This is cruel and heartbraking. Didn't expect this to happen in any European countries the least in Poland where they have strong unions.
Retaliation is pretty common in the US - I announced to HR that my wife is expecting (Tue) and was fired on Friday.
Sounds like modern day slavery. I assume they must just pay pretty well for completely unskilled labour compared to the competition, otherwise why would people put up with those conditions?
They don't have to pay well, people working that kind of job don't have a whole lot of options. One leaves 10 more want to take their place. Employers are having a very easy time of it.
At least partially because the Federal Reserve targets an unemployment rate high enough to keep some percentage of people desperate.
The true cause of societies ills, central banking.
what is your alternative proposal and what problems would it solve better?
A return to the gold standard would solve quite a bit. The ability to manipulate the money supply is too much power for any person or organization or government for that matter. This is the lifeblood of the economy, it is 50% of every transaction, of course when that gets corrupted everything goes with it.
I don't see how the Euro is ever going to go back to being backed by gold, that makes no sense at all. It never was backed by gold since the day it was created.
Europe is a lost cause. I pray for the friends I have there, and they will always have a home in america they will be welcome in.
(presumably Geis’s comment was sarcasm?)
Not really.
The article is about Poland, which is a country in Europe. It is a bit of a stretch to blame the US Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve of the EU?
Exactly. If the choices are Amazon warehouse or nothing, amazon doesn’t have to pay all that well. Just better than nothing.
If you are starving I guess it would be cruel to give you a job that lets you feed yourself.
If you're starving, the inhuman thing is to required that you work in to be able to have access to food.
If you're starving, I'll give you food without expecting anything. Taking advantage of starving people in order to make profit is inhuman.
US at least has one of the tightest labor markets in history right now.
Not at places where a lot of the Amazon warehouses are.
I didn't say they paid well, I said well for completely unskilled labour compared to the competition.
Yes, I took that into account.
I hate this line with a burning passion. We can and should do better, but comparisons to slavery just show how completely ignorant many people are of the horrors of slavery at every stage of history.
There's no comparison between the plight of an Amazon worker who loses a job unjustly and the millions of people who were (and still are!) treated as literal chattel to be bought, sold, separated from family, mutilated, raped and killed at a whim.
That's why the prefix "modern day" is added.
Being worked to the bone while getting paid barely enough to survive affords only a very theoretical freedom and capacity for personal development.
We know this from every UBI pilot ever ran: People do start businesses and better their own situation if you remove them from the threat of poverty and homelessness.
That's why the prefix "modern day" is added.
This is unfair to actual modern day slaves.
Have you missed the following part?
millions of people who were (and still are!) treated as literal chattel to be bought, sold, separated from family, mutilated, raped and killed at a whim.
If you're comparing the plight of Amazon workers to actual slaves, you're playing down the plight of actual slaves.
What you describe is accurate and terrible, but it isn't slavery. There are actual people in the world today who are treated as literal property. That is modern-day slavery, we need a different word to describe the plight of a free person who is unable to get out of a cycle of poverty.
In absolute terms are more “modern day” slaves than at any point in time. Actual slaves, treated as property, raped, beaten, worked to death. They don’t work in Amazon.
https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-...
Sure, it’s an exaggeration, but there are parallels to slavery, so your outrage seems a little unwarranted.
If you don't like the job and/or the working conditions, isn't the simplest thing to just quit?
Why should you quit when you can organise better working conditions?
Because that takes years, tons of effort and uncertainty, for a mediocre outcome at best?
That and you’ll just be replaced by more amenable immigrant labor. People that are willing to travel around the world potentially risking their lives are going to take that $15 an hour warehouse job in a heartbeat. And it will be a considerably better deal than they’d get back home.
That sounds like an issue with immigration policy, you could stop this at amazon but it will do nothing for everyone else. Ill also point out that amazon only hires legal labor.
Persons who claim asylum can file for a legal work permit 150 days after filing for asylum until their case is adjudicated. Given the backlogs that currently means for years. And of course any children they have in that time are citizens. There are NGOs that help immigrants learn of these rights and exercise them. Amazon themselves even have a program to do so[1].
[1] https://press.aboutamazon.com/2022/3/amazon-launches-employm...
You are right, immigration policy has no bearing in the dramatic rise in asylum requests and how they are honored. If someone from mexico comes to the american border and requests political asylum that makes sense, why are people crossing several countries to come here? Thats not asylum, asylum is escaping a hostile regime.
Maybe mediocre for tech workers making 6-7 figure. For someone toiling away in Amazon's warehouse it can only get better. If that wasn't true Amazon wouldn't be offering raises and firing people whenever they heard faint whispers of a union.
"it can only get better"
"firing people whenever they heard faint whispers of a union"
With this logic, we wouldn't even have democracy and freedom.
Unions have their own problems that aren't often spoken about. Just recently, in fact, several hospital unions made concessions on employee safety due to COVID crises.
As for me, personally, I don't plan on working for a company my entire life and see a union as a roadblock to my selfish goal to financial freedom. Nothing would drive me off a job faster than getting my CoL raise after the union rep "fought so hard" for the pay. The reality is in most cases they're in bed with the C-levels and the "fight" was the three martini lunch at the country club. If you actually understand the balance sheet allowing a union almost never makes sense. In some cases it's cheaper to just fire everyone and outsource. In the case of Amazon they are large enough doing this in total is a little hard... but they're still working on it I'm sure.
The proper answer, I think, is if working conditions suck start your own thing and make the working conditions better. If you really do have a solution you will have an eternal wellspring of employees willing to do nearly anything for you. This, of course, would require the person to not go home and play video games or binge netflix. A path that isn't for everyone. Alternatively you could start a union and clear high 7 figures a year as the rep fighting for those "hard-earned" raises. A perfect example of this is the teachers and trade unions. Most of the time - a union is just an inversion of control that's designed to enrich the people running it. The socialist idea of a true trade union can't, and never will, manifest in a reality where humans are selfishly driven to improve their own conditions while sacrificing the comfort of others.
