[cortesoft]

I mean, can't this argument be made against ALL worker protections? We don't need OSHA, workers should decide for themselves how dangerous they want to be. We don't need minimum wage laws, workers should decide. We don't need overtime laws, let workers decide.

We have seen what happens when you remove all restrictions on how employers can treat workers - workers get horribly abused and often times die. If you think this wouldn't happen to modern workers, go look at what goes on in Dubai and the UAE.

[barry-cotter]

If you look at a graph of historical workplace deaths you can’t tell where OSHA was enacted. There’s no change in the rate of decrease of workplace deaths. As far as minimum wage laws go less than 5% of the US workforce gets paid minimum wage, and unpaid internships are both obviously beneficial to those who take them and ah, skirting the law to all parties’ benefit. Minimum wage laws are a great way to reduce workforce participation, just look at France. Does the US even have overtime laws as such?

Dubai is part of the UAE for what it’s worth but it would be impossible to treat workers like that in the US because (a) the US does not do slavery, or indentured servitude outside prisons (b) you can sue people in the US because you have the rule of law and a functioning legal system where everyone has equal rights. Before OSHA if a worker got injured at your place they they could sue you, so most places had insurance, which got more expensive if injuries happened. People also notice if a workplace is more dangerous. They demand higher pay to work there.

[AlexandrB]

> unpaid internships are both obviously beneficial to those who take them and ah, skirting the law to all parties’ benefit.

Unpaid internships are a great way to gate off poor people from high-paying jobs. No matter how beneficial they are to the intern, if said intern can't afford rent and food while on your internship it's simply not an option for them. Unpaid internships have no place in a society that wants to consider itself a meritocracy because the primary qualification for an unpaid internship is not merit but a well-off family.

[barry-cotter]

If you can afford to not work for three or four years while getting a Bachelor’s and the tens of thousands of dollars you pay in tuition you can afford to do a six month unpaid internship.

What you say is absolutely true but if unpaid internships are a problems journalism schools and other forms of credentialist gatekeeping are much worse.

If the choice existed would you rather go to Columbia Journalism School it spend two years working for the New York Post unpaid? Wouldn’t you get more and more valuable experience as a dogsbody for a fashion photographer than doing a degree in photography?

Credentialism is bad for the sane reason unpaid internships are bad but does vastly more damage to oppprtunity.

[tropo]

OSHA is why I can't have a perfectly normal UL-listed power strip at work, but somehow a UPS (with a battery full of lead and sulfuric acid) is perfectly fine. Every place where I'd want a power strip, I have to use a UPS.

Given the evidence, OSHA looks dumb and useless.

[ntsplnkv2]

Perhaps it would be helpful to share said graph?

[barry-cotter]

It’ll show up if you do an image search for OSHA historical workplace deaths. Also in the below document http://freedomandprosperity.org/2012/blog/big-government/ass...

If you look at this economic history link you’ll see a reasonably consistent trend, not universal, of decreasing workplace deaths.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-workplace-safety-in-th...

[ntsplnkv2]

Thank you

[andrestan]

Possibly, but generally the difference is one of power structure. With OSHA, workplace safety laws are put in place to protect workers from the tyranny of their need for wages. People need to work and therefore their workplaces should pose a maximum amount of risk that society defines as reasonable. What's at stake here is not the general safety environment of the employee but rather the amount of effort the employee VOLUNTARILY chooses to exert. Who are we to define how much effort an employee chooses to exert? Who are we to define incentives that encourage a worker to exert more effort? None of this seems reasonable to me.

[okr]

It would be nice to hear opinions from the workers at amazon.

I find it very compelling to agree with you. But i also like to make my own decision, to negotiate. My ideal, at least. And i expect my elders and seniors to teach me about the dangers in this world. And I also think, its a two way street. I will not risk my life, and Amazon does not want dead people.

And is US and Dubai really comparable? Why do people go so far, to work there? Don't they tell their relatives at home, how shitty it is? Why are they going? Why do they risk it? And who am i to judge their decision making?

Many confusing signals i receive.

[krapp]

I can only speak for myself as an Amazon fulfillment center employee... I haven't directly witnessed any of the horror stories people tell about working there, but knowing the culture as I do, I would not be surprised at all that such things happen. Someone complained on the VOA board where I work about having been docked for time off task when they had to clean up after their own nosebleed, but that's anecdotal. You read about people having to pee in bottles to make quota, people passing out from heat exhaustion, people being forced to stand on injured feet because Amazon has a policy against employees sitting for any reason. Enough anecdotes pile up, though, and it smells like data.

The thing is, not everyone working at Amazon is a young, single person without any ties, who can afford to simply quit at a moment's notice and not worry about the risk of unemployment, or losing healthcare. So it's not a binary situation where if Amazon's employees are willing to work there, then clearly they must be willing to accept anything the company does because otherwise they would quit. For low income people, the cost of quitting can be significant, much more so if they have families to support.

Which is why regulations are necessary - because the relationship between employer and employee is not equal, as is often assumed in a perfectly ideal free market model. The ability of a company to coerce their employee due to holding arbitrary power over that employee's livelihood must be limited somehow, and there must be some means by which consequences can result for bad actors.

In an unregulated market, there are no bad actors, only inefficient ones. That's not a game most people can win alone against a billion dollar corporation.

[i_made_a_booboo]

>In an unregulated market, there are no bad actors, only inefficient ones.

The history of planet earth is full of bad actors in all kinds of markets, regulated or not. The animal kingdom is full of examples of deception. Seeking personal gain at the expense of others is a very deep feature of life.

[br3n7]

Capitalism is "[s]eeking personal gain at the expense of others(...)"

[crazygringo]

> And i expect my elders and seniors to teach me about the dangers in this world.

My personal elders and seniors don't know the first thing about how to judge whether workplace chemicals would be harmful to me or not.

They're just other human beings, very fallible like myself.

As long at it seems decently run, I trust a government agency full of experts and reams of research over the elders and seniors I happen to know personally, who are generally totally lacking in both expertise and knowledge in most areas, any day.

[okr]

I do not mean my personal elders, or, if you will, my parents or friends.

What i mean is, in whatever workplace i worked so far, there were people telling me, what not to do. Surely playing around with me at first, but always keeping me away from dangers.

In the long run, well, i agree, that there are many things, that are not very obvious to me. Like office work, sitting in the chair all day, not moving, looking at screens all the time. But iam sure my boss does not mean no harm. He surely looks more at his phone than me on a screen. We get smarter over time, i hope.

[Daishiman]

> And is US and Dubai really comparable? Why do people go so far, to work there? Don't they tell their relatives at home, how shitty it is? Why are they going? Why do they risk it? And who am i to judge their decision making?

Because people taking this up live in even worse conditions in some of the most abject poverty there is and they have no way to climb up the social ladder that doesn't involve saving some money with this kind of work even at the expense of their physical safety.

[okr]

And here i am confused. So from their perspective, they can achieve something better for themselves, with that risk. And from my perspective, i see it as abuse of their situation, because iam on a different cushion level, where i dont have to risk my life for my job.

Good luck to them!

[crooked-v]

Something can be both opportunity and abuse. The whole point of health and safety legislation is to remove the "abuse" part.

[Daishiman]

The abuse component is completely unnecessary.

It's not about the type of labor or physical effort but the completely inhuman conditions. How the heck is that a contradiction?

[NeoBasilisk]

You have no power to "negotiate" as an Amazon warehouse worker.

[br3n7]

Because they are desperate. That's it. they are trying to survive.