Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came on site today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk

The employee was exposed to another employee who tested positive for covid-19. They asked him to stay home with pay for 14 days and he came back to the building to protest, putting other employees at risk.

That's what Amazon claims anyway. Best to take that with a pinch of salt, given their track record.

I'm going to guess Amazon has it well documented and dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's

Amazon has a version of it well documented, and they have a lot to gain by presenting their own interpretation of the events.

Based on your username, have to laugh a bit when you tell us to take what the other guy says with a grain of salt.

Yeah, imagine taking the word of a multi-billion dollar company's PR people with a grain of salt. They don't have agendas unlike throwaway accounts. At least in this case we know what both sides' interests are here!

It raises the question of how to protest in the age of quarantine.

I agree that breaking quarantine is bad, but let's look at his side of this. Amazon has the ability to shut down any protest or picket by alleging that an attendee was sick, or that a strike organizer was exposed.

It also honestly becomes a matter of national security.

Amazon is crucial right now in maintaining social order. It's one thing to be quarantined at home, but to be quarantined without anything arriving to your house is a quick recipe for riots on the streets. Anyone or anything disrupting this is potentially as dangerous as a famine.

I 100% sympathize with the protestor's plight, but it's an interesting situation.

to be quarantined without anything arriving to your house is a quick recipe for riots on the streets...

Target, Walmart, grocery stores, etc. all are able to do curbside pickup and in many cases deliveries via stuff like Instacart.

Amazon isn't the only option.

Instacart and Whole Foods employees were also striking at the same time.

If anything like that occurred, I would expect Trump to quickly invoke the Taft-Hartley Act and order the workers back on the job, replacing them with the National Guard if they did not comply.

It's been done before, numerous times.

Here’s a tip: all the WFH employees should strike in solidarity with the workers until the company agrees to meet their demands. It’s easy, coordinate with your peers and just don’t login and tell your boss you won’t until they fix the situation.

Corporate employees have never had more leverage than they do right now.

It’s really easy to stop labor action without at least very strong solidarity-sentiments and community, if not legal protection. Otherwise all you do is start firing a person or two a day and let everyone else know their name is in the hat for tomorrow unless they get back to work.

Does Amazon's instruction to him to stay home override his rights as an employee to organize and participate in collective action?

I don't actually know the answer. But in general, I'm guessing that you can't end a strike by ordering all employees to stay home and then firing them if they don't.

If it was actually on-site, yes, Amazon did the right thing. If it was by the street--somewhere any member of the public has free speech--no, but assuming he was exposed to SARS-CoV-2, going out in public is pretty messed up, and pretty hypocritical.

It's generally legal to fire employees for "free speech" activities done outside the workplace.

More morally hazardous of course, but I don't think anyone would really even challenge the cause here (it's trivially easy to argue that this behavior shows they would endanger workers within the workplace as well).

He didn't put anyone at risk. His last exposure was over 2 weeks ago. Amazon is just using the pandemic as an excuse for strike-breaking.

Whenever there is anti-Amazon or pro-Union discussion, the first comment on HN will always be siding with management. Why is that?

This obviously an illegal retaliatory firing. Amazon is running domestic sweatshops where they don't even provide basic PPE during a global pandemic, and he was the leader trying to get that gear.

Seriously - what goes through the head of somebody who posts a comment siding with management in a situation like this? I literally can't understand why you'd think to post something like this, unless you're an Amazon executive or shareholder and only care about short term face/profit. Otherwise - why the reactionary take?

I just find this level of obedience to authority baffling. It's endemic in the United States, which otherwise prides itself on it's "maverick" status - except when it comes to shocking levels of obedience and servitude to the police and to market forces.

EDIT: I looked up this user and he is an Amazon employee, which explains this bizarre take. Given Amazon's policy of paying employees to say nice things about the company online, even when they work in unrelated departments, I think we should seriously consider warning/banning users who engage in astroturfing for their employers on HackerNews.

Amazon is running domestic sweatshops where they don't even provide basic PPE during a global pandemic

It doesn't help your argument to frame it in hyperbolic terms. Amazon pays a minimum wage of $15/hour, every warehouse is air conditioned, they now offer paid time off to every worker who works >20 hours a week, they have substantial career advancement training and education benefits, they have health benefits and matching 401k program, 20 weeks paid parental leave.

I mean, come on. There might be some legitimate problems, but when you call it a sweatshop, you've already lost the argument.

and they have employees pissing into bottles because toilet breaks are limited/timed/monitored.

I mean, come on. What would take for you to piss into bottle at your work instead of going to toilet.

Amazon pays very well for an entry-level job. Yes, work conditions suck compared to white-collar work. Many blue-collar jobs do, especially now that the 6-figure blue collar factory jobs have all but disappeared.