Just recently, in fact, several hospital unions made concessions on employee safety due to COVID crises.
I don’t think anyone’s going around insisting that unions are always perfect or always produce the most employee-favorable outcome conceivable. Unless they were actively campaigning to have the hospitals worsen working conditions more than they wanted to, making some concessions still gives a better outcome than in the absence of a union.
How do you feel about shareholders voting on things to act as one coordinated block? Would they be better off each individually bargaining?
Because you can't: the person was fired, nothing will change, and her friend died.
With that attitude, nothing will change. But it doesn't have to be that way. Unions do affect change.
They had the opposite attitude and actions. Nothing changed.
Maybe you can organize your life and get a better job.
In Poland quitting a job without breaking the law after being employed for more than 3 years is a relatively complicated 3-to-4-month-long process.
That's interesting. How does that work?
Jobs in the EU have notice periods for both the employer and the employee. Typically the employer's notice period is longer.
[1] shows it is 3 months (for either side) after working for three years, but this can be reduced by mutual agreement. We'll need someone from Poland to say how likely that would be agreed for a warehouse worker.
[1] https://www.gov.pl/web/your-europe/terms-and-conditions-of-e...
Many people live paycheck to paycheck and do not have the privilege to quit and search for a better job.
Quitting your job and finding another one better is a privilege few workers have, not the norm.
The word "just" here implies quitting is a simple solution. For most people quitting is anything but simple. Leaving a job can be costly and risky, if not outright dangerous. Rather than suggesting people quit their jobs if their jobs are awful, we can attempt to build a society where providing awful jobs is not permissible, specially when the cost of being less awful is not a huge for the employer.
Stop working for tech companies that don't give a shit about you. You want a business that cares about you... start one.
Useless advice for anyone who lacks the capital access to start a business, which is most people.
funny comment on forum run by a company that specifically funds startups
I have a total of 3000€ available to me in cash and some possessions like my pc (no house no car). Do you realistically think it is possible for me to start up a business?
Yes...depending on the business. My friend and I started an online retail store with $500 each during the early e-commerce days.
As the saying goes, why spend your money when you can spend an investor's money? The trick isn't starting a business, but starting a business with a viable business model.
but but but.. I need a valid excuse so I can tell myself about why I can't start a startup.
The trick isn't starting a business, but starting a business with a viable business model.
This last sentence makes me think it’s not as easy as you were suggesting to this point.
Anyway, plenty of people start businesses and lose their life savings. I’ve seen it happen.
No, not with that attitude!
You have bootstraps, right? Just give em a tug! It's easy!
As they say, the secret to being rich is having money. And the secret to success is being able to try again and again.
I wonder what would enable one to fail several times at business. And no, the answer isn't (just) a LLC.
Just ask daddy for a big loan, and you too can start an amazon!
Just a small loan of a million dollars.
Nah, unionize and report to regulators as much as possible. Can't succeed in the worker version of the Kobayashi Maru by "starting your own Amazon." Seek leverage and engage it to maximum force.
Companies will never give a shit about you, put them in a box like you would a shark. Don't play by existing broken rules, you will just suffer.
Why don’t we fix the union we already have - our government?
My biggest gripe with unions is they’re the political version of “let’s make a new standard”. Yeah it works - for a time - but ultimately just adds complexity to temporarily address a symptom of the problem.
Representatives are a function of the electorate. If you want better representation, not only must people run, but the electorate must turn over (old ideas and their voters dying out, new voters and their ideas aging in). 1.8M voters over the age of 55 die every year, 4 million voters turn 18. Worker rights support increases as cohort age declines (and skews progressive, naturally).
Certainly, a long term fix that will take decades. Near term, gotta organize, which can be done today. And workers need help today.
> Representatives are a function of the electorate.
Not in America. The essentials of our representative republic make it not especially representative. It's badly in need of reform to make the legislature actually representative: much larger house of representatives, 3-5 member districts, ranked choice voting, 18 year terms for supreme court justices, etc. etc.
None of what you listed will ever happen, so why bother thinking about it? Just accept that the U.S. is not democratic and never will be. That’s not even really pessimistic; plenty of people live happy, fulfilling lives under undemocratic regimes
Because it's not your government. Between media message management, corporate lobbying, and outright gerrymandering, the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.
Unions, imperfect as they are, can be far more directly representative.
Are you seriously suggesting somebody working a poverty-level wage in an Amazon dystopia in Poland just... quit and start a business?
"leave instead of trying to change things" - yeah how about no? I applaud everyone brave enough to stand up for their rights like this.
That's pretty much all tech companies besides some young startups.
Didn't log into my amazon account for year but just checked: First order in 1999 and last order in 2016. I can keep off it for many more years.
Did you stop using AWS? Amazon's retail costs them money, AWS nets them profit. If you think about it, buying from Amazon is kinda like stealing from them.
Why do people keep repeating that retail costs amazon money. Look at our earning reports, that is clearly not the case.
Over half of amazon's profit comes from retail revenue.
Internally, a lot of amazon retail revenue turns into AWS profit as amazon retail is AWS's biggest customer.
Besides, it's not just about profit. Retail is where they abuse workers, so it makes sense not to do business with that part of the company.
From what I’ve heard from a friend in AWS, it’s not exactly all roses over there either.
Do you have a source for that? Is that all around the world, or just in some countries? That really interest me.
Many, heres one. https://fourweekmba.com/is-amazon-profitable-without-aws/
That's just the 2022 numbers, and not necessarily a good indicator for their overall performance?
Are you sure about that? Web search results indicate that the 2022 net loss was likely a one-off, and they went back to being profitable last year?
Besides, your individual purchase surely isn't costing them more money than you're spending on it?
Yes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2023/04/28/amazon-st...
Amazon’s online store revenues have been decreasing and its results for the first quarter — $106 billion in revenue worldwide — were “roughly flat” as its U.S. market share growth in e-commerce and Prime “stalled after years of high growth,” according to the Journal. Its global e-commerce business reported a $300 million operating loss.
