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Amazon Workers in Europe Stage 'We Are Not Robots' Protests on One of Its Busiest Shopping Days (techcrunch.com)
Some of Amazon's workers in Europe are protesting against what they call unfair work conditions, in a move meant to disrupt operations on Black Friday. From a report: They've timed the latest protest for Black Friday, one of the busiest annual shopping days online as retailers slash prices and heavily promote deals to try to spark a seasonal buying rush. In the UK, the GMB Union says it's expecting "hundreds" to attend protests timed for early morning and afternoon at Amazon warehouses in Rugeley, Milton Keynes, Warrington, Peterborough and Swansea. At the time of writing the union had not provided details of turnout so far.
Protests are also reported to be taking place in Spain, France and Italy today. Although, when asked about strikes at its facilities in these countries, Amazon claimed: "Our European Fulfilment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus on delivering for our customers. Any reports to the contrary are simply wrong." The demonstrations look intended to not only apply pressure on Amazon to accept collective bargaining but encourage users of its website to think about the wider costs involved in packing and despatching the discounted products they're trying to grab. In a statement on Wednesday announcing the Black Friday protest, Tim Roache, the GMB's general secretary, said: "The conditions our members at Amazon are working under are frankly inhuman. They are breaking bones, being knocked unconscious and being taken away in ambulances. We're standing up and saying enough is enough, these are people making Amazon its money. People with kids, homes, bills to pay -- they're not robots."
Protests are also reported to be taking place in Spain, France and Italy today. Although, when asked about strikes at its facilities in these countries, Amazon claimed: "Our European Fulfilment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus on delivering for our customers. Any reports to the contrary are simply wrong." The demonstrations look intended to not only apply pressure on Amazon to accept collective bargaining but encourage users of its website to think about the wider costs involved in packing and despatching the discounted products they're trying to grab. In a statement on Wednesday announcing the Black Friday protest, Tim Roache, the GMB's general secretary, said: "The conditions our members at Amazon are working under are frankly inhuman. They are breaking bones, being knocked unconscious and being taken away in ambulances. We're standing up and saying enough is enough, these are people making Amazon its money. People with kids, homes, bills to pay -- they're not robots."
...Black-Friday Listed.
See what I did there? Ha!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
installing more robots.
;)
Just my 2 cents
... to give your employer more incentive to replace you even faster now.
Fucking hell people...
I tend to rant.
... as robots displace human workers in many industries, are companies beginning to think of the workforce more in terms of robots, and treat humans more like robots?
When you work for the largest retailer on the planet that has a long history of abusing employees, yes, you are a robot. That's your choice. Work someplace else if you don't like it.
If everybody did that, then Mama Amazon might have to pay people a reasonable amount, treat them like humans, and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't be so goddamned big.
I don't respond to AC's.
Yeah, I hate "black Friday" (who ever gave it that name, anyway?
The term was a derisive one used to describe the large crowds in Philadelphia hitting the stores at the start of the Christmas shopping season. It has since been "reinvented" to mean it's the day that stores go from the red to the black, but the origin of the term predates this politically correct fib.
Black Friday was traditionally when retailers stopped operating with red ink and switched over to black ink. Not sure why they don't use black ink year around.
Go back to the Fox News website, twit...
Not even close to the busiest shopping day of the year compared to Singles Day.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
It's interesting that they compare the Amazon warehouse square footage to a nearby Tesco grocery warehouse - by the area of the building.
How many people work in each, and how many hours per day do people work there? How healthy were those employees when they started work? Amazon is pretty well-known for hiring just about anyone, including people with known health problems. Does the grocery store warehouse even hire pregnant women at all for production jobs?
Amazon warehouses are often 24/7 environments, while most grocery warehouses close for several hours per day (or reduce staff drastically overnight). That's probably also an issue.
How busy is the Tesco warehouse? Do they have a few hundred thousand different items to pick, wrap, and ship to thousands of different addresses per day, like the Amazon location, or are they like a normal grocery distribution center that sends out a few dozen trucks during a normal work day? The packaging difference alone probably doubles or triples the Amazon workforce right off the bat.