But that's the price you pay for a job that has no requirements beyond being able to use your hands.

Who decides whether blue collar workers deserve bathroom breaks? Why do you treat the free market as the sole authority on what working conditions people "deserve"?

You're arguing that shaving off a couple minutes a day is worth the loss of human dignity that these workers experience.

That's the problem with economies at scale, a bathroom break for small store owner is not an issue. When you have 1000's of stores its a massive saving area, where its much easier to justify pissing bottles. Any small trivial thing at scale can cost or save huge amounts money.

And when we talk huge sums of money, morality often is tossed out of the window first.

There's a pandemic and they're not giving masks and gloves to their workers, which has already caused a number of them to be hospitalized. That's why they're organizing.

Instead of giving them safety gear, they've fired the lead organizer.

They only reason they have any of the rights and conditions you described in the first place is because of organization and agitation, not their generosity.

The end result of letting authoritarian capitalism into the global marketplace can be seen in the conditions of Amazon warehouses in the United States. I'm certainly not the only person to say this, their own employees do as well. Hint - that's why they're organizing.[1]

BUT - more to the point - why post this? Are you an Amazon employee as well? If not - why? I just can't fathom in a situation like this why you'd feel the need to list - from memory? - all of the employee benefits that Amazon provides to its warehouse workers.

[1] https://nypost.com/2019/11/30/amazon-warehouses-are-cult-lik...

"they're not giving masks and gloves to their workers"

There aren't any masks and gloves available to anyone.

"Are you an Amazon employee as well?"

Just a reminder that that sort of question violates the HN guidelines.

It's not so much obedience to authority as identification with it. "Temporarily embarrassed millionaires", etc. Why be surprised to see it so strongly expressed on a site explicitly meant for millionaires seeking to disembarrass themselves?

what goes through the head of somebody who posts a comment siding with management in a situation like this?

They identify with management, because they want to be there one day. They see themselves on "the side" of the managers and those in control, and try to view things from that perspective.

It's the same reason you have poor voters who support tax cuts for the rich, even if those tax cuts mean the government can materially do less for them. They don't perceive themselves as users of the welfare state, but as soon-to-be wealthy folks.

HN is full of owners, founders, board members, executives, and managers.

Their view is well represented here.

I don't see how you can take any other view when we showed up to work after being put under quarantine. From the article it doesn't seem like he disputes the claim, he just implies that they wouldn't have fired him if he wasn't organizing a strike. If you're running a massive shipping operation with hundreds of thousands of employees and millions of customers you should be taking steps to guarantee their safety. Beyond Amazon, the US could not afford to have the company shut down because of a COVID-19 infection spreading through their fulfillment centers. It seems ridiculous to say that he could show up to work despite being put on quarantine. Maybe there are missing facts in the case, but with that information I think most people would defend Amazon's actions.

It's the same reason you have poor voters who support tax cuts for the rich, even if those tax cuts mean the government can materially do less for them. They don't perceive themselves as users of the welfare state, but as soon-to-be wealthy folks.

FWIW, this is a really patronizing view of poor people. An alternative hypothesis is that some people vote based on principles, whether it personally benefits them or not.

I don't know that it's necessarily a patronizing view. I know a lot of people that do sincerely believe that they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires, despite all facts pointing to the idea that they are not.

With respect, Amazon publicly claims the employee violated quarantine. The employee publicly claims that Amazon fired them out of retaliation.

From this distance, while we may all have our respective sympathies, both stories are plausible and we don't really know. It is abundantly obvious that companies generally find reasons (legitimate or otherwise) to fire those advocating for a union, but it isn't exactly unheard of for an employee knowing they are facing termination or disciplinary action for legitimate reasons to cover that over with some socially-acceptable reason like various claims of discrimination or starting a union like this, etc. It's not a secret hack nobody's ever heard of.

Edit: See boiled cabbage's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739059 More data can bring more clarity.

The worker was exposed to covid-19, was told to quarantine, and came back on site anyway.

This strikes me as an egregious safety violation and a truly excellent reason to fire the worker.

I think the point is that more than just this worker was exposed to COVID-19...shouldn't the entire warehouse be shuttered?

It's not anthrax. You are unlikely to get it from just being the in same space a day after the fact.

That is not an honest and accurate recitation of the facts.

Is the newsworthy claim that this firing was illegally retaliatory?

In other words, is the claim that Chris Smalls was being vocal in reporting safety/health issues and was illegally fired as a result?

It's the most likely explanation, despite Amazon's obfuscations.

Really? Because the employee admits that he went to work despite being exposed to a covid-19 person, and despite being ordered not to.