Global loss could be due to expanding FCs. Does not mean it is not a profitable business elsewhere.
I only had to use AWS for customers of mine, not for my own stuff.
Also, did you search for my nickname and AWS? Interesting personality trait...
No I didn't, I didn't know if you actually used it, but I see a few comments on GitHub now that you mentioned it!
Retail only costs money because it's actively expanding. Or at least, that was true in like 2018 when I last read about it.
no, it's like helping them seal their worldwide monopoly by denying your business to their competition
Once a year around black Friday I start a new prime trial, order a bunch of heavily discounted stuff and cancel the membership. I'm pretty sure there aren't sufficient margins and they are losing money on my order (with the hope most people will keep buying/keep the prime membership).
Ha! I'm sure they wouldn't operate at a loss. They might be investing or having a bad year, but if they were losing money they would shut down the operations.
Good point about AWS though.
misleading headline. "They fired me for allegedly taking pictures or videos — but they didn’t know, because no one saw it — when the body of Dariusz, a colleague of mine who had died during his shift, was moved to the hearse, which they considered inconsistent with their values and social standards."
but they didn’t know, because no one saw it
The English is a little confusing - "they fired me for allegedly taking pictures or videos — but they didn’t know, because no one saw it" implies she admits she did take pictures/videos of the dead colleague but Amazon couldn't have known.
If she had had taken photos and shared them with police to prove an accident or bad working practices fair enough, but otherwise I think I would have sacked her too if there was even anecdotal evidence that she had taken photos.
Firing someone based on hearsay?
Hearsay != statement of fact
"People are innocent until alleged to be involved in some type of criminal activity." - John Brennen, CIA Director Emeritus
For one this is a private company, two there is little doubt they did it.
There’s no implication in her statement that she did it. Her statement is neutral on that. You’re reading more into it than is there.
there certainly is...
i think it was not intentional
I don't think it's intended to imply she did it; there's a language barrier that is probably confusing things. But "I allegedly did it but they don't know because they didn't see me do it" absolutely implies she did.
e: (because she is only denying the existence of evidence and could just as easily deny the claim itself)
Should you be fired if there is anecdotal evidence that you commit misconduct?
It depends on how anecdotal. A grainy surveillance camera, or colleagues saying she did it, or the photos had appeared somewhere then yes.
Taking photos at work is almost always a bad idea. I do it for stuff like recording how a bunch of cables are connected to a server so I can put them back, but anything that includes identifiable locations, brand names, and employees is potential trouble.
“Finally, the judge stated that my dismissal could have been caused by my activity. What I was accused of in terminating the contract was not proven during the case. Amazon didn’t manage to provide any evidence to support their position.”
“That is actually what the judge said: that there is a conflict between labor and employer, but the conflict cannot be an argument to dismiss union members.”
So, they failed to prove she was the one that took the pictures. It's a presumption to directly state she was fired for speaking out.
I interpreted that to be the legal excuse given for an illegal firing, of which Amazon could not substantiate.
Yeah it seems pretty obvious that they wouldn't go on the record to say it was a retaliatory firing
I know many old people at amazon who apparently decided they never needed to try in life. They found a role they were comfortable enough in, their joints creak going up stairs, they cant fit into tight spaces, and they refuse to take on any level of responsibility or ownership of anything. If you dont like the work, quit, but ill tell you right now that these people only pretend to care about themselves.
As the youngest person on my team, I work every day to give my people every kind of assistance, resources, and encouragment that they could need to succeed past the more physical role they work now. I can only spoonfeed them though, I cant make them swallow a promotion. Some people dont want to live into old age, thats all I can call it.
As to the interviewee, did you take pictures? Because you dont deny it, and you know that you are jepordizing the livelihoods of over a million of my coworkers in doing so.
I'm having such a difficult time parsing this comment. What do you mean to say with those first two paragraphs?
I read it as: commenter works in a physical job with older colleagues who, despite getting older and struggling more, are not attempting to get promoted or moved into a role they can continue to do as they age.
What about the third paragraph? I can see how taking photos of a corpse might save lives, since it implies the death was suspicious, and might be part of whistleblowing about some sort of violation of regulations, or negligence. But how can it jeopardize the livelihood of millions?
Is the idea that their jobs might all have to vanish if a whistleblower reveals them to be fundamentally dangerous?
No, we have a strict policy of not taking pictures or video at work unless it has gone through a rigerous process and is explicitly approved. This protects company IP in the only way that should matter, but it also literally saves lives. Someone tried to bomb the building I used to work in. I do not need the layout of my site on public display, the security measures, the blast proof structures, the safe places to hide.
Sorry, whatever pictures the interviewee took takes a backseat to personnel safety. It is the paramount value at amazon, existing above any and all leadership principles.
Sounds less than completely ingenuous.
* The (putative) photos weren't published.
* They aren't photos of the building. Perhaps a hundred frivolous public photos could present a risk in this way. A few secret ones taken for a good reason do not.
* They were taken to protect safety, just not in alignment with the employer's particular idiosyncratic perspective on safety (which seems muddled up with concerns about IP and PR).
So this has no relation to the risk of bombings or shootings, and I still don't see the connection to risk to other workers' livelihoods (AKA jobs). Maybe Amazon are monitoring what you write here, so you're obliged to say this weird stuff?
You know whats better than trying to strategize and hypothesize around a million employees taking pictures with no approval or accountability? An iron rule that everyone is subject to. You might be right in the particular scenario, that is completely irrelevant.
Everyone gets alerts regarding every incident at amazon regardless of whether anyone was hurt. We have a very robust infastructure for identifying issues and correcting them globally. The best the interviewee could have accomplished is adding political complications that produce inferior results.
Iron rule doesn’t sound like somewhere I’d like to work.
There are institutions for public safety outside of Amazon, such as regulatory bodies and laws, to which it is subject. Amazon is not yet a sovereign country, so the alleged robustness of its suspiciously self-serving internal safety procedures is not relevant here, since there can and should be such a thing as whistleblowing, in the civil society within which Amazon awkwardly sits prior to its secession.
