Amazon workers from Spain, Germany and Poland have walked out on strike over demands for better working conditions, choosing to do so on the same date as the retail giant's big promotional push.
Workers demand a fairer conditions[sic] and an increase in salary of 1.5% from Amazon, whose founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' net worth was calculated this week to top $150bn after the company's market valuation hit $888bn.
"The message is clear - while the online giant gets rich, it is saving money on the health of its workers," Germany's Verdi services union said in a statement, following five years in which Amazon has refused to enter into collective wage negotiations over the 16,000 workers employed in the country.
(source)
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Amazon Workers in Europe Strike During Prime Promotion Event
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:45AM (2 children)
Problem solved, as clearly they dont want their job.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:17AM (1 child)
Pay them less, take away their health care, separate them from their families, sell their organs on the open market. Only way to keep them from forming a union.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:18AM
We don't do that in America, that's not the American way. And it's not what the great American people want. Ours is not open market -- it's Black Market!!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:33AM (20 children)
$3,000 per second for Bezos, poverty wages for Amazon workers [wsws.org]
Police beat up Amazon strikers in Spain [wsws.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:57AM (19 children)
In other words, Bezos is being accused of the "great social crime" of bettering the lives of over half a million people! If only we had more people committing such social crimes! It's also interesting how the addition of "social" once again completely neuters the word it's attached to. The rhetoric is an exercise in brain rot.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:34AM
What about the 3.4 MILLION JOBS created since our GREAT election victory -- far greater than ever anticipated! No surprise workers walking out over VERY UNFAIR conditions. That's Amazon's M.O. Trust me, we don't need @JeffBezos [twitter.com]. We don't need the @Amazon [twitter.com] or the #AmazonWashingtonPost [twitter.com]. Must put American Workers First!!! Anti Trust????
(Score: 5, Touché) by shortscreen on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:30AM (15 children)
You are assuming that the life of each person who took a job at Amazon got better?
I wonder how many other (possibly less shitty) employers had to cut jobs at the same time because Amazon took their market share.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:01AM (8 children)
I wonder how many other (possibly less shitty) employers had to cut jobs at the same time because Amazon took their market share.
Economically, regional governments ought to be fighting tooth and nail to keep Amazon out of their area, rather than giving monstrous tax breaks which will never see a return on investment. Wages tank whenever Amazon expands into an area [economist.com]. In some cases it can be a 30% decrease, which is a lot considering how low pay those jobs already are. I don't think many object to Bezos skimming some money off the top for himself and his flunkies. The problem arises is when he takes most of it and leaves only tailings for the people actually keeping his business afloat. There wouldn't be an Amazon without warehouse workers, so it ought to pay a respectable wage but that is not how things work in the US.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday July 22 2018, @12:19PM (7 children)
Let us note that the average warehouse salary in Lexington county, South Carolina is $32,000. That's pretty good for just moving boxes around. This reminds me of the "bullshit" story. Weasel phrases like "respectable wage" which have no real meaning are a strong indication that your post is bullshit. After all, one can similarly fatuously mealy-mouth about how Bezos's income isn't respectable. But he's not going to do better anywhere else.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:07PM (4 children)
Wow. You are delusional, sir.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 23 2018, @12:31AM (3 children)
khallow is a slave spouting the propaganda of his betters.
He knows his place.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @12:58AM (2 children)
Freedom can look like slavery to the Orwellians. It's not.
And I find it interesting how all this posturing comes about merely because I noted a standard observation about trade - that it benefits both parties to the trade. Amazon doesn't have some magic woo that forces people to work for peanuts.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @01:03AM (1 child)
You are right, there is no magic woo about it. They command a large amount of jobs and due to how fucked the world is people will take any job they can get. Very few people have the option of holding out, and as someone else said Amazon pushes out a LOT of small businesses. Local economies tank and amazon pays shit wages.
You are a free market droid with apparently no concept of reality outside your narrow world view.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @01:11AM
People will also take better jobs too. What's interesting here is that you're blaming Amazon for what it helps to fix. Employing half a million people with good paying jobs is definitely making the situation better not worse.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:22PM (1 child)
What? Are you of all people against people getting paid for their work?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @12:47AM
Why ask questions that have no connection to reality? I never said anything that indicated that I would be against people getting paid for their work. I think what is telling with the story I complained about is that everyone working for Amazon probably saw their wages and benefits go up. Yet we're supposed to be concerned about people not getting paid for their work?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 22 2018, @12:00PM (5 children)
Which is a reasonable assumption to make. After all, every one of those people could have chosen to work elsewhere.
It's not a zero sum game.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:01PM (1 child)
Correct! It certainly is not!
For the working class, it's a negative sum game.
But the capitalist elites seem to be expanding the pie at an extraordinary rate. Except it's more like an expanding cake, because if you're in the working class, the ever growing economic cake is a lie.