Those facts are not even in dispute.

He was exposed 18 days before he was ordered to quarantine. Please do not try to say that there is some factual basis.

So? He did not get a covid-19 test, so for all Amazon knows, he's a carrier. There are plenty of lightly-symptomatic people who are ill and contagious for longer than 14 days.

Weird how no one else around him was quarantined. If he was contagious, then why didn't they quarantine everyone he was in contact with as well?

Maybe because it was bullshit and retribution on Amazon's part.

You should really take the time to learn all the facts before wrongly blaming the worker.

Here is the key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th. Over the weekened he said he is organizing a strike, so over the weekend they order him and only him into quarantine. A full 18 days after his 5 min exposure. From my reading of it, this almost certainly looks like retaliatory action due to the strike, and a company using the excuse of quarantine to cover it up.

Key excerpts from a much clearer article. And yet again, why you never 100% believe a company's PR response when they're trying to cover themselves. They tell just enough truth, but use it to intentionally mislead.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strik...

According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March. Had Smalls been exposed that day, a 14-day mandatory quarantine would have made him eligible to return as soon as 25 March.

Smalls said Amazon did not send him home until 28 March, three weeks after the exposure.

“No one else was put on quarantine,” he said, even as the infected person worked alongside “associates for 10-plus hours a week”.

“You put me on quarantine for coming into contact with somebody, but I was around [that person] for less than five minutes,” he told Vice.

According to Amazon, no one else was fired. Smalls said he was considering legal action, calling it “a no-brainer”.

I think you can be contagious 18 days after exposure, isn't the incubation period around 2 weeks? And we know there are asymptomatic cases so a lack of symptoms after that period doesn't mean he isn't contagious. However if he was indeed the only employee asked to quarantine that is highly suspicious.

The incubation period averages 5 days or so.

The 2 weeks figure is because we're reasonably confident that if you haven't turned up with symptoms in 2 weeks, you aren't going to.

reasonably confident that if you haven't turned up with symptoms in 2 weeks, you aren't going to.

Visible symptoms aren't the only concern, you can be contagious without symptoms, and there are studies showing that 50% of all infections could be asymptomatic - https://eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.20...

The incubation period is 2 to 14 days, with 5 days being the median.

The incubation period is 2 to 14 days, with 5 days being the median.

However, there are reports of cases with an incubation period of up to 27 days.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-incuba...

What do you think is more likely, that after more than 2 weeks of not giving a shit about quarantining an employee, suddenly Amazon was worried about a 0.01% outlier of 27 days before symptoms showed, or that this was a retaliatory action for the worker attempting to organize a strike.

I sure know what I'd be placing a large amount of money on if I was a betting man.

We should apply rigor to both sides. Each has incentive to cherry pick and mislead.

key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th

Did they claim that? I'm looking for a source on this. "According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March", but when you look at their linked source[1] it says: "Amazon confirmed an associate, who reported for work on 11 March, has since been diagnosed with Covid-19".

“No one else was put on quarantine,” he said

Is this confirmed? You can't just assume this to be true. Pretty damning if so, though.

“You put me on quarantine for coming into contact with somebody, but I was around [that person] for less than five minutes,” he told Vice.

Viral transmission has no minimum timeline and often occurs at first point of contact (e.g., handshake) or cough/sneeze at any time. Kind of irresponsible to even print that quote without correcting the argument.

It may be that Amazon retaliated, but stuff like this doesn't prove it. We need the hard facts. At this point it's unclear and sounds fishy on both sides.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/30/amazon-wo...

Is this confirmed? You can't just assume this to be true.

From Vice

Amazon did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday morning asking how many people at the site have been ordered into self-quarantine

Even if they did quarantine others, putting someone on a 14 day quarantine 17 days after contact is hard to explain.

Even if they did quarantine others, putting someone on a 14 day quarantine 17 days after contact is hard to explain.

It would be harder to explain why Amazon didn't put on quarantine an employee who was vocal about his exposure to the virus.

At most it sounds like malevolent compliance.

No, at most it sounds like retaliation.

They did not follow health guidelines until the person complained and then they still don't follow them but instead claim to follow them. Why just claim? After the 14 day phase the guidelines don't suggest any quarantines unless people show symptoms.

No, at most it sounds like retaliation.

Full paid leave is not what most people in the US would call retaliation, particularly in the case of a warehouse worker.

The retaliation part is where they got fired.

He got fired for showing up to work when he was told to stay home.

Even if they did quarantine others, putting someone on a 14 day quarantine 17 days after contact is hard to explain.