And last... it looks like the Amazon site calls an ambulance for just about anything. Does Tesco do the same, or do they just stand around and stall until they're forced to, hoping the employee will decide to wander over to the hospital after work?
They don't have Thanksgiving on Thursday, so Friday is just a regular work day.
In Europe Black Friday is not a thing, despite desperate attempts to pretend it is by US companies.
You are soo well-trained in being raped in the ass, and then only blaming yourselves.
NO, if you can only pick between starving and working at Amazon, that is NOT A CHOICE.
And if you disagree, you are literally openly supporting and enabling mass-murder! Because that is what that is!
I don't know what laws you have in your fascist (what you call "neocon") country, but here in Germany, failure to render assistance is a major crime, and can be (and often is) treated equivalent to murder! Because that's what that kind of callous psychopath behavior, that is such a big American tradition, is.
Amazon runs so close to the edge that it is uniquely vulnerable. A two-day strike would fill their warehouses with unfiled received merchandise.
First, let me say that everybody deserves to be treated well and have a good life. The question is how that can be achieved. The classical ideal of getting everybody a job they can live on is not going to cut it anymore.
The reality of the situation at Amazon (and other places) is that humans are a temporary solution, because they are indeed not robots. They will be replaced by robots as soon as that is cost-effective, a state not far in the future for most of them. Hence the tag-line they use may be about the worst they could have chosen. Don't get me wrong, they have a legitimate issue here, but they are barking up the wrong tree.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - Dr Elvin Atombender
Ve haf vays of making you OBEY Ronald McDonald!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't know the safety record of Amazon vs comparable companies. That would be interesting to find out.
What I DO know is that "we are not robots" is kind of a dumb thing for the union boss to say to a company considering replacing workers with robots. The union is basically saying "you'd be better off replacing us with robots". Bad choice of words.
so it's not really a legitimate threat. The real question is will we start taxing robots when the time comes or will we just turn into some kind of dystopia where only a few folks who own robots have food and shelter? Got me, I'll be dead though.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
In Europe Black Friday is not a thing, despite desperate attempts to pretend it is by US companies.
Regardless, it seems like the employees are agitating for being replaced by robots.Going for the sabot approach it looks like
Google new York longshoreman history. Perhaps the European Union should set up it's own Amazon type company. Except it seems like banning and taxing things created in the free world is more to their liking.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Nice work, fellas
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
In their mind it does.... :)))) Also boogie men and creepy crawlers.
Aww, that's cute and completely shows a lack of understanding of how the world works.
So the US cuts its defense budget by 90%. That means no more money to maintain any form of nuclear deterrent. So that would mean
that all of our Minuteman missiles are closed down, our Ohio class subs are scrapped, and our B52s are sent to the boneyard.
But wait, China and Russia didn't follow suit with us. They now have zero reasons to fear the US retaliation for anything.
Want to invade Taiwan? Go for it. Want to attack Japan? sure! Never mind that we are treaty obligated to protect Japan, South Korea,
Philippines, and all of Western Europe. Fuck those guys right?
10% of the military budget would not allow for a single ship in the Navy, perhaps a few brigades of soldiers, and a couple of wings
of aircraft. Why even keep that around? It wouldn't be able to defend the US or project beyond our borders. There would
no longer be a point in having a military.
I am constantly in shock at how reckless the extreme left is about this subject. Is there extreme waste in the military?
Absolutely. Are the things that need to be resolved? You bet. But saying instead, lets defend the military? That shows how
much lack of knowledge you really have on how this world operates.
Would appreciate a citation/source for this please.
10% budget wouldn't allow for a single ship? so 100% of budget allows less than 10 ships?
You don't fucking know, you're just talking out of your ass.
It doesn't cost 700 billion dollars to defend America. It costs 700 billion a year to occupy multiple countries, prop up terrorist states like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and overpay for exotic weapons we only need because we need to stay one step ahead of last year's model, which we've sold to anyone with money.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
the problem with this is that your average american thinks you're being serious.
I guess it depends on how you define past... It was like that last year, it's always been that way.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Not sure why they don't use black ink year around.
