> it was good if you were in the union and employed, but was much harder to get work and join the union.
This is my fundamental problem with unions—it helps the insiders and hurts everyone else.
Amazon’s working condition are rough (and I really hope that changes), but there are plenty of jobs out there that are much worse and don’t pay nearly as well. They just get all the attention because of their size and impact.
I think that’s a feature, not a bug. In that I don’t think it’s a problem.
Labor is subject to markets like many things, and shouldn’t be exploited. But there’s some work that’s hard and doesn’t require specialized training (eg, hauling stuff around warehouses all day). Some people are willing to do this and they do, if they don’t want to they can do other things.
This is an oversimplification, of course, but having the ability to provide more jobs with more options is the solution I think.
I grew up in a small town and it sucks for work. If you think working for Amazon sucks, you should try working in the warehouse of the only grocery store in town. The one run by a racist jerk who knows you have no options.
firstly, why is being abused and peeing in a bottle inevitable? Your post basically reads like how someone in 1500 would look at serfs and peasants in mud huts and say "that's as good as life of a common man is gonna be". Same goes for Victorian workhouses and children in coalmines.
Secondly, what is low skill exactly? Can these people not read, write, use Excel and email, could they not do secretarial and other jobs? I bet quite a few of them have degrees. Some countries have free education / upskilling specifically to avoid people getting trapped in this situation, and to improve overall productivity of the economy.
We’re talking about warehouse workers, not delivery drivers so I’m not sure if peeing in a bottle is the right argument here. Warehouse workers get breaks and can presumably use them to pee, etc. That being said, I’ve done some delivery and work where it was a pain to get to bathrooms and peeing in a bottle was pretty common and not the end of the world. I maybe did it a few times a week but there wasn’t an easy solution as I was driving for long stretches and there wasn’t a bathroom near. Or I’d rather just get there sooner.
By unskilled I mean that you can be trained on the job in less than a day. It doesn’t mean that the workers don’t have degrees and skills, it just means the job doesn’t require anything. By all means, they can certainly take other jobs but good luck finding a secretarial job for $15/hour.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics has a lot of info on how they classify “low skill” jobs [0] and even tracks overqualified workers who have more skills but work in jobs that require fewer skills.
There's nothing optimal about the level of pressure being applied to these human beings. The same job could exist for the same pay, with the same overall tasks, with 10% less robotically-enforced (literally) pressure, and Amazon would take a tiny hit to productivity in exchange for a workforce that gets to live relatively sustainable and healthy lives instead of burning out after 6 months.
The current state is optimal for Amazon only. It's far from optimal for society.
Providing busy work for people that to prop up Amazon’s selling boat loads of knock off garbage.
Amazing. Surely because “that’s how it worked in the past” isn’t the only option for social organization?
Why not stop believing in Bezos and solve our human problems generally?
Why not a mandate to provide education and healthcare and we provide THOSE jobs?
Because Bezos and Musk are able to get real access to politicians, resulting in the rubes being fed fiscal economic policy that continues to protect them.
I think it's important to consider the state of the whole system, not just the direction of the change.
"helps insiders and hurts everyone else" sounds bad, but if the insiders are being exploited by everyone else, it could be a good thing.
In general I'm sympathetic to your point. However I think Amazon is perhaps a special case, or at least occupies a different point on the than most companies.
Amazon is an Aggregator[1], which spins up its flywheel by providing a great experience for consumers, and commoditizing its suppliers. This naturally drives towards a monopoly.
Aggregator monopolies have an interesting property in that unlike historical non-Aggregator monopolies, they are great for consumers, rather than resulting in consumer harm through higher prices (like Comcast, say). US antitrust law is focused on preventing consumer harm, not just preserving competition for its own sake (as the EU laws are). So US antitrust is somewhat less well-equipped to deal with Aggregator monopolies.
If the corporation, consumers, and legal system are all pointing towards exploiting a group of workers, it's hard to see how anyone is going to vote to make things better. So unions could be more appropriate specifically in the case of Aggregators.
(Worth mentioning that you could perhaps just mandate higher minimum wages, and avoid the need for unions; I'd prefer to make the minimum viable change that prevents exploitation, and leave the market free to optimize everything else. But if not unions, who drives the political fight for minimum wages?)
I don't think you can definitively state that they are great for consumers. When I buy something from debenhams, I know there is going to be a certain level of quality. Amazon is like a dump of products, most reviews are fake, the description of a monitor has different resolution in heading and it's body, a friend of mine bought an electric kettle with a thermometer and temperature control that, when set to 100, boils forever and never turns off. It's full of counterfeit products too.
All this mess devalues the manufacturers willing to produce quality items, they are lost in the noise and never make money.
The meme "Amazon is a dumpster fire of counterfeit goods and fake reviews" is popular around here, but I don't think it has much impact/traction with John/Jane MainStreet.
Maybe it would if it was better-known? But I think if folks found counterfeit goods or fake reviews to be a huge problem they would go back to Debenhams/Walmart. But by revealed preferences, we can tell they prefer the value prop of Amazon.
This is my fundamental problem with unions—it helps the insiders and hurts everyone else.
Amazon’s working condition are rough (and I really hope that changes), but there are plenty of jobs out there that are much worse and don’t pay nearly as well. They just get all the attention because of their size and impact.