Not that hard. If everyone in the office had contact with someone infected then the best thing to do would have been to quarantine them all right away. Because without that, you now have the possibility that one of them had an asymptomatic case which they could have still had and given to any of the others less than a week ago, which means the others are still inside the window for being infected but not having either recovered or showed symptoms. Which means they still need to be quarantined.

Why are they quarantining people because they may have been in contact with the virus but did not quarantine people they know were in contact with the virus?

Could be the usual bureaucratic reasons. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or the left hand is correct and they should all be quarantined and the mistake wasn't sending this guy home, it was not sending the others home too.

If these reasons exist, the company put lives at risk for weeks and then fired someone for doing the same thing for one day. Many members of management should have been fired before Monday for this to seem legitimate.

Not necessarily. Choosing whether to quarantine people is a judgement call, but going into work after being ordered not to is insubordination and trespass.

Statements like this sound so reasonable but they ignore the massive power imbalance. Amazon is the largest company in the world whose owner has literally bought news papers. Given that power I’m way more likely to believe the workers...

By what measure is Amazon the largest company in the world? It’s not by market cap, employee count, revenue, earnings, or any other measure I can think of.

I think we should lean toward the workers, take them seriously and investigate. But it's unwise to go beyond the facts. If claims turn out to be false it'll damage the believability of victims in the future. Being prudent is necessary to have believability tilted in their direction over the long term.

I really hate it when people use he said/she said type arguments to pretend that they are being objective and 'rigorous'.

There is a reason that the courts have something called 'burden of proof'.

When an individual worker does something a large company doesn't like and they fire him, the burden of proof in my mind is on the company. Because HR has professionals and if they can't tell a better story than what we are seeing, then retaliation is the reason 90% of the time.

It isn't unclear. It is perfectly normal for companies to get rid of the whistle blowers. That's why there are (weakly enforced) laws against it.

It's weird that you mention courts and then in the next sentence say this:

the burden of proof in my mind is on the company

Because that is not how the courts operate. It is up to the person making the accusation (which in this case is the employee accusing Amazon of an unjust firing) to provide proof.

If you want to start dismissing all "he said/she said" arguments, then we might as well shut down this entire thread. We are never going to get any further than "he said/she said" unless someone in this thread has insider knowledge of this situation and is willing to break privacy agreements.

It is up to the person making the accusation (which in this case is the employee accusing Amazon of an unjust firing) to provide proof.

It's not necessarily either. It may very well simply be the preponderance of the evidence. Nevertheless, such a suit will be undertaken with the benefit of the discovery process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_%28law%29

Preponderance of evidence is the bar that must be met. But the plaintiff must provide the evidence to the courts. The discovery process makes some of the defendant's records available to the plaintiff, in case there is relevant evidence.

But if the plaintiff produces no evidence, Amazon does not need to make a defense. Thus OP is correct.

But the plaintiff must provide the evidence to the courts

Sure, but any evidence which makes an accusation more likely than in the absence of that evidence suffices to meet preponderance of the evidence in the absence of any contrary evidence. The fact of the labor organizing, the fact of the firing, and their temporal relationship are, together, evidence for retaliation.

Preponderance of the evidence is only used in arbitration, if he's suing then this is litigation. In reality, if he has a contract requiring arbitration or mediation instead of litigation then he has absolutely no power and no chance of winning because arbitratators/mediators are always hired by the company.

Even discounting all of that, the judge/jury/arbitrator/litigator would have to agree that sending him into quarantine and not others constitutes retaliation. To be completely honest, this kind of job is a huge joke. If you take too many bathroom breaks you won't hit your quota and they cN fire you for that.

The only way to win isn't to prove he was treated inconsistently, that can be ignored so long as the reason they stated for letting him go is true.

Isn't the firing an accusation in and of itself and as such the burden of proof is on the company?

There is a reason that the courts have something called 'burden of proof'.

Definitely.

When an individual worker does something a large company doesn't like and they fire him, the burden of proof in my mind is on the company. Because HR has professionals and if they can't tell a better story than what we are seeing, then retaliation is the reason 90% of the time.

You don't appear to understand why courts have "something called burden of proof". In court, the burden of proof is on the person who was fired. They must show that they were fired illegally. You can't just randomly assign "burden of proof" based on your ideological bias.

I really hate it when people use he said/she said type arguments to pretend that they are being objective and 'rigorous'.

Sounds like you "really hate it" when people express a preference for finding out what really happened.

I have no strong opinion about this specific case.

You don't appear to understand why courts have "something called burden of proof". In court, the burden of proof is on the person who was fired. They must show that they were fired illegally. You can't just randomly assign "burden of proof" based on your ideological bias.

You don't appear to understand that there is clearly visible causality here. A random person claiming they were unjustly fired is different than someone who was fired after organizing a strike.

