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1 hour ago, Pugu said:

  As you can tell, I don't support Amazon either, and since Bezos bought Whole Foods, stopped going there as well even though I had like that store.

 

 

 

One of my friends from high school was regional manager of Whole Foods in the NYC area for several years and then was promoted and moved his family to the HQ in Austin.  He said that there haven't been many changes since Amazon bought them, but I never got the sense that he enjoyed working for them before or now.  It's a job. 

 

 

 

^Interesting, thanks.

  • 1 month later...
  • Author

 

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

^If he's not already in the management ranks where he wouldn't be paying union dues anyway he's clearly trying to kiss their @sses to get a promotion to be a big amazon douchebag. Nice no-last-name to stand by his tweet or identity.

 

 

^Ah!, Thanks. Made by Amazon? I hope this blows back on them.

They're not stock photos, they're pictures of a "cool, young with it guy" that were cropped out of the photos from a popular event. So they stole the individual's likeness.

Here's a pretty funny, slightly NSFW video mocking those accounts

 

 

Of course, again, without context we think this is an amzn only issue.  Though when you dig a little, it’s shown that basically every delivery service experiences the same issue.  USPS, ups, fedex, truck drivers.  And many of them are unionized too.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/ups-driver-pee-watter-bottles-amazon

Yes, truckers peeing in bottles is not new. But warehouse workers forced to pee in bottles is.

I don’t believe warehouse workers are forced to pee in bottles.  I think that’s highly sensationalized and missing context.  It’s not at all consensus among current and former employees, but because a couple people said it, we take it at face value.  I’m sure there have been people treated badly out of the millions who have worked there.  I’m sure there’s room for improvement.  I don’t think amzn is worse than other places, in fact I think it’s better in many regards.  But it’s the name that will get clicks and so context is usually left to the side.

  • 4 months later...
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"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

Another store focused on "basic necessities"? Gee, the world really needs those!

Over the last year or so, Amazon's prices have usurped big box prices. I doubt their stores will do well when you can go to a place like Menards and find most of they Amazon sells, but for lower prices. The benifit of Amazon is being able to go to one trustworthy website to buy almost everything, and typically have it in hand in a day or two. If you have to go into a store anyway, why not just go to the cheapest one - which oftentimes is WalMart or Menards, not Amazon.

  • 4 months later...

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/21/amazon-killed-popular-feature-at-demand-of-chinas-communist-party/

 

Amazon Killed Popular Feature at Demand of China’s Communist Party

 

The Chinese government ordered Amazon to stop allowing customers to review books following less-than-perfect ratings of a collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s writings, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

 

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This kind of authoritarian acquiescence is just cringeworthy.  I can only imagine what they'd have said if the U.S. government had demanded that they stop allowing less-than-5-star reviews of books written by presidents or Congressmen.

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/21/amazon-killed-popular-feature-at-demand-of-chinas-communist-party/

 

Amazon Killed Popular Feature at Demand of China’s Communist Party

 

The Chinese government ordered Amazon to stop allowing customers to review books following less-than-perfect ratings of a collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s writings, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

 

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This kind of authoritarian acquiescence is just cringeworthy.  I can only imagine what they'd have said if the U.S. government had demanded that they stop allowing less-than-5-star reviews of books written by presidents or Congressmen.

This is the logical conclusion of profit above all else. Amazon doesn't care that China is an oppressive authoritarian regime. There is money to be made there so they will submit to China's demands. 

Considering how much of their stuff comes directly from China unless you really pay attention and make sure it ships from the U.S. And of course no one pays attention when they buy stuff on their phones since phone internet strips away so many details and/or makes them imperceptibly small.

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/21/amazon-killed-popular-feature-at-demand-of-chinas-communist-party/

 

Amazon Killed Popular Feature at Demand of China’s Communist Party

 

The Chinese government ordered Amazon to stop allowing customers to review books following less-than-perfect ratings of a collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s writings, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

 

===============================

 

This kind of authoritarian acquiescence is just cringeworthy.  I can only imagine what they'd have said if the U.S. government had demanded that they stop allowing less-than-5-star reviews of books written by presidents or Congressmen.

 

A compromise would have been letting authors disable reviews for their books, but I'm sure that was insufficient.

On 4/9/2021 at 5:00 PM, mrnyc said:

 

this is pretty shocking, alabama amazon workers vote no to unionize -- i guess it isnt so bad as you hear working there after all:

 

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/early-vote-counts-show-amazon-warehouse-workers-not-likely-unionize-n1263558

 

Every place is different, so none are really telling unless one knows the background.

 

The classic example is people giving birth to porcupines (breech presentation) about Tesla’s Fremont plant being non-union.   Truth is, it was originally owned by NUMMI (GM-Toyota) joint venture.  The people who worked there then firmly believed (with quite a bit of justification) that UAW threw them under the proverbial bus in favor of plants closer to Detroit.   So they don’t trust unions any more than employers.

1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

 

Every place is different, so none are really telling unless one knows the background.