I’m pretty sure personnel safety is not the paramount value at Amazon.
And for that matter, very senior people have been fired without a second thought for taking pictures at work.
Accurate. And they will tell you that themselves.
> their joints creak going up stairs
Maybe they ARE trying. Perhaps you don’t know what they are struggling with. Maybe their bodies ache all day long every day, but what keeps them going is providing for their loved ones.
Perhaps you dont know how easily they could step into a position that isnt physically demanding, several of them would be a shoe in for chief given their experience. They wont fill out an application if I put it infront of them, they would rather fix air conditioning units than have responsibility, and they will tell you as much directly.
Getting old sucks. Your mind is fine but your body lags behind. I’ve noticed it a lot more after turning 40. My issue, as I’m sure everyone’s issue, is that in my mind I clearly remember being able to do things physically with excellence that today would send me to the hospital. Skateboarding (I can still kickflip), snowboarding, fighting (for sport, like mma), volunteering for habitat for humanity building homes (can’t do that no more). The best thing is that I work with computers so my job job isn’t physically demanding but boy does it suck bending over to drop trash in the waste bin only to have your back slip out.
As to the interviewee, did you take pictures? Because you dont deny it, and you know that you are jepordizing the livelihoods of over a million of my coworkers in doing so.
I don’t understand the jeopardy from taking pictures. I understand it’s probably against the rules at Amazon.
The reason for the poor view of the NH community (outside NH) is clear from the opinions expressed here. From defending Amazon's right to pay low wages to “it's easy, just quit” demonstrates the disconnection of NH people with reality to the point of full psychopathy. And everyone knows that you never go a full psychopath.
The technical part of HN is a delight. But the non-technical part, when something is said about humanities, it's sad. It's as if most of the people at HN were no longer people, they were robot CEOs who defend money above all else. I would love a tag system so I can't view these discussions (I already do this, but sometimes it escapes me)
From defending Amazon's right to pay low wages to “it's easy, just quit” demonstrates the disconnection of NH people with reality to the point of full psychopathy.
You seem to be under impression that people who express this view do not have sympathy for the workers. That's not true. We just refuse to accept that an employer becomes responsible for a person's condition just because he chooses to purchase the person's labour.
When you hire a plumber to fix your pipes, or buy tomatoes from a farmer, you don't become responsible for their condition. You don't have an obligation to pay higher than a market rate, or to continue paying them when you no longer want to. Why would you expect a full-time employer to have these obligations?
This doesn't have anything to do with sympathy. My sympathy for the poor people drives to me donate a significant proportion of my income. But I don't have any right to force my notion on charity on other people or organisations.
When you hire a plumber to fix your pipes, or buy tomatoes from a farmer, you don't become responsible for their condition. You don't have an obligation to pay higher than a market rate, or to continue paying them when you no longer want to. Why would you expect a full-time employer to have these obligations?
You know very well these are non sequitur, absurd arguments.
If the plumber dies fixing your pipes in your home, you bet your civil liability will be scrutinized. As for the rest of your arguments, the agreement is usually only about the plumber "fixing the pipe", not forcing the plumber to work 10 hours a day, or prevent them from taking more than a 15 minutes lunch break or something,
You see the absurdity of your examples? You're acting like there are no differences between an individual contracting a plumber and the relationship between a megacorporation, the employees, and the obvious power imbalance between them.
It's usually because you deem your interlocutor an idiot whom you can just patronize with absurd arguments.
“When you hire a plumber to fix your pipes, you don't become responsible for their condition.”
Have you never heard of premises liability?
just because he chooses to purchase the person's labour
This sounds like the corporation’s point of view. Most people view employment as a relationship between employer and employee which extends beyond the salary and includes a proper work environment, etc.
Libertarians believe that it’s OK to treat people as badly as they allow themselves to be treated.
The reason for the poor view of the NH community (outside NH) is clear from the opinions expressed here.
Where does HN have a poor reputation? Whenever I've seen it mentioned, its either been by other users of the site or people who generally view it favorably (largely due to the post quality).
The only place I've come across that has a particular disdain for it is /g/, but they hate everyone so thats to be expected.
Basically outside this mosh pit, there are many smaller communities scattered about the internet and social circles. They all refer to HN as "the orange site" to avoid naming it, and it's usually always about something in disdain.
The great thing about any community is that you have free speech, but don't be surprised if your opinion is challenged.
I enjoy both HN and other community sites, both are great ways to communicate.
I don't get this us vs them mentality, but perhaps that is an American thing. Whatever it is, it is silly.
No, of course it’s not easy to quit. But perhaps it’s wrong to even offer these terrible jobs as an “opportunity” to people who have so little choice.
I'm going to go one further. This site is infested with actual fascists, and the people who run it want to see democracy destroyed and replaced with fascism.
The reason for the negative view of HN is because the community skews way farther left than the general public.
Case in point: this story comes from a website dedicated to promoting socialism and not one single person here is even questioning the credibility of the source.
What do I need to do for you today? Cover up your mistakes? Deal with the admin you are slacking on? Pull you into the conference room and reteach you electricity and magnetism? Give you a pat on the back? Throw you softball projects that will make you look like a superstar? Climb into the tight places you cant fit? Send you the job application to fill out? Fill it out for you?
There is little doubt who the nicest person is at work, and I feel terrible about the trajectories of everyone elses lives. Though, I am at a loss, what more do I need to do? Would the true kindness be in having these people fired, because otherwise they will die on the job?
Retaliation is all too common in corporate even if people recognize it or not.
"Corporations don't have emotions and only act in the interest of profit."
And somehow this makes them legal persons in the eyes of US law
Legal persons that can't go to prison if they commit crimes.
Maybe they are treated as an incapacitated person by law.
In that case they shouldn’t be able to sign contracts
Or receive the death penalty for killing people.
When incorporation was at the King’s Leisure, we at least had that.