Isn’t that casualty just an assertion? Proving that sequence of events played a role in the firing is the whole point.

Yes, but it is a sliding scale. Firing someone after organizing a strike would suggest sufficient prima facie to pursue the case in court. A claim without the appearance of supporting evidence would be thrown out.

That doesn't really work. If it did then anyone who knows they're about to get fired could just start organizing a strike. Or start organizing a strike as cover before purposely causing mischief.

You aren’t being rigorous at all, you are just asking questions and have no idea about the answers.

asking questions when you know the answers is pretty pointless, innit

This is a union busting, anti-labor and retaliatory firing. It is illegal in the United States.

Multiple employees have spoken out about the working conditions at Amazon's warehouse facilities over the last couple of weeks. Common complaints include a lack of protective equipment, sanitization, health monitoring, and working "shoulder to shoulder". Workers are getting sick, and Amazon isn't properly reporting the actual cases of COVID-19 at their facilities.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/amazon-warehouse-employees-g...

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/whole-foods-amazon...

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/whole-foods-workers-to-strike-...

Mr. Smalls announced ahead of time that he was going to lead a general strike at his facility in solidarity with the instacart and wholefoods strike on the same day. This was reported in the media. Amazon knew this was being organized and waited to fire the worker until after the planned protest strike occurred.

Source: https://apnews.com/cf27e9bec86d846447aad7e632484bea

Here is Mr. Smalls talking about this in detail: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/30/staten-island-whole-fo... - All he was asking for was for the building to be sanitized after a confirmed case of COVID-19 occurred at his facility, at Staten Island near the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States in New York.

The attorney general of New York recognized this issue for what it is.

---

New York Attorney General Letitia James said late Monday evening that "it is disgraceful that Amazon would terminate an employee who bravely stood up to protect himself and his colleagues."

"At the height of a global pandemic, Chris Smalls and his colleagues publicly protested the lack of precautions that Amazon was taking to protect them from COVID-19," she said. "Today, Chris Smalls was fired. In New York, the right to organize is codified into law, and any retaliatory action by management related thereto is strictly prohibited."

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/tech/amazon-worker-fired-stat...

---

Here is another article discussing the actual conditions of Mr. Smalls Facility:

---

Despite Amazon’s efforts, Amazon employees at multiple facilities who spoke to CNBC argue that the measures aren’t enough to keep them safe. They say uneven safety precautions at facilities across the country have sown feelings of distrust between workers and their managers. Workers say they’ve become worried that managers aren’t being honest about whether employees are sick with the virus, so that they can keep the facilities open.

At some facilities, workers say essential supplies like hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are rationed or there’s none available, putting them at risk of catching the virus. Warehouse workers say they’re forced to choose between going to work and risking their health or staying home and not being able to pay their bills.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-c...

---

Amazon is in the wrong here. They retaliated against Mr. Smalls. This was a labor movement action, and they illegally fired Mr. Smalls for organizing at this facility.

These workers aren't asking for more money. They are asking for safe and sanitary working conditions. Are they not entitled to a healthy working environment?

Edit: Formatting issues. This was a copy-paste from a comment I made on a /r/business thread on reddit. Formatting on HN is a bit different. :)

How does at-will employment work with union busting? I remember working at Amazon they were very adamant about everything being at-will. Furthermore, in their management training, they didn't even tiptoe around their hatred of unions. They basically have a formal system developed to rat out any union organizers. The only reason I can infer for the existence of such a system is so that they can bust unions. They seem willing to take the legal risks that come with retaliation.

“Union busting” is a pretty vague term. There’s no legal issue with a company hating unions or trying to prevent a union from forming, as long as they don’t prevent employees from talking or retaliate against them for it.

That may be true, but in this instance there is clear evidence that Mr. Smalls was retaliated against for his labor organizing actions.

How does at-will employment work with union busting?

It's similar to the way at-will employment works with ADA protected classes - sure, they can fire you, but if you can show that them firing you was because of a protected action (union organizing), you can sue and will likely win.

Given the likely fact that Amazon only cared about quarantine for this individual, only after they organized a strike, and three weeks (!) after exposure, it's pretty clear that what Amazon did here was illegal.

Amazon is simply betting that the employee either can't afford a lawyer or their lawyer isn't better than Amazon's legal team. They can spend a lot of money on making sure of that.

If amazon is so shitty, and aws is so expensive compared to others... why on earth do people still pour all their cash in it

Where I work, we're basically donating money to the Bezos charity known as AWS at this point. We have so much waste in our multiple AWS accounts. We have people who double things up because they can't/don't/won't communicate (effectively). It's truly an unmanaged disaster. Bring it up to management, they don't seem to care. Even back on the napkin estimates are showing us wasting > 100k a year on unnecessary or outright unused AWS services. They still don't care. And I know we're not alone and that there are other places (even in my immediate geographical area) that have waste well in excess of what we're pissing away.

