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Comment by usaphp | Hacker News Reader

I don’t get this complains about amazon warehouse work. When I was a teenager I used to work in alaska fish factory, with much much much stricter and harder schedules and rules that the article describes. If you plan to work in a warehouse - why are you surprized that you are required to lift heavy boxes and work long hours. Maybe someone can enlighten me why is this so blown out of proportion

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Because Amazon makes many billions more than your Alaskan fish factory. There's no reason that Amazon couldn't improve conditions of their buildings, or allow more bathroom breaks, or notify workers in advance if they have a shift (it's common to dismiss workers when they arrive in the morning, denying them access to any other job). These are such small changes to their bottom line, but would humanize the process a lot more.

> These are such small changes to their bottom line, but would humanize the process a lot more.

Is Amazon breaking the Law? (honest question). If not, I don't see why expectations should be different for Amazon vs every other company out there.

Breaking the law isn't the only standard for workers to judge their company by.

Sure. And workers are free to choose where they work. Nobody has a gun on every Amazon's employee's head to force them to work there. We are not in the Middle-Ages anymore.

And workers are free to protest in the hopes of improving conditions and policies. We’ve seen this st other big tech companies recently, such as Google employees walking out to protest how sexual harassment complaints were handled, or Facebook CSO’s telling the board (against the COO’s wishes) about concerns over disinformation campaigns.

Sure. They are free to try to influence things but they can always vote with their feet and go for a different employer. In no world is a company obliged to listen to their workers demands, unless the company is clearly breaking the Law. Freedom goes both ways.

I don't get it either. In a past life I was sold to work in a factory in London for basically no pay at 80 hours a week. It's like human standards of living go up over time or something.

Joking aside, it's probably a good sign that what once was normal isn't. Eventually robots will be doing all the lifting and we will look back and shake our heads at how much intellectual capacity we had tied up lifting boxes.

David Copperfield reference?

I agree with that, but I don't understand why such a big focus is on Amazon. It's not like they are the only ones with this type of working conditions.

What you were willing to put up with as a teenager doesn't have much of a bearing on the standards of treatment and payment everyone else who has to work a warehouse job should demand.

I know, right? Isn't racing to the bottom just great? Why should we try and stop it, it's such a nice thing to aspire to.

I know a few people who worked in frozen food packing, where workers are expected to be in a freezer for 10+ hours a day lifting, moving and sorting heavy loads. Repetitive stress injuries were so common that it was a factor of when, not if, someone would become injured and be unable to do physical labor for a living again.

Each of them has done a stint with Amazon and left citing conditions, expectations and compensation.

Rising standards are, in general, a good thing I would imagine.

My parents worked in an incredibly taxing physical environment and their reward was ruining their body.

What was the market cap of that fish factory, and how rich was your CEO? It's not a surprise that one of the world's most dominant companies, led by the world's richest man, evokes more scrutiny and questions about whether its practices are harmful. Its policies affect far more workers, and of course, are far more noticeable than any single small business workplace.

Because some people feel entitled to a larger share of their employer's profits regardless of their position in the company.

Because they don't like Amazon, the same facts mean something else. Same bizarre idea upper middle class people seem to have about small businesses in the service industry, which arguably tend to treat workers considerably worse than "big mean megacorps".

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