United States of Amazon: exposing horrible business practices & more

[DOS_patos]

True.

lol I dont think anyone said the entire country should be driving 100k cars n shit tho.. just that there should just be a living wage for those in those entry level jobs.

And maybe that's where the disagreements are coming in. Some peoples definitions of what a living wage may differ.

Exactly

 

[Race Jones]

 

[Race Jones]

 

[Race Jones]

 

[LurkerSix]

The Amazon That Customers Don’t See (Published 2021)

Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers churn through a vast mechanism that hires and monitors, disciplines and fires. Amid the pandemic, the already strained system lurched.

www.nytimes.com

Even before the pandemic, previously unreported data shows, Amazon lost about 3 percent of its hourly associates each week, meaning the turnover among its work force was roughly 150 percent a year. That rate, almost double that of the retail and logistics industries, has made some executives worry about running out of workers across America.

David Niekerk, a former Amazon vice president who built the warehouse human resources operations, said that some problems stemmed from ideas the company had developed when it was much smaller. Mr. Bezos did not want an entrenched work force, calling it “a march to mediocrity,” Mr. Niekerk recalled, and saw low-skilled jobs as relatively short-term.

Amazon intentionally limited upward mobility for hourly workers, said Mr. Niekerk, the former H.R. vice president who retired in 2016 after nearly 17 years at the company. Dave Clark, then head of operations, had shot down his proposal around 2014 to create more leadership roles for hourly employees, similar to noncommissioned officers in the military, he recalled.

Instead, Mr. Clark, who is now chief executive of Amazon’s consumer business, wanted to double down on hiring “wicked smart” frontline managers straight out of college, Mr. Niekerk said. By contrast, more than 75 percent of managers in Walmart’s U.S. stores started as hourly employees. Following a pattern across Amazon, JFK8 promoted 220 people last year among its more than 5,000 employees, a rate that is less than half of Walmart’s.

Amazon’s founder didn’t want hourly workers to stick around for long, viewing “a large, disgruntled” work force as a threat, Mr. Niekerk recalled. Company data showed that most employees became less eager over time, he said, and Mr. Bezos believed that people were inherently lazy. “What he would say is that our nature as humans is to expend as little energy as possible to get what we want or need.” That conviction was embedded throughout the business, from the ease of instant ordering to the pervasive use of data to get the most out of employees.

So guaranteed wage increases stopped after three years, and Amazon provided incentives for low-skilled employees to leave. Every year, Mr. Palmer saw signs go up offering associates thousands of dollars to resign, and as he entered JFK8 each morning, he passed a classroom for free courses to train them in other fields.

With the high churn, multiple current and former Amazon executives fear there simply will not be enough workers. In the more remote towns where Amazon based its early U.S. operations, it burned through local labor pools and needed to bus people in.

“Six to seven people who apply equals one person showing up and actually doing work,” Mr. Stroup explained. If Amazon is churning through its entire work force once or twice a year, he said, “You need to have eight, nine, 10 million people apply each year.” That’s about 5 percent of the entire American work force.

In the final months of Jeff Bezos’ tenure as chief executive, his high-turnover model looked riskier, and the concerns about how Amazon treated the workers who powered its rise were tarnishing his legacy. During the pandemic, Mr. Bezos’ personal wealth exploded from $110 billion to more than $190 billion. He had also been building a $500 million superyacht, according to the new book “Amazon Unbound,” and preparing for his first spaceflight after investing billions in his rocket company, Blue Origin.

The company announced safety initiatives and diversity plans, including a goal to “retain employees at statistically similar rates across all demographics” — an implicit admission that the numbers had been uneven across races. Ms. Weishalla’s successors on Staten Island were holding weekly “talent review” meetings to ensure that Black and Latino workers, among others, were finding advancement opportunities.

 

[Race Jones]

 

[The Lonious Monk]

I'm not a socialist, but imagine if Amazon was a government owned thing and all that money was going to properly paying the workers and improving the lives of people in the nation instead pushing Bezos towards being a trillionaire one day.