Its an operational expense, so its a massive tax writeoff

Your company is operating inefficiently in some regard. You’ve done the leg work and determined this inefficiency costs about ~$100k annually. You take this to your leadership with a proposal: we can save this money through better communication among teams, a review of existing system for “unnecessary” or unused services, and “management”.

From an engineering perspective, this makes perfect sense!

But management reacts negatively, maybe even becoming skeptical of your value to the org. Why?

1. The savings you propose are too small to make a significant difference to profitability. $100k is equivalent to between .3 to 1 FTE engineers depending on geography.

2. Someone has to run this project, they will cost money. Engineers will have to be involved, they will cost money. Every project team is going to have to evaluate their usage and provide justification documents, so now the costs are cascading through the org.

3. Remember that the cost of a decision is the sum of the the cost of the thing done plus the cost of the things forgone. People working on this are not working on things customers will pay for—that is, things that get multiplied by many customers now and into the future and differentiates from the competition. This project has its own costs. The savings must be very, very high to compensate for both.

4. It’s hard to imagine how the savings can be sustained without significant new bureaucracy. Every resource allocation is going to have to go through an architecture, implementation, harmonization, and business necessity justification review. That is a lot of new gate keepers.

5. You indicated that teams already “can’t/won’t/don’t communicate.” This means the teams are going to have significant political battles over who owns/runs which resources. Ownership of a the architecture is a tool to bludgeon other departments into compliance—which will make inter-team conflicts worse because they can’t just agree to disagree. Suddenly, one team winning an argument means winning forever.

6. Solving the previous point with better communication is not viable—it would mean solving fundamental problems in organizational management and psychology.

So, what can you do? The fundamental issue here is that the scale of the problem does not match the scale of the organization. Cost saving projects that succeed—like google early on deciding to develop their own servers and racks instead of buying off the shelf—provide a sustaining competitive advantage. Google saves so much money from its infrastructure investments that it lets them build products that would be wildly expensive for others to replicate.

In business language this is referred to as cost leadership. Ferrari has a much lower need for cost leadership than Toyota. Ferrari still needs to contain costs to be profitable, but it primarily competes on differentiated products in a focused market. They might be interested in saving money on aerodynamic simulations so they could do even more of them. But Toyota would quickly go bankrupt if they didn’t make cost leadership part of everything they do—just a few years a failing to improve efficiency would lead to their cars costing many thousands of dollars more than competitors in a market sensitive to price.

Which kind of company do you work for: one that serves the broad market (AWS) or something more niche (IBM Mainframes)? One that competes on price (commercial airlines) or one that competes on differentiated features (private jets)? Craft your project proposals to the business and they may have a much higher probability to getting heard.

Fantastic reply.

It's the type of reply I want to write every time I see misguided comments from people who don't have the full picture of the business and don't even know that they don't have the full picture.

My comment started with:

Where I work, we're basically donating money to the Bezos charity known as AWS at this point.

And ended with:

And I know we're not alone and that there are other places (even in my immediate geographical area) that have waste well in excess of what we're pissing away.

That was my point. I perfectly (okay, maybe not perfectly, but well enough to understand that it's not worth my time to pursue) understand why and how these things happen, it isn't my first rodeo. And, honestly, I think I'd probably applaud the guy for figuring out how to get _damn near every one in SV_ to open up their fat fucking VC wallets to the man if it weren't for his business practices, like what we see in TFA.

I think it's built into our simian hindbrains to keep following the asshole who is winning instead of following the potential loser who we like.

On the other hand i have the suspicion that Amazon just offers the better deal. And on balance, most people would prefer to spend less and get more than perform what's essentially charity because they like the other CEO less.

This is the part where everyone stops buying from Amazon as a show of solidarity right?

Now would be a great time to do this given the delays of the once-convenient fast shipping times. That said, what are the equal alternatives?

I think for most consumers, some things are absolutely required in order to switch away from Amazon: fast shipping, an inventory of hard-to-find items (e.g. car part or furnace element typically found on Amazon), a good refunds/returns system, and a massive crackdown on counterfeit products.

That last one is really important to me. Vendors are now filling legit containers of brand name items with fake product, then resealing them as new. This is becoming increasingly common now. I've noticed it with food (Pumpkin seeds, noticed a poor re-seal job), vitamins (a hole in the top seal beneath the cap despite being plastic wrapped), and Clorox bromine tablets for a spa (tablets didn't match store bought version). These products have all been obviously tampered with.

