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Comment by SmirkingRevenge | Hacker News Reader

This is why I tend to try to keep a healthy skepticism about a great deal of the negative press on Amazon's warehouse working conditions, pushes to unionize, etc. So much of it lacks real context needed to actually inform, and just looks like click-bait or campaigns to drive negative sentiment, or to inhibit their ability to perform.

And really, that should I guess be the default way one consume's news in general, no matter what its about. (Even the parent article!)

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While skeptism is always healthy, a lot of the flack Amazon is getting seems pretty legit.

Competitors might be piling in it and pushing it under the spotlight、even exaggerate parts of it, but of lot of Amazon’s operations is still provably shitty.

For instance what part of the warehouse working condition do you think is completely fabricated ?

The part where somehow that’s abnormal for warehouse workers.

Warehouse work is hard and low paid. Working for Amazon is working for one of the best warehouse jobs but that doesn’t make it easy work. I’ve seen article about long days and injuries and such and they never bring up industry hours or wages or injury rates. So I suspect they are negative PR.

So I don’t think they are fabricated, but they are misleading.

> Warehouse work is hard and low paid. Working for Amazon is working for one of the best warehouse jobs but that doesn’t make it easy work. I’ve seen article about long days and injuries and such and they never bring up industry hours or wages or injury rates. So I suspect they are negative PR.

Yep, exactly. There's no basis from which you can judge on Amazon's (or anyone's) warehouse conditions, unless you have that context - what is typical? How is work life in other major warehouse operations?

Maybe Amazon is an outlier... but for all we know, they might be an outlier in a positive way, compared to the competition. You can't know without context.

My limited understanding is that Amazon is the best when it comes to warehouse work-highest wages, healthcare, etc.

I would love a good review of the warehouse industry. But I think it’s ultimately boring. The few articles I’ve read about Amazon are pretty useless and imagine they are a modern day The Jungle or something. But I don’t think warehouse work is meatpacking.

That it is not abnormal doesn't make it okay. Just because something is normal doesn't mean something should be normal. Further, people don't think it should be this way there and how it is elsewhere has no bearing on that fact. This is whataboutism.

The point is, if you don't have the context, you are operating from a position of ignorance. What if conditions do suck and are terribly miserable at Amazon's warehouses? But... what if, despite that, the conditions are actually better than typical warehouse jobs? In that case, by singling out Amazon, you are actually punishing them for having better warehouse conditions than anyone, and helping their competitors where the workers are worse off.

No context is needed to want conditions to change: conditions at amazon aren't the way people want them to be, regardless of any context.

Context is absolutely needed. How can I possibly want a particular condition at Amazon if I don’t understand it. For example, is $18 too low? Is 8-10 hour manual labor days bad? I can’t say I’m against the working conditions unless I know what typical working conditions are. And if Amazon is the best of all possible conditions for unskilled warehouse work then me calling for change at Amazon is way less effective than for some other place where my attention will have more impact.

This idea of “any change is good” is dangerous because it ignores opportunity cost. An example is that it can actually be bad to raise awareness for a rare disease if it takes away donations from a common disease. It can cost lives and do harm because dollars become less effective.

Focusing on the wrong thing can be worse than apathy and it seems really weird that people can form opinions without data and facts. Especially in a world where PR bullshit can form such emotional reactions.

One can understand whether a group of people's needs are met or not without further context, pretty trivial.

How is understanding someone’s needs trivial? There are so many factors that determine need. Many that I would never reveal to a stranger. Needs vary substantially just based on demographics. A 60 year old needs more than an 18 year old. A single parent with two kids needs less than two parents with two kids. A family of 8 needs more than a family of 3. A short person needs fewer calories than a tall person. Etc etc.

But I may be rare in my inability to understand people’s needs without any data. I don’t know much about warehouse workers. I need much more information than an astroturf ad on Instagram/new outlet tells me.

They've communicated their needs. Look there for more information.

Right, that’s kind of the point of the thread. That is one side and not based on facts. It’s important to consider those communications with reality to assess what change should be made.

Only considering my needs as I say them without any further context will likely lead to inefficient decisions.

Without context, you can't even know how to help their conditions, if you wanted to.

If Amazon is a singularly bad warehouse employer, punishing them in some way (boycotts, etc) might be appropriate.

If Amazon is a singularly good warehouse employer, rewarding them with more business and good PR might be appropriate. It could incentivize the competition to follow suit and Amazon to raise its standards even further to stay ahead.

If Amazon is a typical warehouse employer, then I would find it counter productive to single out Amazon for punishment or reward, rather than the actual good/bad outliers among warehouse operators.

Context matters.

What you write is true, but leaves out the fact that taking down Amazon or putting restrictions on Amazon's warehouse operations can unintentionally make things worse for low-skilled workers if their other employment options are worse than working in an Amazon warehouse.

It could just as well mke them better by raising the standards.

Even if the standards get raised across the warehouse industry, the restrictions might harm low-skilled workers more than it helps them. E.g., they might make it economically rational for Amazon to automate the jobs away. E.g., Amazon might be forced to pass on their higher costs to consumers, causing a transfer of spending from Amazon.com to brick-and-mortar outlets where the jobs for available to low-skilled workers pay even less than the eliminated jobs the Amazon warehouse did.

or it might not.

>they might make it economically rational for Amazon to automate the jobs away

Any jobs that can be automated will be regardless.

They’re violating rules and it’s not without any consequences though [ex 0]

It also looks to me the same as child labor in developing countries for instance. It might be par for the course but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be against it, or turn a blind eye on the big players participating in it, or ignore reports.

Basically I don’t see how it’a misleading when it’s a reality thy is shared across an industry. Just as Apple gets press when factory workers suicide after bruning out, Amazon getting press for their warehouse is nothing unnatural.

[0] https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2017/11/09/470...

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