Something about leverage. Maybe the color red has more friction?
They would refuse to pay the high prices.
They need to ban it to show how powerful they are, then unban it to show how much they love freedom.
Their voters won't notice.
I was disappointed the post failed to work in a Kerblam! man reference, Doctor Who's Differing Approaches Find A Shared Fear In The Future Of Amazon.
Again you show how little you understand. What is last year's model? The F-35? It first flew in 2006 and is just now getting to numbers where it could pick up the slack from shortages in other air frame types. Or maybe you mean the F22? It was canceled after only procuring 195 of the estimated 600 we needed. Those were built from 1996 to 2010. Certainly not last year's model. Or maybe you mean the B52 that have been flying for over 60 years. Oh wait, how about the sub force? Nope can't be them since they have lost years of operational time od to not being able to to be repaired and maintained. Nope can't be those since they have lost
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25031/navy-attack-subs-lost-more-than-two-decades-worth-of-operational-time-to-maintenance-delays
The cost of a single ship is not the ship itself. Its the ship, its maintenance, its crew (the largest expense), its shore facilities, the crew to man those facilities, and all tithe other expenses that go into putting a single ship to sea.
The largest part of the US military budget is the people. Their salaries, their healthcare, their retirement. So with your enlightened plan, we would put all of those people out of work. The entire defense industry, the current civilian workers for the DoD, the military itself. We are talking upwards of 3 million employed people. Genius plan there.
So in your enlightened estimation, how much does it cost to defend America? what exactly do we need?And lets be clear. the money we supply to Israel, doesn't come from the Dod budget. Neither does the weapons we supply to KSA.
Before you talk about exotic weapons research what China and Russia are doing. There are fast becoming peer states with the ability to prevent the US from achieving its goals around the world. I am not talking about expansion. I am talking about simple things like protecting Taiwan, and Japan. Preventing China from going further into taking their nine dash line or even beyond.
What's equivalent in UK to the USA's OSHA?
Amazon was inspected 142 OSHA inspections since Dec 2013, according to OSHA (https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.html)
University 732
Elementary 425
Walmart 369
Target 218
Mall 74
Google 6
JC Penny 4
Facebook 2
Newegg 2
Ebay 2
Only if happiness comes from money, which it usually doesn't.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
There are others, but here is one: http://www.philly.com/philly/n...
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
they're not robots
Hmm, good point.
Smithers, order some more robots!
Instead we have this insanely expensive nuclear deterrent that we are unwilling to actually deploy along with the even more expensive expanse of conventional forces.
In the UK ALL full time employees are entitled by law to something like 27.5 days off per year. So, although they are complaining, UK Amazon employees have it a lot better than US Amazon employees. And, the UK I think has the second worse days off count in Europe. Of course that does not make what companies like Amazon are doing any better but let's put into perspective how much WORSE the US blue collar workers are than their EU counterparts.
Look at European vs US incarceration rates. Who's the free world again? Most of Amazon's products are also made in China, one of the least "free" countries. Tax and ban away!
Company automates. Use of robots starts being taxed to hell and back, at an appropriate rate to alleviate the social costs of such. Or maybe, just maybe, regulations are passed to shut this company out of the EU market...
Care to comment on what happens when people are on strike about bad working conditions with a company that is going the robotic route?
The same thing that happens if they don't strike, the company replaces its workers with robots as quick as possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Workers:"We are not robots!"
Amazon Management:"But you can be replaced by them."
Has there been a threat big enough yet to justify using nuclear weapons?
No, but we used two of them anyway, because we had them and we wanted to see what they would do.
It's the same reason the authors of the 2a feared a standing military. Just look at what we do with it...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Their voters won't notice.
That is pretty much spot on.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Company automates. Use of robots starts being taxed to hell and back, at an appropriate rate to alleviate the social costs of such. Or maybe, just maybe, regulations are passed to shut this company out of the EU market...
So once Amazon is shut out of the EU market, who exactly is punished? Tax it and the costs will be paid by the EU citizens. A cost benefit analysis that shows it is unprofitable, it hardly matters - I suppose in some world, that means you win.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Amazon is punished. Access to businesses and goods made and distributed at the expense of working human beings is NOT a human right.
