In case you missed it, "What happens when Amazon opens warehouses in poor cities."

[politicaljunkie41910]

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.—This community was still reeling from the recession in 2012 when it got a piece of what seemed like good news. Amazon, the global internet retailer, was opening a massive 950,000-square-foot distribution center, one of its first in California, and hiring more than 1,000 people here.“This opportunity is a rare and wonderful thing,” San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris told a local newspaper at the time.

In the months and years that followed, Amazon dramatically expanded its footprint in and around San Bernardino, a city 60 miles east of Los Angeles. The company now employs more than 15,000 full-time workers in eight fulfillment centers (where goods are stored and then packed for shipment) and one sortation center (where packages are organized by delivery area) in the Inland Empire, the desert region bordering Los Angeles that encompasses Riverside and San Bernardino counties. This expansion provided a lifeline to the struggling region, creating jobs and contributing tax revenue to an area sorely in need of both. In San Bernardino, the unemployment rate that was as high as 15 percent in 2012 is now 5 percent. ...

San Bernardino is just one of the many communities across the country grappling with the same question: Is any new job a good job?... The median household income in 2016, at $38,456, is 4 percent lower than it was in 2011. This poverty near Amazon facilities is not just an inland California phenomenon—according to a report by the left-leaning group Policy Matters Ohio, one in 10 Amazon employees in Ohio are on food stamps.

The arrival of Amazon has been bittersweet for people like Gabriel Alvarado, 35. He started working at Amazon’s San Bernardino distribution center in 2013, making $12 an hour, hoping that the job would help him support his new wife and two stepdaughters. Amazon proved a stressful place to work, with managers chewing out employees for not moving fast enough, he told me, which was tough to put up with for meager pay. (An Amazon spokeswoman, Nina Lindsey, told me that, like most companies, Amazon has performance expectations, but that it supports people not performing with dedicated coaches to help them improve.)

Meanwhile, Gabriel watched as his 39-year-old brother Jose worked across the street, doing the same type of job at a warehouse for the grocery chain Stater Brothers. The 1,000 workers there are unionized and get full medical benefits, pensions, and retiree medical benefits. Wages start at $26 an hour, but many workers make a lot more than that because Stater Brothers operates an incentive program in which people who grab orders—doing similar tasks to workers at Amazon—are rewarded if they go faster than the average speed. Jose Alvarado is able to support a wife and four children on his Stater Brothers salary. When his son was diagnosed with a rare form of anemia, his insurance covered everything.

Though Gabriel was doing the same type of work at Amazon, he had to shell out more money for health care, and made a lot less money. “I saw my brother doing the same type of work, but moneywise, he had better credit, he could afford more, while I was barely getting by,” Gabriel told me. He has tried to get a job with Stater Brothers to no avail, and says there are few other local options but at Amazon or at companies that work for Amazon. In 2016, he used Amazon’s tuition reimbursement to get his commercial driving license, attending school on the weekends while working during the week. But the best job he could find was working for a third-party contractor, driving a truck for Amazon. “It’s either Amazon or nothing,” he told me. ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/amazon-warehouses-poor-cities/552020/

[Anon-C]

1. K&R! nt

[RandomAccess]

2. We need a dramatic resurgence of unions -- Amazon looks like

a good place to start.

[niyad]

6. apparently, scotus is preparing to land a lethal blow to unions.

[iluvtennis]

10. and Walmart. I worked there as a seasonal employees about 8 years ago to get some extra $

to show my kids a better Christmas. It was awful. They make you sit in the HR office and watch "propaganda" videos about all the good Walmart is doing for you by giving you a job and that unions are a bad thing. It was so gross. So glad it was just a seasonal job for a few months.

[Rorey]

17. I was a salt

I worked at Walmart for ten months as a union salt. There were several of us in both stores in my town. We weren't supposed to divulge who we were, but apparently one of us had loose lips and Walmart got clued in that there was a unionizing effort going on. Yeah, everyone had to go view those mandatory videos, plus reps came in to talk to us. Their tactics are truly nauseating. I only lasted the ten months. I did gain a great understanding of why Walmart "associates" seem so grumpy all of the time.

Did you have to do that Walmart cheer? With the f**king squiggle? I faked it through that. I got called on it a couple of times, but I really had a hard time hiding my opinion of that stupid thing.

[iluvtennis]

27. Wow, 10 months at Walmart...you're a rock star. Nope, I neverhad to do the sqiggle...

...but maybe that was because I only work Friday evenings and weekends. It was a part time job for me that I went to after working my normal job.

[mountain grammy]

18. +1000

[hueymahl]

3. Unions are a good thing

Wish we had more of them. But that does not make Amazon "bad", just a typical company, ALL of which would be considered sociopaths if they in fact were real people.

The good, Gabriel from this story actually has a job and health benefits. The bad, they are not as good as his unionized brother.

We need to strengthen laws protecting unions.

[calimary]

14. Unions are there for a reason.

The best interests and protections of WORKERS. Such a shame that the bad guys have smeared the union movement so thoroughly.

[bigbrother05]

20. Right to work laws made inroads when the unions were strong

When the unions set the pace, a few non-union shops didn't really hurt the overall wages in an area. That made it easy to convince workers that their dues were an unnecessary cost and they would actually come out ahead making a bit less without paying money to those commies/socialists.

