I Worked at an Amazon Fulfillment Center; They Treat Workers Like Robots

[Gun Nut]

If your skillset can be replaced by a robot, then you should be thankful anyone has any use for your work efforts at all... and your focus should be on increasing your value beyond an arm on a dolly.

Do you have any idea how many jobs have been automated away or become redundant through contraction? While higher tech jobs are around, job growth isn't what it used to be, as computers and connectivity continue to absorb more and more jobs.

Remember the 1980s movie Norma Rae with Sally Field as the Union organizer? That type of factory - a textile mill that used to employ 2000 workers in 1980s now employs 125 - the rest is done by robot. Until recently these mills were closed until manufacturers like American Giant helped reopen them. Story Here

It's not an easy answer - many of these manual jobs moved to China and other places overseas for cheap labor and to avoid the unions. As they return they are fewer and need high tech skilled workers.

yup.. industry evolves and grows. As should the workforce. McDonalds is a great employer for entry level work and experience building... a stepping stone. The idea that a person dipping frozen french fries into oil should be able to support a single parent of 15 children is ridiculous... and Amazon also has no obligation to support these obsolete human roles either... they should provide opportunity for growth and a clear path to success... but not a "career" in taking stuff off shelves and boxing them.

"Software Engineer" is not the only job that takes experience, intelligence, and creativity.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Remember the 1980s movie Norma Rae with Sally Field as the Union organizer? That type of factory - a textile mill that used to employ 2000 workers in 1980s now employs 125 - the rest is done by robot. Until recently these mills were closed until manufacturers like American Giant helped reopen them. Story Here

It's not an easy answer - many of these manual jobs moved to China and other places overseas for cheap labor and to avoid the unions. As they return they are fewer and need high tech skilled workers.

yup.. industry evolves and grows. As should the workforce. McDonalds is a great employer for entry level work and experience building... a stepping stone. The idea that a person dipping frozen french fries into oil should be able to support a single parent of 15 children is ridiculous... and Amazon also has no obligation to support these obsolete human roles either... they should provide opportunity for growth and a clear path to success... but not a "career" in taking stuff off shelves and boxing them.

"Software Engineer" is not the only job that takes experience, intelligence, and creativity.

Not everyone has the smarts to be a high level intellectual job. What do you suggest we do with these people? High minimum wage? UBI? What? It isn't an acceptable answer just to turn our backs on them. So what do we do?

 

[Worldtraveller]

If your skillset can be replaced by a robot, then you should be thankful anyone has any use for your work efforts at all... and your focus should be on increasing your value beyond an arm on a dolly.

Do you have any idea how many jobs have been automated away or become redundant through contraction? While higher tech jobs are around, job growth isn't what it used to be, as computers and connectivity continue to absorb more and more jobs.

You're too late. Despair beat you to it years ago.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Remember the 1980s movie Norma Rae with Sally Field as the Union organizer? That type of factory - a textile mill that used to employ 2000 workers in 1980s now employs 125 - the rest is done by robot. Until recently these mills were closed until manufacturers like American Giant helped reopen them. Story Here

It's not an easy answer - many of these manual jobs moved to China and other places overseas for cheap labor and to avoid the unions. As they return they are fewer and need high tech skilled workers.

yup.. industry evolves and grows. As should the workforce. McDonalds is a great employer for entry level work and experience building... a stepping stone. The idea that a person dipping frozen french fries into oil should be able to support a single parent of 15 children is ridiculous...

Exactly, such a sentiment is ridiculous to even suppose people are suggesting that people who work at McDonalds are single parents with 15 children.

...and Amazon also has no obligation to support these obsolete human roles either... they should provide opportunity for growth and a clear path to success... but not a "career" in taking stuff off shelves and boxing them.

"Software Engineer" is not the only job that takes experience, intelligence, and creativity.

The number of technical jobs is going to decrease as well. AI is going to be the death of employment that isn't music or art and we need to have a solution before we get there. Engineering, Surveying, Computers are all consolidating tasks into fewer jobs.