Amazon is punished. Access to businesses and goods made and distributed at the expense of working human beings is NOT a human right.
Nope sure isn't. You would think that the Good people of Europe would simply not buy from them, since Europe appears to not want them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Care to comment on what happens when people are on strike about bad working conditions with a company that is going the robotic route?
The same thing that happens if they don't strike, the company replaces its workers with robots as quick as possible.
Right. Somewhere in the bowels of this thread, I noted how the New York City Dockworkers successfully kept automation away from the Docks there. They won.
The result - New docks were built in places like New Jersey. Other than cruis ship pickup and discharge, there is pretty much nothing left. Time moves on.
One way or the other, those warehouse jobs are going to go away - probably faster if the employees whine too much about it.
Now I'm no European citizen, and maybe they think differently, but if Amazon working conditions were way out of line - I'd do my best to get a job elsewhere. Seems the logical approach when the job is going away, either way.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Now I'm no European citizen, and maybe they think differently, but if Amazon working conditions were way out of line - I'd do my best to get a job elsewhere. Seems the logical approach when the job is going away, either way.
I agree, the problem is if you are just average, like most people, and don't have a trade, finding another, better, job can be tough, and it sounds like its just going to get tougher.
Things seem to be getting worse all over, unless you're really good at what you do. Businesses are in a race to the bottom, the idea of companies respecting workers seems to have gone away, along with the idea of sharing some of the profits.
The future doesn't look too bright, my parents did better then me, even without any education and my son is likely to do worst then me, even with more education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Other than cruis ship pickup and discharge,
Me flunk English? That's unpossible!
#YouFuckingHypocrite
Things seem to be getting worse all over, unless you're really good at what you do. Businesses are in a race to the bottom, the idea of companies respecting workers seems to have gone away, along with the idea of sharing some of the profits. The future doesn't look too bright, my parents did better then me, even without any education and my son is likely to do worst then me, even with more education.
This is the upcoming employment crisis, which is closely related to the issue at hand.
Reduced to basics, the automation is coming, like it or not
But the disruption will be incredible, and not just the obvious one of people on the lower end of the food chain becoming unemployable.
Automation will work it's way up the food chain, creating more unemployables in it's wake.
And the profits will soar..... hold on. Who's going to buy the cheaply created stuff? Every job eliminated is one less consumer. Ya gotta sell stuff to make money. And as corporatism runs the show, there will be a big tax monies problem.
The short version is that there will be an odd shift, where most of humanity is now completely redundant. Worthless to the corporatists and their government because they cannot sell the things they might have once, and it would a take a real suspension of disbelief to think that a possible 75 percent unemployment/unemployable rate can be sustained via Government handouts.
And no, pointing out the industrial revolution and claiming that there will always be new jobs created doesn't fly. The present trend is different. The present trend's specific purpose is to eliminate human jobs. If more human work is created than eliminated, the trend has failed it's purpose.
So this is coming. But in true human form, we're going to just let it happen, then react. I fear that we're going to clear up the surplus population the old fashioned way, and that isn't going to be pretty.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Other than cruis ship pickup and discharge,
Me flunk English? That's unpossible!
#YouFuckingHypocrite
BeeHowled, teh Rayer sspewellin; nazzsti!
My sympathies on the state of your life, that you find a purpose in scanning posts for someone who makes a typo. Carry on, soljuh.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yeah, good try at attempting to spin this as you not being a hypocrite. F++ for failure.
Yeah, good try at attempting to spin this as you not being a hypocrite. F++ for failure.
You still have my sympathy, poor fella. Now get out there and be a human spell checker.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The article is not bullshit, and yes, the media and retailers push black friday as a thing in Europe. It spent 2-3 years growing in the UK and has spent a year or two lessening in significance, but it's still a thing.
A shitty thing, but stop burying your head in the sand and pretending otherwise. Maybe in your little corner of the continent it doesn't happen but Europe's a big place.
Such a shame, you ruined a fine rant with bigoted ignorant idiocy.
Faggots are things you eat, not an insult.