[solotronics]

fuck Walmart. You don't hear anything about Amazon workers being on public assistance because they are payed enough and get enough hours to survive on their own. Around the holidays Walmart takes food and toy donations for their workers inside their break rooms. It's a bad company and I hope it gets killed off.

[skinnymuch]

Amazon is notorious for their awful treatment of workers. Just recently a local NPR station had a re-run of a story where (1) even when the AC broke inside the warehouse, Amazon wouldn't give them a break or let them open the door or windows to cool things off. A person eventually passed out. (2) They tempt and fake promise temp workers with good future outlook like better pay and benefits after they work for X amount of time. But then Amazon lets them go right before X amount of time is done. (3) Overall they overwork and are brutal with some warehouse workers.

I'll try and find the NPR link. But like someone else has already linked to 3 article, this isn't a special one off case.

If you're going to upset at how Walmart treats blue collar workers, a similar amount of anger should be aimed at Amazon.

[alyandon]

I'm not really trying to defend Amazon Fulfillment nor do I doubt the veracity of the NPR article. However, I want to throw some anecdata into the conversation.

My ex-wife has worked for Amazon Fulfillment for almost 5 years (in Texas - not exactly known as a "worker friendly" place when it comes to having laws protecting the working class from abuse) in multiple facilities (both replenishment and fulfillment) and hasn't witnessed workers being systematically mistreated, obvious safety issues going unreported and unaddressed, etc. She makes almost twice minimum wage with medical benefits, stock, 401k matching, 1.5x + 8 hours holiday pay compensation during crunch time, etc. All of that paid to someone that has only a high-school equivalence certificate.

She used to work at Walmart and would unequivocally tell you that Amazon Fulfillment has been the better of the two companies to work for.

[skinnymuch]

The NPR report was specifically about 2 or 3 locations if I recall. So anecdote does work the.

[StevePerkins]

Amazon is as awful to their employees as any other retailer, and worse than many.

There are pretty much only two only MAJOR retailers with good labor reputations. One is Costco, and that's only because they can run their business with a fraction of the employee-to-square-footage ratio that most retailers need. The other is Whole Foods... which has been getting worse for years, and will probably accelerate down that path now that they're owned by Amazon.

It's a race to the bottom. There are no good guys.

[syshum]

The race to the bottom is the elimation of those jobs completely.

Today a store that used to have 5 cashiers needs 1 to monitor 5 self checkout stations.

Amazon and others are working on eliminating that final job...

They are also working on ways to fill the shelves with no human involvement, and robot shopping assistance that you can ask for help

we are probably less than 10 years away from the first retail store with no human employees, or at most 1 or 2 to monitor the robots

[arkitaip]

Let's not jizz ourselves over the loss of millions of retail jobs that won't be replaced any time soon. Not everyone can be a fullstack js ninja or thought leader in fidget spinners.

[ceejayoz]

Amazon has plenty of their own issues.

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/life-and-deat...

http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...

[giobox]

I can't tell if this comment is sarcasm.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/11/amazon-ac...

http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/life-and-deat...

[wcummings]

Hate to break it to you, but Amazon does not treat their warehouse staff much better.