Didn't this happen in the EU which is 5000 years ahead of the planet?
That's why it's reported, followed up and punished. And not in the cracks of history. Also let's note that he company doing this is a US company which doesn't really consider itself as subject to EU law.
Do not use amazon, do not buy books from amazon, do not use AWS, do not get their certs, do not work in places that use AWS, do not watch prime, do not use their opensource tech.
What does that solve? Amazon employees an uncountable number of people. Put them all out of a job?
Edit: Wild that HN would downvote me on this. OP says: "short term thinking". Is that supposed to be for me or them?
They’re only Amazon employees temporarily. Give equivalent money for other services by different businesses and these different businesses can hire them.
I think the point you make could be repeated for every boycott and sanction ever but most people don’t think these methods are inherently unethical.
If there was an equivalent solution, why aren't people just working there already?
short term thinking
I'm old enough to remember when Amazon was a welcome change from the local B&N/Walmart/Target/CVS/BestBuy overlords with minimal choice and higher prices.
Amazon warehouses have cameras. Lots of them. Do they not in Poland? The man didn't seem to want to quit, from the context, it's possible the person did not tell the truth. He may have worked himself too hard, I've known many people that just didn't quit.
The man didn't seem to want to quit, from the context, it's possible the person did not tell the truth. He may have worked himself too hard, I've known many people that just didn't quit.
Did you read the whole article carefully? There's a detailed description of the events that led to his death, and how the company's treatment of him and of his requests and complaints directly contributed to his death.
Yes I did, and he continued to work, the writer alleged many things, and he continued to work to his death.
I've known people that just didn't quit, even when it was better for them to. The context was he continued to work, again and again with claims from someone who wrote for a very biased publication.
On the Sunday before Dariusz died, he asked the supervisor to transfer him to another department because he was fed up with working too hard. Despite the requests, he continued to work alone at his post for about five hours.
Something isn't adding up.
What "isn't adding up" in that paragraph is possibly a problem with the reading comprehension. Dariusz requested a change, but it wasn't granted and he had to work alone for another five hours.
Granted, the sentence could have been phrased in a way that didn't leave things open to your interpretation, but then we come to the second thing that "doesn't add up": your own bias, evident in your insurance on victim-blaming.
People like Dariusz continue working in adverse, unhealthy conditions because they don't have the luxury of just quitting.
The man didn't seem to want to quit...
For a lot of people quitting (or losing their job) is not an option. I'm sure if they had a choice they wouldn't work in such a place as Amazon warehouse. Let's not blame the victim, we should punish Amazon (and similar corporations) instead.
It makes me sad and angry that such things can happen - unfortunately I can't boycot them more than I do already. I'll stop boycotting them when they start treating their employees right... Not holding my breath though.
Have you known a 'boxer' like character from animal farm? If he didn't work hard at one thing, he's collapse at another.
These people do exist, and they exploit these people, but these people do want to work to their death. It's sad but I believe it's cultural.
I hope courts worldwide continue to punish Amazon for these kinds of things. They need to change the calculus — to ensure that the total operational cost of hiring people to do these terrible jobs is much higher than using robots.
" to ensure that the total operational cost of hiring people to do these terrible jobs is much higher than using robots."
He was not crushed by machinery or anything:
"Dariusz worked so hard. His job used to be done by a few people during a shift, but then they made him do all that work alone, pushing around trolleys with heavy boxes."
He was simply pushed working too hard. So a robot doing the job would have been one solution - the other simply an extra human helping, or switching tasks, to something less physically demanding.
True! There might be other solutions, like having management treat people as they themselves would want to be treated. That kind of thing just sounds fairly unrealistic.
continue to punish Amazon for these kinds of things.
Amazon is not punished. That woman was only reinstated in her rock-bottom-wage, back-breaking/RSI-inducing Amazon job.
If she'd have gotten some large sum of money as compensation, or if the court had ordered Amazon to enter good-faith negotiations with the union, or accept some of its demands, or to cease warehouse operations temporary etc. - that would have been punishment.
Dont worry, that calculus is changing day by day regardless. In the second chapter people will be complaining that robots put them out of work.
This is precisely the reason I have strictly ZERO respect for HR department. They are the most hypocrite department in a company. They call it human resources, but all they do is make everyone's jobs difficult. They are the worst of all. Simply the worst. Not to mention, the most arrogant and lazy.
Fck them.
But as frequently stated, Human Resources is not for the employees. It's even in the name. Humans are just a Resource. The whole point of HR is to ensure the company is legally safe from their employees and legislation.
If you own a company, you'll love HR. If you work for a company, hate them.
I think the department name is pretty telling: Human Resources.
They do the same thing as the IT department, but instead of dealing with printers they deal with people.
If your printer is having issues printing or wants to take some time off, you throw it away and get a new one.
Even the managers hate them. They make hiring such a pita
1. Main takeaway I:
"Q: Do you think this ruling will change anything in the immediate future?
A: ... I’m afraid they will not change their policy. ... They’re just smashing everything on their way to making more and more profit."
2. Main takeaway II:
"... Amazon has used Poland as a base from which to attack German unions right next door, either by importing Polish workers as strikebreakers when German warehouses were being picketed or then by simply building warehouses along the German-Polish border to serve the German market and get around German labor laws and unions."
3. Personal suggestion to fellow readers:
Please don't use Amazon, and ask your friends to avoid it as well. Yes, a grass-roots consumer boycott is not the most efficient of measures, but we should at least do _something_ other than just shrug and accept it.
Also, if there is an Amazon facility near where you live - try to figure out if they're trying to unionize. And if they are, try and help them out, or at least donate.
You often can’t stop acquaintances from doing things you don’t condone, but you can stop associating with them and being privy or party to their nonsense.
I can’t stop Amazon from being assholes, but it says something about me if I still participate, let others participate on my behalf.
Amazon are absolutely scumsters, and this is why I would never work for them. I had their recruiters trying to headhunt me for engineering roles in AWS, but they can go and sling one. This is also why I will never buy any goods from them. support local business instead.
her efforts to speak out against poor working conditions
Sounds like they did her a favor?
