[leemcd56]

This comes as no surprise. I mean, this is the same company who thinks adding little booths into their warehouses to try and improve mental health will benefit these overworked employees. They look like those suicide booths in Futurama.

Is it too much to ask for them not to treat their employees like slaves? Is it too much to ask for an eight hour work day? Actual bathroom breaks (I read their forklift drivers pee in bottles because they aren’t allowed to take appropriate bathroom breaks). All while paying them what they’re actually worth, given the work they’re doing and the level of stress Amazon puts them under?

[falcor84]

I'm not disputing any of your other points, but what does "paying them what they’re actually worth" mean? Is there some objectively fair remuneration calculation that others are using and I wasn't aware of?

[crispyambulance]

> Is there some objectively fair remuneration calculation [...]?

Lopsided power arrangements will always be grossly unfair to one side and generous the other. In this case it's Amazon vs the Precariat. Moreover, the two sides (and everyone else) will always have a very different idea about what is fair.

The best way to address this without directly getting into the vast grey-area of "what is fair" is to limit the political power of corporations and then address labor laws and union formation.

The sad thing is we've been through this before.

There's a reason labor unions came into being. Do we really have to wait until labor conditions for workers become the 21st century equivalent of Industrial Age steel mills run by robber-barrons? Can't we learn from history?

[falcor84]

Thanks for introducing me to the term Precariat. It was quite interesting to read the Wikipedia article[0] about it now and attach a name to the phenomenon.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precariat > In sociology and economics, the precariat (/prɪˈkɛəriət/) is a neologism for a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare.

[wiz21c]

totally OT but Are you ready to use that name ?

[crispyambulance]

That's a scary question!

The way things are going I expect the social safety net to be cut out from under me by the time I hit retirement.

[wiz21c]

Hmmm.. Dunno if you caught it but Crispy Ambulance was a band (I liked a lot) in the eighties. One of their most famous tune is "are you ready" :-)

[crispyambulance]

Ha! yes, I am aware of Crispy Ambulance, the band (good memories of the 80's). But I missed your reference!

[NoGravitas]

There is an objectively fair remuneration calculation, but others aren't using it, except possibly in worker-owned cooperatives. That is, to pay workers the total value added by their labor.

This article at la Wik can tell you more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value

[falcor84]

But, if I understand correctly, by definition an employer would have no expected direct benefit from hiring at this salary. Are there any for-profit employers who use such a calculation in-practice coupled with some fixed multiplier (or multiplier range) for all their roles?

[imtringued]

>I'm not disputing any of your other points, but what does "paying them what they’re actually worth" mean?

It absolutely means nothing because there is a queue of people that are desperate to accept any job. If you decide to ask for a higher salary then someone more desperate than you will take the job.

[faceplanted]

There's no objectively "fair" number, but there are far better approximations. No-one really cares if it's perfectly equitable between every employee, but they _can_ see obvious inequities harming people's lives.

[usrusr]

Objective is overrated. There's a clear tendency towards evil when you try too hard driving bonuses and promotions on objective performance metrics. The ruthless deathmarchers will always outperform their more benign peers in locally measurable metrics.

The paperclip maximiser algorithm doesn't actually require a computer, it could run just fine on a group of humans implemented as their set of intraorganizational rules.

[falcor84]

It's not quite clear to me how this relates to my question. If not 'objective', is there a fair 'subjective' way to decide on remuneration?

[croon]

1) I'm assuming GP missed a negation, "not", before that.

2) Obviously if you can find workers for your compensation level that's some market definition of worth.

But I would also argue that ones society is broken if there are people who stay at a job where they have to resort to peeing in bottles because (ostensibly) they don't feel that taking 3 minutes to go to the bathroom is possible.

[Google234]

Fair worth is probably less since robots can do much of the eorl.

[Aeolun]

I agree with your other points, but:

> little booths into their warehouses to try and improve mental health

If these are anything like toilets, they’d do wonders for my mental health.

Of course it would be more helpful if they actually were toilets (re: bathroom breaks)

[LatteLazy]

Doesn't amazon already pay way more than anyone else? 15usd an hour, more in most places, healthcare and a bunch of other benfits compared to minimum wage and nothing else at most alternatives...

[opencl]

Other warehouses don't pay minimum wage. Target's starting pay is $4 higher than Amazon in my area. Home Depot is like $1 lower than Amazon.

It is true that they have a pretty decent healthcare package as far as warehouse work goes.

[rejectedandsad]

Yeah, it’s the most generous job of last resort available in most of the country