Tech companies in general and Amazon specifically seem scared to death of unionization. I think Amazon's actions in this matter are going to backfire tremendously.

...and anyone who's had to work with a union can understand why.

You mean like, most of the companies in Europe?

Europe, which has a per-capita GDP ~1/3 lower than the US.

This didn't pass the smell test, and sure enough Monaco, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Iceland, all have higher per capita GDPs. Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Finland are in the same ballpark or a little lower. Germany and Belgium are lower, but still above 1/3 lower.

UK and France are ~1/3 lower. Italy and Spain are ~50% lower.

2018 numbers I found[1] show the EU as having ~69% the per-capita GDP of US. That's pretty close to 1/3 less.

1: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-per-capita

Right, and if the United States merged with a cross section of less developed countries our GDP per capita would look smaller, too.

but it didn't, and this is moving the goalposts. the original claim was correct.

If you drop Mississippi, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Alabama from the US numbers, then the US GDP per capita number would look bigger. Anyone can get different numbers by cherry-picking higher performers and dropping lower performers, but OP wrote "Europe" not "this list of rich countries in Europe".

The US isn't homogenous either. DC, Massachusetts, New York, California, Alaska, and Washington have much higher GDPs per capita than other states / provinces.

US population 330m gdp/capita 59k

--Higher GDP European state--

Switzerland pop: 8.5m gdp/capita: 65k -- reputation as a tax haven

Ireland pop: 6.5m gdp/capita: 69k -- reputation as a tax haven

Norway pop: 5.3m gdp/capita: 85k -- petrostate

Iceland pop: 364,260 gpd/capita: 54,753

Monaco pop: 37,497 gdp/capita: 162k -- french riviera

--Most populous Western Europe nations--

Germany pop: 82m gdp/capita: 44k

France pop: 67m gdp/capita: 38k

UK pop: 66m gdp/capita: 39k

Italy pop: 60m gdp/capita: 32k

Look I'm all for a larger welfare state, and there are plenty of things our nation could learn from Europe. But to pretend that if we made our country more European our economy would grow to resemble a tiny nation/tax haven like Ireland more than the UK, France, or Germany is unrealistic.

Ireland pop: 6.5 million

Reality: 4.8 million

Oh yeah it looks like the number I found was for the island not the country.

And still the place that most people would prefer over the US given health care costs and lack of social safety nets.

Why does the average person care about GDP?

Having worked with unions, is it because they tend to have better benefits and support for their employees? Having a union rep in their disciplinary activities?

I assume your comment is that Amazon would lose money if a union happened?

Having worked with unions, it is because they introduce and entirely new and superfluous bureaucratic hierarchy to a company.

I have had situations where it was not allowed to move a computer monitor from one cube to another - that had to be done by a union employee. Literally taking a unused spare monitor from one desk, and putting it on another employees desk where it was need. ...and there was a formal requisition process to get that done which took two weeks to get through approvals, assignment, and finally have it done.

I have had union workers walk off the job during a major system outage because their facility managers forced them to take their break time. The whole company was down - it was all-hands-on-deck outage due to Hurricane Sandy. The actual union workers wanted to help us get the systems back online for the company, but the union rep wouldn't let them work.

I have had great workers quit or refuse jobs with our company because they knew and loathed the union - not the company, but the UNION.

I don't have any problem with unions at companies that protect the SAFETY of workers, as they are needed in various industrial jobs. ...but at a TECH companies where workers are making six figures, have matched 401k plans, and safe and comfortable desk jobs? ...it just screams "ridiculous" to me.

I have had situations where it was not allowed to move a computer monitor from one cube to another - that had to be done by a union employee

Can you explain to me where this is a union thing? Like I'd honestly like you to point out and explain your logic why this is specifically because of a union.

The reason why I bring this up is because I have encountered the same issues at my prior jobs which were non-union. Literally the exact same issue, where I was not allowed to move a computer monitor because it had to be done by another department after submitting a formal request.

I feel like people tend to blame unions for everything and yet I see the exact same shit people blame unions for at my non-union jobs. Is that because of an invisible union? Is there something I'm missing?

You can use asterisks around a word for emphasis, it reads less like you are yelling.

Some reasons to have unions at tech companies:

IP restrictions, unpaid oncall/overtime, crunch, getting a larger cut of the wealth they produce, better parental/health/timeoff benefits, having a representative in disciplinary hearings, requiring clear salary and performance processes, and about a half dozen other ideas.

You can disagree that these are real concerns at tech companies, but they are not ridiculous.

I've seen the same thing. Most recently at a trade show.