Or were the working conditions less than ideal but good enough she still wanted to work at Amazon?
Typical for Amazon: abuse, fear, intimidation, slavery
I want to take this moment to remind everybody:
HR works for the company [not you].
Whistleblower reporting systems work for the GDP [not you].
----
I was a union electrician for a great apprenticeship; as the article's author admits CONSTRUCTION IS DANGEROUS in different ways. Yet I resonate greatly with the "repetitious motions" lament on account of having literally turned so many screwpost connections [many goobers use basic electric drills to "torque;" not sure how/if this works well].
Sounds like an FMLA violation. Did you specifically say you would be taking leave? Not already on a "performance improvement" plan of any sort? Was anyone else let go on Friday?
I don't know how hard this sort of thing is to litigate, "at will" employment covers a lot of abuses, and honestly why would you want to stay at an employer who treats you like this? Probably best to spend your energy finding a new job.
Edit to add: You could report this to the Department of Labor. Not sure you'd personally get any restitution but if your employer was willing to do this kind of thing, you are probably not the only one they have screwed over. If an employer has a record of complaints they might get audited which could cost them a lot in penalties if they are violating the law.
FMLA only covers companies with 50 or more employees.
A friend was fired in the US when she told her boss she was pregnant and discovered this limitation. Her previous work experience was in France so she did not realize this could happen.
In CA, it’s any employer with 5 employees, thanks to the CFRA.
https://www.rigginslaw.com/cfra-vs-fmla-difference-between-c....
CA really is by far one of the most employee-friendly states, on nearly every issue.
Except taxes.
Dno. The roads here are way better than other places with lower taxes, it’s beautiful, the air and water are clean, and so on.
Everywhere has plenty of things to complain about. I’d like to spend less in taxes, always.
But at least it does feel, objectively, like we live in a mostly lovely place that actually does protect employees, have access to great healthcare, great roads, great charging infrastructure (relative to the rest of the US) and so on.
Anecdotal, but I have driven across a majority of US states, from Florida to Alaska (and also, on both the East and West sides of Canada) and haven't noticed any strong correlation between the quality of the roads and how high a states taxes are.
Since you mentioned Florida, the roads go from good to bad as soon as you cross the border into Alabama, which is a really interesting experience on the interstate. But yes, the roads are bad in Deep South states, although the taxes aren’t really that low either (just people don’t make much money to get much out of them).
Interesting! Quite contrary from the prevailing wisdom - snow and salt destroy the roads. Maybe they don’t make them well to begin with.
In my experience, it correlates fairly well, with Florida being the notable exception. I have no idea why their roads are so good.
Tourism.
Most of what you’re driving on could be federal highways.
I’m in the same boat, have driven just about everywhere and I haven’t seen any major correlation.
[delayed]
Don't forget the world-class higher education system, with the two of the top universities in the world.
Oh yeah, and spectacular public schooling - the state schools are top notch, as are many of the lower education public schools.
Roads in California are good? We must live in different states.
Where are you from? To be fair, I mean relative to other states. Not that they’re perfect.
What part of the state are you in with good roads? Sonoma county here, miserable roads
Bay Area, but I’m from NYC, so my standard for “bad road” is relatively high - there are a lot of potholes right now from the rain, but in general they get fixed quickly, the roads are wide and many-lanes, and generally don’t do insane things like loop back on themselves or anything like that.
It's because they don't have winter. Winter, freezing/thawing, and salt is what destroys roads.
Tell that to Tahoe or any of the many mountainous regions of CA. :)
Obviously there are more than two states, but it’s not so simple.
Plus, someone’s got to pay for everything:
Please, not more of this nonsense
Show me a SWE who makes median ($40,480 in 2023) money or less. That quote does not apply. For people making SWE money, Texas is a LOT better tax-wise
How do the people of Texas pay for things, then, if not through income taxes?
Property tax, sales tax, toll roads in places they shouldn't be, and so forth.
Property and local taxes, and also simply doing less.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...
Californians pay more taxes but they also get better social services, schools, universities, parks, etc.
Nonsense? Most people aren't software engineers.
Former Texan here. Property taxes cost quite a bit, far exceeding incremental tax load in areas I've lived out of the state.
Anecdata, but a counterpoint to your general claim.
I lived in Texas making six figures as a SWE. Texas was not far better tax wise. Texas does a lot to ding you in ways that aren't taxes, and buying a home that doesn't involve an hour and a half commute one way is unrealistic.
Bizarrely, even experts miss this obvious fact. If not income taxes, then how does government pay the bills? Income taxes are usually the most progressive tax, so no income tax usually means less wealthy people pay more. If government spends less, what services are cut?
No income tax != free lunch. Someone has to pay.
Totally agree. When taxes are the highest in the country and take almost 40% of your income and the only people who own houses are the ones that bought them 20-50 years ago that is very employee unfriendly.
Exaggerating like that doesn’t help your argument. California’s top tax rate is 12.3% and you’re only paying just on income over $680k:
https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2023/2023-540-tax-rate-schedule...
This means that in practice, California isn’t even in the top 10:
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/30/1166970506/tax-burden-by-stat...
Now, the housing market is not great but again, greatly overstating your case is not an effective strategy, and it isn’t a uniquely California problem even though prop 13 makes it worse there than many other places.
These are the rates and includes a over million 1% tax for mental support.
California 13.3% Hawaii 11% New York 10.9% New Jersey 10.75% District of Columbia 10.75% Oregon 9.9% Minnesota 9.85% Massachusetts 9% Vermont 8.75% Wisconsin 7.65%
Tax burden is a different measurement including property. Parent poster has no property.
I don’t know your source. None of the ones I’ve seen support that ranking:
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...
Arguably, it's better to pay higher taxes on a job that's protected than lower taxes on a job that you can't count on.