 

[TSwizzle]

Not everyone has the smarts to be a high level intellectual job. What do you suggest we do with these people? High minimum wage? UBI? What? It isn't an acceptable answer just to turn our backs on them. So what do we do?

The "Green New Deal" will see these people employed with a proper living wage. Even if they don't want to work. It's going to be, like, totally awesome.

 

[TSwizzle]

Amazon employees are joining the Global Climate Walkout, 9/20

Hilarious !




What a sorry collection of sad sacks and I'll bet not one of them works picking orders.

 

[J842P]

Remember the 1980s movie Norma Rae with Sally Field as the Union organizer? That type of factory - a textile mill that used to employ 2000 workers in 1980s now employs 125 - the rest is done by robot. Until recently these mills were closed until manufacturers like American Giant helped reopen them. Story Here

It's not an easy answer - many of these manual jobs moved to China and other places overseas for cheap labor and to avoid the unions. As they return they are fewer and need high tech skilled workers.

yup.. industry evolves and grows. As should the workforce. McDonalds is a great employer for entry level work and experience building... a stepping stone. The idea that a person dipping frozen french fries into oil should be able to support a single parent of 15 children is ridiculous... and Amazon also has no obligation to support these obsolete human roles either... they should provide opportunity for growth and a clear path to success... but not a "career" in taking stuff off shelves and boxing them.

Amazon has no obligation to do any of that. But essentially, it seems, you are going with the "sucks to be you" solution. Got it.

 

[Toni]

Remember the 1980s movie Norma Rae with Sally Field as the Union organizer? That type of factory - a textile mill that used to employ 2000 workers in 1980s now employs 125 - the rest is done by robot. Until recently these mills were closed until manufacturers like American Giant helped reopen them. Story Here

It's not an easy answer - many of these manual jobs moved to China and other places overseas for cheap labor and to avoid the unions. As they return they are fewer and need high tech skilled workers.

yup.. industry evolves and grows. As should the workforce. McDonalds is a great employer for entry level work and experience building... a stepping stone. The idea that a person dipping frozen french fries into oil should be able to support a single parent of 15 children is ridiculous... and Amazon also has no obligation to support these obsolete human roles either... they should provide opportunity for growth and a clear path to success... but not a "career" in taking stuff off shelves and boxing them.

"Software Engineer" is not the only job that takes experience, intelligence, and creativity.

Not everyone has the smarts to be a high level intellectual job. What do you suggest we do with these people? High minimum wage? UBI? What? It isn't an acceptable answer just to turn our backs on them. So what do we do?

Make them software engineers. D'oh.

 

[Deepak]

"Software Engineer" is not the only job that takes experience, intelligence, and creativity.

I actually think that the effort to build a robot that has the manual dexterity of the human hand is a harder problem to solve than building an AI to take care of the majority of software engineering tasks. Software people are highly paid because there's a lot of domain specific knowledge that needs to be acquired to work in the field, but the majority of the work is dealing with routine boilerplate stuff.

So the question really is, are you going to welcome your new robot overlords?

 

[ZiprHead]

Restbreaks are illogical.

 

[Gun Nut]

Remember the 1980s movie Norma Rae with Sally Field as the Union organizer? That type of factory - a textile mill that used to employ 2000 workers in 1980s now employs 125 - the rest is done by robot. Until recently these mills were closed until manufacturers like American Giant helped reopen them. Story Here

It's not an easy answer - many of these manual jobs moved to China and other places overseas for cheap labor and to avoid the unions. As they return they are fewer and need high tech skilled workers.

yup.. industry evolves and grows. As should the workforce. McDonalds is a great employer for entry level work and experience building... a stepping stone. The idea that a person dipping frozen french fries into oil should be able to support a single parent of 15 children is ridiculous... and Amazon also has no obligation to support these obsolete human roles either... they should provide opportunity for growth and a clear path to success... but not a "career" in taking stuff off shelves and boxing them.

"Software Engineer" is not the only job that takes experience, intelligence, and creativity.

