>I soon learned that only difference between an Amazon warehouse and a third-world sweatshop were the robots. At Amazon, you were surrounded by bots, and they were treated better than the humans.
If you read the article with the example that was asked for, you'd see the examples of how it's sweatshop conditions.
Long shifts on your feet, physical labor, short breaks and no cell phones. Precise tracking of performance. Does it sound like fun? Hell no. But it seems like decent pay for unskilled physical labor, and I haven't read anything that sounds like sweatshop conditions.
If she told you there were sharks with lasers on their heads would you have believed that too? The article is literally unbelievable.
>"I was really upset and I said, 'All you people care about is the rates, not the well-being of the people,' " she said. "I've never worked for an employer that had paramedics waiting outside for people to drop because of the extreme heat."
There were so many reports of workers overheating that OSHA had to get involved: https://www.mcall.com/news/watchdog/mc-allentown-amazon-comp...
That, along with other conditions reported, make it a literal sweatshop.
They risk bringing the coronavirus home every day to their families. Their bodies are chewed up over the course of months until they start falling apart from the stress and wear. "short breaks" usually means something like "you're only allowed to go to the bathroom twice" which is technically illegal but Amazon spent a lot of money asking consultants and lawyers how to circumvent that.
Not to mention they don't get paid while they're standing in line for 20+ minutes to get frisked before they leave.
- No chairs for a 12-hour shift
- Time spent going to the bathroom gets removed from your break time
- 30-minute lunch includes a 30-minute round trip to get to the lunch room
Other things seemed like unrealistic exaggerations. Like a 15 minute walk to the lunch room and barely having enough time to eat a sandwich, drink a soda and smoke a cigarette during the 30 minute break. Doesn’t add up.
And stating it felt like 150 degrees and no fans were allowed because “robots don’t like the cold”. What robot works better in 150 degrees than 70 degrees?
The stories don’t ring true to me and the pictures through the article from labor organizers tell me at least why the stories are being told.
Though it's possible that the parent was referring to Amazon warehouses where workers had to pee in a bottle to keep their productivity points above the cutoff level.
Also, why should they have means to influence the future of the company? They're hired voluntarily to do one job, not to lead the company.
Why should they have means to influence the future of the company? That's been repeatedly proven in court and enshrined in law.
Yes, workers should be able to influence the future of a company they invest their lives in, the same way citizens can influence the future of their countries. The incentives of workers and shareholders can be aligned, when greed is kept in check.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/14/politics/bernie-sanders-w...
You want people to be able to renege on contracts they explicitly agreed to under no duress. This position is not supported by the country and has been rejected countless times. Even unionism as a whole has been rejected. I would not join a union even if it was free, absolutely never.