Yeah. I totally get why people conceptually hate the idea of paying taxes, even if my values lead me to a very different conclusion. That said, most of the arguments I've encountered about places with higher taxes being worse places to live strike me as either glib and uninformed, or in bad faith. That's not a partisan-specific folly by any measure, but it's a folly nonetheless.
I perceive yet another motivation for companies to aggressively classify employees as contractors.
Yes this is one of the risks of working for a very small employer. A lot of the normal rules don't apply. But if a company is big enough to have "HR" I'm guessing they likely are bigger than 50 employees.
While this is all true, doing that also allows / encourages the employer to continue their abusive actions toward others.
It's a big decision to fight something like this in the legal system. It might affect your future employement prospects, depending on details.
Grim.
Why did you announce it?
Presumably because he wanted to take paternaty leave after his child was born. Also why wouldn’t you tell coworkers you’re having a baby? It’d be really weird to keep that a secret.
So back when my team was smaller, we used to do birthdays. Lure the coworker into a conference room on some pretense or another, then bring out a cake.
Of course, once it became routine, it's rather hard to surprise someone -- any irregular meetings on your birthday are extremely suspect.
So for one coworker's birthday, a week after we'd just done another's, I scheduled JACK'S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT on his birthday. He, of course, was extremely suspicious, and assumed it was a front for his birthday.
I made my announcement, brought out the champagne (well, sparkling Catawba), went out into the hallway to get a corkscrew, and came back in with the birthday cake.
So he had the whiplash of, wait, is this not for my birthday after all, wait, if it is, then are you not having a baby? And I declined to clarify until after I started my paternity leave, and half my coworkers didn't believe it until after I brought the kiddo in to show off.
It was glorious.
I can't parse what you wrote to figure out what you were celebrating, but whatever it is, this is my idea of a workplace nightmare. It's bad enough being forced to celebrate someone else's birthday, but it sounds like you're also forcing people to celebrate their own birthdays without their permission, and possibly forcing people to celebrate pregnancies and other personal events without their permission?
I would hate you if I worked with you.
Kind of harsh without context? I worked for a team that did this - putting your birthday on the spreadsheet was entirely optional, as well as attending any celebratory hallway things. Nobody was forcing anybody to do anything. If you had a conflict or was busy working, or just plain didn't want to participate, everybody understood and wouldn't mind.
FWIW I usually didn't participate nor did I let anybody know my birthday and I never felt excluded.
It's one thing to say "we're celebrating Bob's birthday so there's cake in the kitchen", or "we're going out to lunch for Jill's birthday". You should get Bob and Jill's permission before you do that, but if they're cool with it, then by all means. I can decide for myself if I want to participate, or make a polite excuse not to.
Throwing me a surprise birthday? I hate you. Inviting me to a meeting that I feel obligated to attend, only for it to be a surprise birthday? If it's for someone else, I'll just smile and pretend to enjoy it for the minimum socially-acceptable time and then bow out. If you did that for my birthday I would be pissed off. I'd still smile and pretend to enjoy it, but it would be excruciating torture for me.
And if you ever threw a party for me for anything more personal I wouldn't even smile and pretend, I'd make it publicly known how inappropriate it was.
You seem like a miserable person to be around.
It's cake and a break from work. Even if you hate every single person you work with with a burning passion, it's still cake and a break from work.
I can only understand this opinion if its some kind of forced event after or before work, or worse you're the employer and just want people making you money only. But getting paid to take an extra break and then scolding your coworkers seems a step too far
That is a lot of emotion and politics. How is it important to you? Is it really about birthdays? Relative to most things, IMHO they are pretty innocuous; YMMV of course.
I've taken to telling people I don't have a birthday when asked, unless it's clearly for necessary record keeping; especially in a work context. I get a funny look, but whatever.
If I learn someone else has appropriated my birthday, I do let them know, and we can share private birthday greetings.
This seems like a very good anecdote in favor of continuing remote work.
Definitely an illustration of how different persons want different workplace experiences.
"Also why wouldn’t you tell coworkers you’re having a baby?"
It was HR, not some coworker. But yes, it is messed up.
Toxic workplace then. HR are people too.
Cynically speaking, HR is an abstraction layer between management and employees, sorry, 'resources'.
When I worked for a huge engineering multinational years ago, it showed time and time again that people went into HR with the best of intentions, but most were as time ground on disillusioned upon finding they were not, after all, employed to help other employees.
The good ones mostly left, the poor ones thrived. Sigh.
(That being said, I do believe HR has a purpose, ensuring (at least in theory) professional, correct and consistent treatment of employees.
Just don't make the mistake of believing they are on your side; they are not.
"When I worked for a huge engineering multinational years ago"
I never was in a huge company, but in a small company, I found they can be nice and on the human side.
Well, HR staff are people like any other department, so as with all people there's always potential for asshole behaviour even in a company that generally encourages HR to be employee-friendly, and potential for someone to do a nice thing that's technically against HR policy in a shitty company. Not to mention that the abstracted layer above - whether the company has employee-friendly or employee-hostile policies when it comes to HR team - is also ultimately down to people with the same potential for good and bad.
"HR work for the company not for you, don't trust them" is a reasonable general rule considering the average HR department especially in large companies, but it's not a guarantee that all HR people, or even all HR teams' policies will be evil.
Agreed; I believe the tipping point is where the company becomes so large that you no longer know, or at least are familiar with the people you're working with.
I expect you are much more inclined to try to find a workable solution if the case at hand is Dave in accounting whose kid attends the same soccer practice your kid does than if he's just employee #628481.
HR are employer's cops and every cop-related advice applies, starting with "don't volunteer information". At least with managers in a big tech corp you have the same goal to pursue and failures to share. With HR it's either a script or a cop.
It seems really weird to me to share personal details like this in a professional setting. Do you tell your coworkers when you poop, too? When relatives die? This all seems like “completely not relevant to the workplace” stuff that should always be left out of discussion.
Why wouldn't you communicate ahead of time that you're going to be taking a chunk of time off in the near future, specifically for something so important?