 

The classic example is people giving birth to porcupines (breech presentation) about Tesla’s Fremont plant being non-union.   Truth is, it was originally owned by NUMMI (GM-Toyota) joint venture.  The people who worked there then firmly believed (with quite a bit of justification) that UAW threw them under the proverbial bus in favor of plants closer to Detroit.   So they don’t trust unions any more than employers.

 

 

yes and the telling background here is amazon illegally pressured the workers -- so they get a do over revote:

 

 

A U.S. labor board official is ordering a revote after an agency review found Amazon improperly pressured warehouse staff to vote against joining a union, tainting the original election enough to scrap its results. The decision was issued Monday by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board. Amazon is expected to appeal.

 

The news puts the warehouse in Bessemer, outside Birmingham, back in the spotlight as a harbinger of labor-organizing efforts at Amazon, which is now America's second-largest private employer with more than 950,000 employees.

 

The union drive is being led by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Its president, Stuart Appelbaum, hailed Monday's development:

"Today's decision confirms what we were saying all along – that Amazon's intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union in their workplace."

 

 

more:

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1022384731/amazon-warehouse-workers-get-to-re-do-their-union-vote-in-alabama

On 4/9/2021 at 5:00 PM, mrnyc said:

 

this is pretty shocking, alabama amazon workers vote no to unionize -- i guess it isnt so bad as you hear working there after all:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/early-vote-counts-show-amazon-warehouse-workers-not-likely-unionize-n1263558

 

1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

 

Every place is different, so none are really telling unless one knows the background.

The classic example is people giving birth to porcupines (breech presentation) about Tesla’s Fremont plant being non-union.   Truth is, it was originally owned by NUMMI (GM-Toyota) joint venture.  The people who worked there then firmly believed (with quite a bit of justification) that UAW threw them under the proverbial bus in favor of plants closer to Detroit.   So they don’t trust unions any more than employers.

 

Also, I'm sure Amazon spent MILLIONS with targeted ads into Alabama to fight it. But more importantly, Amazon probably did a little more on-the -ground tactics too like intimidation, if not outright secret threats or secret perks for those that could influence others. Amazon was not going to let an amazon location unionize. No way, no how.

 

ah-  @mrnyc's post above was posted just seconds before mine. Exactly as I was thinking. Amazon had a dirty hand in effecting the outcome of the election. No way they would risk having to treat workers like people up to a simple vote of people that they sh!t on.

1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

 

Every place is different, so none are really telling unless one knows the background.

 

The classic example is people giving birth to porcupines (breech presentation) about Tesla’s Fremont plant being non-union.   Truth is, it was originally owned by NUMMI (GM-Toyota) joint venture.  The people who worked there then firmly believed (with quite a bit of justification) that UAW threw them under the proverbial bus in favor of plants closer to Detroit.   So they don’t trust unions any more than employers.

The union didn't shut down the Fremont plant. They fought it, along with the community. Toyota made the decision to shutter the pant in March 2010. 

white knight roccy defending corporations over the workers. sad.

49 minutes ago, TheCOV said:

The union didn't shut down the Fremont plant. They fought it, along with the community. Toyota made the decision to shutter the pant in March 2010. 

 

That's not what the plant people have believed.

2 hours ago, E Rocc said:

 

That's not what the plant people have believed.

You know this personally?

1 hour ago, TheCOV said:

You know this personally?

Heard it from multiple sources.

 

No one is saying they shut it down or even wanted it shut down, but that the midwest plants were a higher priority.

Edited by E Rocc

"Heard it from multiple sources" = "Many people are saying"

4 hours ago, E Rocc said:

Heard it from multiple sources.

 

No one is saying they shut it down or even wanted it shut down, but that the midwest plants were a higher priority.

None of which equates to employees would rather trust employers over unions.

 

The Fremont plant was bound to close the second GM filed bankruptcy. Going forward, GM already didn't have a plan in place to build a next gen vehicle based on the Toyota Corolla platform that was being produced there in various forms. Toyota was set to begin moving to it's then new TNGA vehicle platform and was loathe to share any of that with GM. The death of Pontiac and even small car heavy Saturn had the biggest impact in GM severing the relationship during the bankruptcy. 

The marketplace doomed Fremont, not unions. The marketplace helped birth Tesla by proving a ridiculously inexpensive place for them to begin production. The plant, and some equipment was sold to them for pennies on the dollar.

 

Back to Amazon...

  • 1 month later...
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It gets "better"...

 

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

  • 1 month later...

 

Very Stable Genius

  • 2 months later...
  • Author

 

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

Yay, Terminator.

  • 7 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Amazon pauses construction of second headquarters in Virginia

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/03/amazon-pauses-construction-of-second-headquarters-in-virginia.html

 

Amazon is pausing construction of its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, in Virginia, the company confirmed to CNBC on Friday. ...

 

The move comes as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has taken steps to curtail expenses across the company in the face of slowing revenue and a gloomy economic outlook. That’s led the company to announce the largest layoffs in its history, totaling more than 18,000 employees. Amazon is also reevaluating its real estate portfolio and sunsetting some projects.

 

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If this pause becomes a permanent stop/reconsideration, query what happens to whatever tax, regulatory, and other government incentives that NoVa gave Amazon to land HQ2.

For something as big as that it won't be a standardized deal for sure. 

  • 1 year later...

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