So, let me ask a question. The economic pie is growing wonderfully by the numbers. Why is it that the working class is getting less and less of it, not even in relative terms, but in absolute terms?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @12:31AM
No. It's bizarre how we can build this amazing civilization and then have people rant like that without even thinking about how that civilization came to be.
I grant that the elites are having a great time. That doesn't mean the rest of us aren't doing better too.
The answer is that you are wrong here. Sure, there are places and people that aren't doing better. But in relative and absolute terms this era is improving for humanity the best it ever has. That includes the working class.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:29PM (2 children)
I'm afraid you're just not paying a lot of attention. Amazon is the new Walmart. Let's walk back through history a little, and examine Walmart.
Some sleepy little town, with a pharmacy, a bank, a grocery store or two, and a hardware store makes room for Walmart. The first thing Walmart does, is to start selling drugs BELOW COST. When the pharmacy goes out of business, then Walmart can raise prices back to where they should have been. Ditto hardware - Walmart undercuts all of the major sales of the general store or hardware store. It generally took a good bit longer to drive the hardware store out of business than it took the pharmacy, but eventually, Walmart is the only source for hammers, hoes, spades, and nails in town. Grocery stores are hard pressed, but some of them manage to hang on. Not all though - if you had two before Walmart came to town, you'll probably end up with one.
Amazon has an edge, just as Walmart had an edge twenty years ago. And, they don't give one small fuck about you, or about your community, or about the economy in general. And, like most places, management doesn't care one bit about employees.
I don't want to work for them, anymore than I want to work for Walmart. I might prefer to work for a drug cartel. The cartels usually take care of loyal workers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @12:47AM (1 child)
And on the other hand, why is the life style of a few sleepy-town store owners and such worth more than having the benefits of modern society, which happen to include Walmart?
I happen to like that edge when it comes to buying stuff. At least with Walmart, you could have claimed that while the variety of their goods overwhelmed the meager offerings of the sleepy-town stores, it was of lower quality. Can't say that of Amazon which will sell you anything, including better quality stuff that you could get in said town.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @03:24AM
That's so true, Amazon bought Whole Foods. The Whole Foods grocery store. Where my daughter loves to shop. And she's very picky about the quality. I taught her to NEVER SETTLE.
But I hear that Amazon is now 49% of the cyber shopping. Of the websites shopping. And that's a lot. Doesn't sound like a lot but it's almost half. And they have the #AmazonWashingtonPost [twitter.com], they have the @BlueOrigin [twitter.com] which is space rockets. Very hard to compete with a guy that has his own newspaper. And can deliver by rocket!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:56PM (1 child)
That argument may fool some of us when it's applied to capitalist imperialism in India and China or another developing nation. You realize that Spain is a modern nation and a member of the European Union? It's not so persuasive when we're taking about the "improvement" we've been living through for the past 40 years or so.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @12:00AM
So... I shouldn't try to reason rationally with people from Spain?
Can't blame Bezos for that.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:32AM
Love him, or hate him, he may be the first Trillionaire ever (the word is not even in my spell checkers dictionary).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:57PM (2 children)
When there was competition, there was higher pay and higher job enjoyment.
--When there were 50 restaurants to choose from, the restaurants had to compete against each other. Try to produce better meals, have better service, lower prices, happier employees.
--When there are less restaurants to choose from, they competed less because you had less choice so why should they bother with better meals etc.
--Out of those 50 restaurants, one or two employers might like the 'family' of employees they have, and so pay them a bit more. Now you have happy employees who have a stake in the business: they like their employer, they like their job more and know that going elsewhere will mean they might get a shitty job with a shitty employer at less pay.
BUT NOW
--big mega corps is pushing out the small employer and putting downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on productivity.
----'family' atmosphere? Fuck that. "Get to work or your fired."
--mega corps knows you'll do the job because if you fuck up at McDonalds, no other McD's will employ you and that's half the jobs in your town (hypothetical) so you are less employable.
--mega corps knows you'll accept whatever pay they give you because they are the biggest employers in your area.
Long story short:
--WE NEED MORE COMPETITION, NOT LESS.
--MEGA CORPS KNOWS THAT LESS COMPETITION IS BETTER FOR THEM SO THEY LOBBY TO KEEP MERGERS HAPPENING.
--EXECUTIVES KNOW THAT LESS COMPETITION MEANS MORE PROFITS FOR MEGA CORP AND SHAREHOLDERS AND THEMSELVES even at the expense of the shits below them
WE NEED MORE COMPETITION, NOT LESS.
WE NEED MORE COMPETITION, NOT LESS.
WE NEED MORE COMPETITION, NOT LESS.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @04:15AM (1 child)
Corollary: The loudest "capitalists", crying out the benefits of the free market for all the world's suckers (like khallow) are mostly the worst kind of monopolists, doing their best to eliminate competition.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @05:23AM