Letting HR know your wife is expecting is that communication.
Is he supposed to let HR know when they are trying to conceive? That seems unreasonable and TMI…
I'm not clear on when exactly he let HR know, but the original post makes it seem like he let them know a week before. I think at least a couple months notice makes more sense depending on the duration of leave.
Retaliation is not common in the US. Stop spreading misinformation.
Why would an HR department from any reputable organization fire you if your wife is expecting?
Your counterpoint that it's not common has the same level of evidence in it as the original assertion: none.
An absence of evidence for the argument against something being common is evidence.
Its not "retaliation" as such, just that for many unskilled jobs having someone show up everyday is the main part of the job. If you want time off they can swap you for someone who'll be there.
This is the tech bubble talking. Most big tech companies do treat their tech workers well...warehouse workers, not so much.
But for every big tech company there are thousands of smaller non-tech companies, where they do not treat employees well. Also common != majority.
Just read up on how Walmart treats their employees, for example. I just read an article earlier this week about Walmart systematically under-reporting OHSA violations, and retaliating against employees reporting workplace accidents to OHSA.
IDK if it's very common but it happens, especially at smaller companies who either don't know the rules or those who have gotten away with it in the past and think they are too small to get noticed.
Just recently here a restaurant was fined for not paying overtime by employing dishwashers and kitchen staff as "salaried" exempt employees.
At large companies with in-house legal and HR teams? It probably doesn't happen much, but even there they will know what they can get away with.
Retaliation is abundant in the US. What are you smoking?
If a company thinks it can get away with it, it will. Saving money is more important than a hypothetical, minuscule and temporary hit to their reputation. There will always be consumers looking for a bargain at any real cost, workers desperate for a pay check, and shareholders worshipping the bottom line.
That’s why we need unions
Wait. You were fired because you said to HR that you are going to be a father next week? How is this even legal?
So called "right to work" laws that actually give employers the right to fire for no cause. As long as an employer doesn't say what the cause was, employers in those states can fire you for "no cause" even if the hidden reason would be an illegal cause if they stated it. It's only illegal if someone gets caught specifically saying the firing was because the employee is having a kid. Coincidences are not considered admissable evidence in those courts.
I think you’re conflating “at will employment” with “right to work”.
The first allows no-reason, no-notice termination of employment by both parties (which doesn’t really work - the employee usually needs income more than the employer needs a single employer).
The second is related to the ability to unionize.
Right to work is about being forced to be a member of a union.
I think they're saying that they notified them on Tuesday, and were canned Friday.
To earthwalker99: You got downvoted to death because you called out downvotes against you, but to explain more issues with your argument: Capitalism is a system of organizing society based on private ownership of the means of economic production. You're saying capitalism is about prioritizing the rights to capital accumulation by the current holders of capital, which is one specific form of capitalism, often called crony capitalism.
Private ownership of the means of production is more orthogonal to workers rights. There are capitalist economics in countries with very strong workers rights and unions, but where the means of production are still privately owned. Capitalism is fully compatible with strong family and medical leave protections, even though those who own the means of production are disincentived in the short term from giving workers rights. The fact that the US is worse on workers rights isn't a problem unique to capitalism.
This is so stupid. In Spain even fathers get "paternity" leave. You even get a week off if you get married...
In the US too you get paternity leave, it's very fishy to see someone claim they got fired for announcing that their partner is expecting. This is a massive liability.
It really depends on your state and company size: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/state-paid-family-lea...
In general, it is better for US employees to plan as though they had no rights (especially if they can't afford a good lawyer or wait months/years for the NLRB to process a claim, and even then only during a Democratic administration). Of course they actually have a few rights, but much fewer than in European and many Asian countries, and the enforcement/protection is pretty minimal and delayed. Most employees will just get trampled on with no real avenue for recourse, especially if they have bills due in a week or two.
What parallel universe are you in? There is no guaranteed paternity leave in the US. Some states may have it, and a few employers offer it, but it’s in no way a right.
In the USA, everyone gets leave all the time! You just don't get paid.
At least it has gone to court, and she has won at this point. It's not clear to me whether Magda gets paid for the time between her dismissal and her job being reinstated.
I'll continue to boycott Amazon. Earlier in the week I spent about an hour sleuthing the web to find an obscure item that wasn't from Amazon or China, finally found it at a local supplier.
Did you expect this might happen, maybe the baby is due very soon?
It's awful in any case :-(
I can’t speak to this case, but generally low wage workers are paycheck to paycheck and so get jobs while they wait for the system to do their thing. They only get paid for loss of income, so it actually subtracts what they earned in that time and so by working in the meantime the damages paid are much smaller. There are no punitive damages or anything.
Is that for Poland, or somewhere else?
In Britain you're compensated up to £643/week by default (up to your weekly pay amount), plus compensation similar to what you describe.
I don't speak Polish, so I doubt I could find the situation there.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/employment-tribunals/...
You're not the only one. I haven't bought anything from Amazon in the past five years or so.
I discovered recently that some ebay sellers dropship via amazon. Unfortunately I don't think you can tell until you get tracking info, when it's too late to cancel - they are tracked via 'aquiline' which just seem to operate some server api that wraps amazon tracking numbers into ebay tracking numbers, and the delivery is from Amazon. But the actual product page just says 'other 24-hour courier'
Do you have a source describing how common retaliation is in the US? I always thought it was actually pretty rare.
Sorry you lost your job, but I find it difficult to believe that it is solely due to you announcing the arrival of your child. Paternity leave is rarely more than 2 weeks in the US, I can't imagine a company preferring to deal with potential law suit instead of just living 2 weeks without an employee.
I expect most retaliation goes unreported, so going to be difficult to get any numbers that are not full of assumptions. Even if you know someone fired you for X, going to be hard to prove it: time, money, conflicting accounts, potential reputational damage for suing employer.
I agree! And, they say this bluntly and while chest thumping: ‘we have strong laws against retaliation’ :-)
You disagree with your manager and that as*hole will put you on a pip the very next day