paying jobs with lots of repetitive manual labor. Often it's a way to get cheaper and more easily exploited labor that you can get your PR team to spin as charity.

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Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by ummonk on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:43PM (#19488217)

That's good though isn't it? The more employers start seeking competitive advantage in hiring disabled people, the narrower the pay and employment gap will become.

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Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by Broken_Hippo on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:53AM (#19490156)

Not necessarily. Prison labour, sweatshops, and undocumented workers are all types of "competitive advantages" as well.

A company that has a history of treating folks well? Yeah, this might be their advantage. But Amazon has stories of employees not being able to use the toilet while on the clock. I'm just hoping they at least pay folks the same.

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Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by danite on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:08PM (#19488359)

It's more likely that they use it to depress the wages of abled workers. This sort of unskilled labor isn't exactly scarce enough to cause meaningful competitive pressure like you describe.

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Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by dmix on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:17PM (#19488409)

This worldview almost always ends up creating no jobs rather than any jobs for a greater amount of people. Always in the name of ‘good intentions’.

Having a job and financial independence vs nothing at all is the real world reality for the vast majority of these people.

Just because Amazon makes these jobs available is not taking other well paying jobs away from them. That’s not how this works.

Wether or not there should be more high paying jobs to capable disabled people is a different question.

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Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by danite on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:53PM (#19488614)

The US is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. If we want to make providing disabled people with fulfilling jobs that pay a good wage a priority, we are entirely capable of accomplishing that.

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Re:Amazon finds an alternative workforce of people with disa... by dmix on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @12:39PM (#19493434)

This statement is so full of naivety. The type of stuff I might have thought when I was 16 and didn't know how a country becomes (and stays) wealthy in the first place.

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