That said unions help more than they hurt, in my opinion. It's also pointless to paint all unions with the same brush like that, you worked with a group of people that had bad management. That's can happen in any organization, not just unions.

Not they're not all great all the time but I think the Hollywood unions are something we as tech workers could model ourselves after. You still negotiate your own salary and such but certain benefits like pension/retirement/healthcare (which are great at scale but hurt employers and employees at smaller businesses) can be amalgamated across the membership.

Like for example just a couple years ago the writers unions got into a spat with their agents over double dipping with production companies and not representing the interests of their clients. That kind of bargaining power can be wielded to fix institutional problems across an industry, but it doesn't have to come at the cost of individual gains - the writers still negotiate their own compensation and sign their own deals.

Unions can be a great way for industries to self regulate imo.

> Hollywood unions are something we as tech workers could model ourselves after

That's a guild, not a union. And sure, it's good. As long as you don't care about people that aren't in it right now. SAG does their very best to keep new entrants out.

_

My girlfriend worked at Macys. She was paid $14hr to do white collar admin work and was in a "union". Each month we would walk a few blocks away downtown to a small office. This is where we paid "dues". We couldn't pay online or have it deduct from her check. The person we handed our check to would just roll their eyes and throw her check into a pile of checks. She couldn't afford these dues. The best part? You were required to be in the union.

The union helped Macys layoff thousands of workers including her with no severance in a nice streamlined fashion. I am wrong, but this is what I learned: Unions are basically fat cat organizations that leach hard working people.

Like democracies, unions will exploit the people in them if the people in them do not organize and agitate actively for their own interests.

Like democracies, unions suck, but they are not as bad as the alternative -- unless you're the boss or the generalissimo.

Are you saying that union members need to... unionize against their union?

It's all unions, all the way down.

Having a union is literally worse than not having one at all.

...unless people are literally dying in the factory. Unions were made for worker safety and made sense THEN - not today.

If your girlfriend was in a union, why do you say "we paid"?

I'm going to assune good faith here, maybe it's a cultural thing, who knows?

Regardless, here in the US it is typical for couples to form a partnership in which both income and expenses are shared. Possibly the reason for the recent emergence of the term 'Partner' to describe one's Significant Other.

Devils advocate: if you're sent home on full pay and told not to come in, and you come in, that's fireable (doubly so with coronavirus happening). If you do that, you need some strong evidence that it's retaliation. You have away the benefit of the doubt...

Except when the only reason you're being told not to come in is to prevent you from organizing a strike.

Except that the employee in this case admits that he was indeed exposed to someone with COVID-19.

The employee admits that he was exposed to someone on March 11th. That's already 17 days ago, so the quarantine would be up.

no, that individual was exposed to someone confirmed positiv with covid-19. one of the workers he worked with. both public and private sources confirmed it to me.

if you ask me, that's a pretty dick move for someone. Can't you wait your strike protest after your 14 days of quarantine? just 14 days.

Also devil's advocate:

With everyone throwing a fit about pastors and churches gathering together during this, where's the outcry over this guy seemingly rounding up groups of employees to picket?

Is it ok to protest dangerous work conditions by actively creating dangerous protest conditions?

With everyone throwing a fit about pastors and churches gathering together during this, where's the outcry over this guy seemingly rounding up groups of employees to picket?

Where did it say he was rounding up groups of employees and picketing?

throwing a fit

Who is throwing a fit? I thought they were fining and/or arresting pastors that break the law and threaten the safety of entire communities?

SARS-cov-2 survives days on cardboard.

If you can’t give two fcks for the workers, do it for tour own consumers’ ass.

Amazon must enforce sanitary and safe working conditions during the COVID19 epidemic lest it becomes itself a source of contagion. More so now that home delivery is so important in the “stay home” strategy.

For f

SARS-cov-2 survives days on cardboard.

It doesn't.

From https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronaviru...

The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.

24 hours is within the time-frame of same-day deliveries at the least. I think OP's point still stands; it's a disease vector.

'Detectable' isn't the same as 'infectious,' though. There is zero evidence of actual transmission from mail and packaging materials.

Is there a company out there that does full time employment, with benefits, and pays their taxes (no dutch sandwhich/offshoring) in the same space as Amazon? That is, an online megastore, not worrying about AWS/cloud.

I think there's more than a few of us who are ready to vote with their dollars.

Costco delivers, and has a better corporate reputation than Amazon and Walmart.

But how much taxes does it pay? I very skeptical of any company that claims to pay its fair share.

Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable

Because people who can afford Amazon prime and prices are the most vulnerable

Would it be illegal for Amazon’s competitors to extend job offers to those who are at risk of being fired for going on strike? (If the fear is being fired as retaliation)