Not everyone has the smarts to be a high level intellectual job. What do you suggest we do with these people? High minimum wage? UBI? What? It isn't an acceptable answer just to turn our backs on them. So what do we do?

- Focus on education and work-assistance programs to help individual's growth. "Free" education.
- Reduce the overpopulation (and thus competition) in the workforce by eliminating all tax and welfare benefits for having children. There are far too many people competing. and far too many people collecting children (future thugs) for a living.
- Federally fund retooling of skill sets for industries doomed to extinction (i.e coal miners get free training to be solar cell installers and the like)
- Expand the military engineering force considerably, and federally fund the upgrade of all US interstate infrastructure... providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs that require only the ability to learn how to use a shovel.
- require publicly traded companies to clearly define career paths for every job family as a disclosure to employees.
- redefine "fiduciary duty" to include all "stakeholders", and not just "shareholders", placing legal liability for the financial welfare of employees on level with that of shareholders.

So many potential "new deals" that can serve as a solution.
-

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Not everyone has the smarts to be a high level intellectual job. What do you suggest we do with these people? High minimum wage? UBI? What? It isn't an acceptable answer just to turn our backs on them. So what do we do?

- Focus on education and work-assistance programs to help individual's growth. "Free" education.

Education is a vague word. What type of education? How many are also suited for this, and will job growth in those fields increase or decrease?

- Reduce the overpopulation (and thus competition) in the workforce by eliminating all tax and welfare benefits for having children. There are far too many people competing. and far too many people collecting children (future thugs) for a living.

Good luck with that one.

- Federally fund retooling of skill sets for industries doomed to extinction (i.e coal miners get free training to be solar cell installers and the like)

By pressing the magic button, we'll transition you from IT expert to Chemical Engineer *click*

- Expand the military engineering force considerably, and federally fund the upgrade of all US interstate infrastructure... providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs that require only the ability to learn how to use a shovel.

If Ocasio-Cortez proposes this, it is communism. Also, why is it always roads? What about water, sewer? Cities are old, so are their sewer and water distribution systems. Many are still working on separating their storm and sewer lines or building very expensive short-term shortage tunnels/basins. But it is always roads. We need to spend more on highways!

The US requires something like
- require publicly traded companies to clearly define career paths for every job family as a disclosure to employees.
- redefine "fiduciary duty" to include all "stakeholders", and not just "shareholders", placing legal liability for the financial welfare of employees on level with that of shareholders.

BWAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!

So many potential "new deals" that can serve as a solution.
-

Short-term. We will be losing jobs that are available. And the jobs that exist and will exist for a while, lack interest by white people (like anything that has to do with houses, electrical, plumbing, construction, etc...).

 

[PyramidHead]

Other than the confused, racist, and military-worshipping stuff, Gun Nut's list isn't actually bad as reforms go. And pretty mild-mannered compared to what needs to be done if we are ever to escape from the hellhole that allows places like Amazon to become what they are.

The problem, which I will incessantly repeat until it sticks, is that the list is like many others in its phrasing: each line is a command, like "do this thing" or "require this new constraint", but it leaves unsaid who is going to be doing the things on this list. You can't just say "the country" should do it, because the country is comprised of people with different interests depending on their relationship to the problem being solved. Those groups (called classes) have vastly divergent abilities when it comes to attaining political power. And without specifying which of these diametrically opposed groups will be executing each plan, it leaves the door open for a policy that sounds good to be enacted by people who don't actually want the same things you want. Inevitably, it will be implemented according to the interests of whichever class holds the power to implement it.

For example, education programs to retrain people who are unable to work after their job is automated away can take at least two forms: (1) restore the usefulness of an obsolete worker by giving her skills that can be exploited by a different sector of capital, or (2) provide free education for everyone at all stages of their career so they can explore new ideas and discover their passions. Depending on whether the policy is devised/enacted from above by the servants of large corporations and banks, versus devised/enacted by a coalition of actual workers banded together in political bodies (labor unions, workers' parties, etc.) the material reality of the policy will be very different. Class analysis is what makes sense of the problem in a way that the proceduralism of simply shouting reforms into the void can't accomplish.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Other than the confused, racist, and military-worshipping stuff, Gun Nut's list isn't actually bad as reforms go. And pretty mild-mannered compared to what needs to be done if we are ever to escape from the hellhole that allows places like Amazon to become what they are.