 

[Race Jones]

I'm not a socialist, but imagine if Amazon was a government owned thing and all that money was going to properly paying the workers and improving the lives of people in the nation instead pushing Bezos towards being a trillionaire one day.

so why arent you a socialist again?

 

[The Lonious Monk]

so why arent you a socialist again?

I consider myself a social democrat. I believe the US should move towards systems like what's in place in the Scandinavian countries.

The problem with socialism is that governments are too corrupt to have control of everything. Can you imagine the people we have in charge now controlling everything without any checks?

 

[Race Jones]

 

[Race Jones]

I consider myself a social democrat. I believe the US should move towards systems like what's in place in the Scandinavian countries.

The problem with socialism is that governments are too corrupt to have control of everything. Can you imagine the people we have in charge now controlling everything without any checks?

they wouldnt be in charge

 

[25centsandwich]

I'm not a socialist, but imagine if Amazon was a government owned thing and all that money was going to properly paying the workers and improving the lives of people in the nation instead pushing Bezos towards being a trillionaire one day.

Ironically enough usps benefits off its dealings with amazon and vice versa.

Usps gets shit on constantly tho...by consumers, by employees, by businesses. So grass isnt exactly greener.

Like i said before, the true way to hurt amazon is to use its competition more.

 

[The Lonious Monk]

they wouldnt be in charge

It depends on how socialism is implemented. Historically, some so-called socialist countries haven't been far from dictatorships. I know that's not what you're talking about when you say socialism, but we do have to recognize that no system will work to the benefit of the people when corrupt people are the ones implementing it.

Ironically enough usps benefits off its dealings with amazon and vice versa.

Usps gets shit on constantly tho...by consumers, by employees, by businesses. So grass isnt exactly greener.

Like i said before, the true way to hurt amazon is to use its competition more.

That's what I'm advocating for though. I'd like to see government owned alternatives to Amazon and Walmart. It's not going to happen, but something like that could be good for the nation.

 

[BlackRain]

It depends on how socialism is implemented. Historically, some so-called socialist countries haven't been far from dictatorships. I know that's not what you're talking about when you say socialism, but we do have to recognize that no system will work to the benefit of the people when corrupt people are the ones implementing it.



That's what I'm advocating for though. I'd like to see government owned alternatives to Amazon and Walmart. It's not going to happen, but something like that could be good for the nation.

And people in power inevitably end up being corrupt in some way shape or fashion

 

[Dwayne]

I'm not a socialist, but imagine if Amazon was a government owned thing and all that money was going to properly paying the workers and improving the lives of people in the nation instead pushing Bezos towards being a trillionaire one day.

Why you bringing up socialism. Nothing good with that bruh. Nothing.

 

[The Lonious Monk]

Why you bringing up socialism. Nothing good with that bruh. Nothing.

There is a whole lot good with socialism if its implemented fairly, but I brought it up because I said I'd want to see state run alternatives to Amazon and Walmart. That would be considered a socialist idea.

 

[Dwayne]

There is a whole lot good with socialism if its implemented fairly.

Naw. If you said some parts of it could be good. But as a whole. Nope.

but I’ll leave you to your devices

 

[Elzo69Renaissance]

completely out of context. Go make Africa great again they still complaining too

^^^^^^ racist talking points

 

[SeaSnake]

^^^^^^ racist talking points

counters you bootstrap talking points. And you late af

 

[25centsandwich]

That's what I'm advocating for though. I'd like to see government owned alternatives to Amazon and Walmart. It's not going to happen, but something like that could be good for the nation.

The government could compete with every industry if it just prints money and doesnt have to remain solvent (which is what it does alot of now).

If said government industry did have to remain solvent and couldnt just print or siphon money from taxpayers, theres essentially no way it could compete with walmart or amazons price points. The point of walmart and amazon is to deliver relatively cheap consumer goods.

Instead, imo the government should focus on the blatantly anti-competitive nature of amazon in particular. If consumers have a vested interest in a competitors price points AND the ethical treatment of it's employees, that would hit amazon more than anything.

A good start would be to force aws away from amazon. I have no idea if its legal or not but theres no way that those two services should be able to coexist under the same company.