Amazon diaries: fulfillment center speed-ups and factory conditions
“When you recognize that we are what keeps Amazon going, and the most important part of the business, putting us at the top of the pyramid is right. Workers – whether the engineers or the hundreds of thousands of warehouse employees – are the backbone of the business and the source of astounding wealth. Without us there is no Amazon Prime, no advertising revenue, no streaming video, no HQ2. However, the pyramid analogy is also fitting because at the time this place feels like a pyramid scheme. After a few months at the company, it becomes clear to most of us that management doesn’t regard us a crucial contributors to its success. In reality, they treat us like disposable parts.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/21/our-new-column-from-inside-amazon-they-treat-us-as-disposable?
the Guardian
Also, human capital is almost always the largest cost center. Every company, especially large ones, view employees as disposable. Employees view companies as disposable
For most people, a wage is not disposable because a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck.
Yup, but they’ll jump jobs as soon as possible if they can get a better one. A job is a means to an income for 99% of people, nothing more
The members of Blind are part of a privileged class and it is our responsibility to take articles like this seriously, with compassion, and as a call to action. The “people are disposable” / “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” is just more Oliver Twist rhetoric. Amazon is a corporate realization of an Orwellian dystopia wherein the Outer Party (you) is not a government agency but part of a new centralized corporate economy.
You realize us engineers and accountants are no different than those warehouse workers. When amazon can, it’ll get rid of us as well. We just offer greater value than the warehouse workers do, at the moment
Agreed this community is higher up in the (not inverted) triangle
Shocking discovery: low skilled labor is replaceable
As individuals yes. That’s part of the point made by the article - employees are treated as machines. But are they valuable? How would it impact Amazon if they all went on strike after black Monday through Mid-December?
It might delay deliveries, but the orders take place online. That’d require some organizing (which doesn’t exist) and for there to not be a population of people that would jump at a $15/hr job