There is nothing wrong with efficiency. The trouble is, automation is unemploying people and some politicians use fake excuses as to why it is unemploying people... using it as a political foil...(think coal industry) instead of dealing with the reality that industries are consolidating more and more as computers and the Internet and soon 5G make this easier and easier to do.

For example, education programs to retrain people who are unable to work after their job is automated away can take at least two forms: (1) restore the usefulness of an obsolete worker by giving her skills that can be exploited by a different sector of capital, or (2) provide free education for everyone at all stages of their career so they can explore new ideas and discover their passions. Depending on whether the policy is devised/enacted from above by the servants of large corporations and banks, versus devised/enacted by a coalition of actual workers banded together in political bodies (labor unions, workers' parties, etc.) the material reality of the policy will be very different. Class analysis is what makes sense of the problem in a way that the proceduralism of simply shouting reforms into the void can't accomplish.

The bigger question is "What work is left?"

 

[PyramidHead]

Other than the confused, racist, and military-worshipping stuff, Gun Nut's list isn't actually bad as reforms go. And pretty mild-mannered compared to what needs to be done if we are ever to escape from the hellhole that allows places like Amazon to become what they are.

There is nothing wrong with efficiency. The trouble is, automation is unemploying people and some politicians use fake excuses as to why it is unemploying people... using it as a political foil...(think coal industry) instead of dealing with the reality that industries are consolidating more and more as computers and the Internet and soon 5G make this easier and easier to do.

For example, education programs to retrain people who are unable to work after their job is automated away can take at least two forms: (1) restore the usefulness of an obsolete worker by giving her skills that can be exploited by a different sector of capital, or (2) provide free education for everyone at all stages of their career so they can explore new ideas and discover their passions. Depending on whether the policy is devised/enacted from above by the servants of large corporations and banks, versus devised/enacted by a coalition of actual workers banded together in political bodies (labor unions, workers' parties, etc.) the material reality of the policy will be very different. Class analysis is what makes sense of the problem in a way that the proceduralism of simply shouting reforms into the void can't accomplish.

The bigger question is "What work is left?"

Mmmmm... no, I don't see any way in which that's the bigger question. Who does the work, who owns the implements of said work, who decides what happens to the output, who benefits from whose work, and who has access to lethal force to protect their interests are all bigger questions. Tilt those in favor of the workers themselves, and running out of work to do stops being a problem and starts being the point of human civilization.

 

[ZiprHead]

Purdue University welcomes delivery robots

 

[Gun Nut]

Education is a vague word. What type of education? How many are also suited for this, and will job growth in those fields increase or decrease?

- Reduce the overpopulation (and thus competition) in the workforce by eliminating all tax and welfare benefits for having children. There are far too many people competing. and far too many people collecting children (future thugs) for a living.

Good luck with that one.

- Federally fund retooling of skill sets for industries doomed to extinction (i.e coal miners get free training to be solar cell installers and the like)

By pressing the magic button, we'll transition you from IT expert to Chemical Engineer *click*

- Expand the military engineering force considerably, and federally fund the upgrade of all US interstate infrastructure... providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs that require only the ability to learn how to use a shovel.

If Ocasio-Cortez proposes this, it is communism. Also, why is it always roads? What about water, sewer? Cities are old, so are their sewer and water distribution systems. Many are still working on separating their storm and sewer lines or building very expensive short-term shortage tunnels/basins. But it is always roads. We need to spend more on highways!

The US requires something like
- require publicly traded companies to clearly define career paths for every job family as a disclosure to employees.
- redefine "fiduciary duty" to include all "stakeholders", and not just "shareholders", placing legal liability for the financial welfare of employees on level with that of shareholders.

BWAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!

So many potential "new deals" that can serve as a solution.
-

Short-term. We will be losing jobs that are available. And the jobs that exist and will exist for a while, lack interest by white people (like anything that has to do with houses, electrical, plumbing, construction, etc...).

Improvement is hard. fuck it

I didn't say it would be easy. I didn't say just roads. Nothing funny about fiduciary duty... the law can be effectively changed by swapping out a single word - Shareholder becomes stakeholder... heck, it isn't even the WHOLE word, lol. It's a fairly new law to begin with, that already is causing other new laws in response to how bad that law is (and Trump caused the repeal of it).

What are YOUR solutions that I can shit on just because?

 

[Gun Nut]

Purdue University welcomes delivery robots

I just want to go on record that I too welcome our new robot overlords.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Education is a vague word. What type of education? How many are also suited for this, and will job growth in those fields increase or decrease?
Good luck with that one.
By pressing the magic button, we'll transition you from IT expert to Chemical Engineer *click*

- Expand the military engineering force considerably, and federally fund the upgrade of all US interstate infrastructure... providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs that require only the ability to learn how to use a shovel.

If Ocasio-Cortez proposes this, it is communism. Also, why is it always roads? What about water, sewer? Cities are old, so are their sewer and water distribution systems. Many are still working on separating their storm and sewer lines or building very expensive short-term shortage tunnels/basins. But it is always roads. We need to spend more on highways!

The US requires something like
- require publicly traded companies to clearly define career paths for every job family as a disclosure to employees.
- redefine "fiduciary duty" to include all "stakeholders", and not just "shareholders", placing legal liability for the financial welfare of employees on level with that of shareholders.

BWAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!

So many potential "new deals" that can serve as a solution.
-

Short-term. We will be losing jobs that are available. And the jobs that exist and will exist for a while, lack interest by white people (like anything that has to do with houses, electrical, plumbing, construction, etc...).

Improvement is hard. fuck it

I didn't say it would be easy. I didn't say just roads. Nothing funny about fiduciary duty... the law can be effectively changed by swapping out a single word - Shareholder becomes stakeholder... heck, it isn't even the WHOLE word, lol. It's a fairly new law to begin with, that already is causing other new laws in response to how bad that law is (and Trump caused the repeal of it).

What are YOUR solutions that I can shit on just because?

Tax the use of robots.

 

[Toni]

I've had kids who worked in warehouses before, but none as inhumane as Amazon's warehouses. The work is monotonous, dirty, dusty, boring, repetitive and not kind to bodies or brains. Those are not bad jobs to move to robots. It would be better and more humane to mandate improvement to workers' working conditions. It is common in my town for factory employees to have mandatory overtime on an unpredictable schedule, and to have 20 minute meal breaks along with poor working conditions, low wages and the ever present threat of being fired/factory sold if a union comes in. Where there are unions, they are extremely weak and virtually powerless. This is possible because this town is relatively isolated and because for the most part, factory owners all offer very similar work conditions and compensation packages that really, truly suck. Very little choice is around for most people without professional degrees unless you are willing to drive more than an hour each way, 4-6 months of the year, risking that commute time doubling due to blizzards. This is a serious problem. Workers today are treated like disposable cups: use 'em and toss 'em and buy/hire a replacement for just as cheap or cheaper.

For a time, I worked in a clinical laboratory and during my tenure there, I saw an increase in the number of tests that moved from manual platforms to automated platforms that really just needed humans to load the machines with samples and reagents, monitor and maintain the instruments and monitor and release results. Much of that became more automated over a period of only a few short years. It made my job less interesting but also made the results more rapid and, by some measures, possibly more reliable because it removed much of the potential for human error. These are good things, but it will ultimately reduce the need for some kinds of lab technologists and lab workers.

It isn't a bad idea to replace human workers with automated workerbots where it reduces human exposure to hazardous materials and substances--where the use of those hazardous materials and substances cannot be completely eliminated.

The issue is how society will find ways to employ those who formerly did some of these repetitive, body/brain/soul killing jobs with jobs that allow them to be healthier and better engaged in their lives and society.