Then when the numbers of unions dropped and their political clout diminished, the cuts came and we have the Walmarts of the world taking over with guaranteed food stamp qualification built in.

Somehow those folks that are so proud that they don't belong to no stinkin' union can't figure out why so many folks are getting "free food" paid out of their hard earned tax dollars.

[still_one]

21. The unions helped push it along. Those so-called "reagan democrats", were union folks who

helped propel reagan into the WH, and their influence has been going downhill ever since

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/31/us/teamsters-vote-to-endorse-reagan.html

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/article/OP/20120215/NEWS/302159879

[whathehell]

29. + 1000...The War against Unions is.

a HUGE part of the War against the Middle Class.

[PatSeg]

4. Reminds me of Walmart

I used to use Amazon a lot, but this past year, I try to find other online sellers whenever I can. When Amazon refused to stop advertising on Breitbart and wouldn't even acknowledge the many consumer complaints, I started shopping around, often finding better deals and service. Sometimes, I've even spent a bit more, just to give my business to someone else.

[progree]

7. What got me is when they restricted the printer ink I've bought many times to Prime members

only, which is $99/year. I couldn't give a fuck about watching videos, and I can wait a week or 10 days to get my order, so I'm not about to spend $99 for 2 day shipping when I maybe order 3 times a year from them.

[PatSeg]

13. I don't expect any company to be perfect

But I do expect them to listen to their customers and at least respond. I've signed petitions, sent emails, and posted on their message boards, but the only response I've gotten is they took down their message boards.

Amazon used to be known for their great customer service and I have to say they were pretty impressive. I don't get out of the house much, so I rely on Internet businesses for a lot of my purchases and Amazon was convenient and efficient. Apparently, they got too big to care about their customers' concerns.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. I use Amazon for pricing info.

then check out Ebay and other sellers for teh same item. Got lamps, shoes, etc for at least 50% of teh price that was on amazon.

[PatSeg]

26. Oh yes!

That's what I do too. I also use Amazon for customers' comments when I'm shopping for a certain item. I've been doing a lot more business on Ebay and the service has been comparable for the most part.

[colsohlibgal]

5. Amazon Is Draconian

One of the ladies on my tennis team briefly worked there and hated it.

Also read a long expose of an Amazon facility out in I think Arizona. This facility had no air conditioners. During heatwaves with temperatures around 100 they still would not open any doors or windows because of a fear of employee theft and so they were passing out right and left, ambulances were always at the ready.

All so Bezos won’t maybe lose a DVD or two.

We are barreling fast toward a dystopian future, we need to turn it back around starting in 2018.

[Delmette2.0]

8. TGIF

Don't Thank God It's Friday, thank a Union. God wanted us to work 6 days a week, Unions got us 5 days a week.

Also, If you aren't at the table, you are on the menu. Employers don't look out for your best interest, Unions do.

[SWBTATTReg]

9. Only 1 person is making money at Amazon...and he has enough. NT

[elmac]

11. and wall street banksters nt

[SWBTATTReg]

12. I love your play on gangsters vs. banksters! Ha, Great!!

[elmac]

16. yep, the banksters have done more damage to the country

then any old school gangster could ever imagine.

[bigbrother05]

23. A man with a gun will rob you, a man with a briefcase will steal you blind

[dalton99a]

15. Amazon is a 21st-century digital chain gang

https://www.salon.com/2018/01/29/amazon-is-a-21st-century-digital-chain-gang_partner/
Amazon is a 21st-century digital chain gang
Amazon’s high-tech sheen hides its abusive labor practices
Marshall Auerback, Alternet 01.29.2018 • 6:00 AM

When Amazon announced plans to locate a $5 billion, 50,000-employee complex as its second headquarters somewhere in North America, state governments and municipalities fell over themselves offering billions of dollars in tax abatements and corporate subsidies to secure the prize. It might behoove the remaining 20 cities that have made the final cut to heed the warning from Virgil’s Aeneid: “I fear the Greeks, even when they are bearing gifts.” Especially when the gifts come in the form of a modern-day digital chain gang.

Amazon likes to see itself as a cutting-edge, 21st-century growth company, always working to expedite delivery to its customers, whether by means of a drone, or eliminating queueing and bagging at its newly acquired Whole Foods stores with a new smartphone app. Beneath this high-tech sheen, however, the online retailer and tech giant engages in labor practices that provoke comparisons to a 19th-century sweatshop. The company routinely pays wages barely above the poverty line, while using intrusive surveillance systems to monitor the workforce, fence them in with elaborate rules, set target times for their warehouse journeys, and then measure whether targets were met. All of this information is made available to management in real time, and if Amazon’s “employee-athletes” fall behind schedule, they receive a Big Brother-like text message pushing them to reach their targets or suffer the consequences. Failure to do so is met with a “three strikes and release” discipline system — being a euphemism for getting sacked.

In essence, you’ve got a $550-billion-plus global conglomerate with virtually unchecked market power and no sign that its legally advantageous position will be challenged anytime soon via vigorous anti-trust enforcement — and certainly no encouragement of unionization to combat its abusive and intrusive work practices. Companies like Amazon have been aided and abetted by a sequence of "pro-business" governments that for decades introduced harsh industrial relations legislation to reduce the trade unions’ ability to achieve wage gains for their members, while lavishing billions in tax cuts and subsidies, which deprives the region of vitally needed revenue for the provision of essential public services.

Even before this latest municipal beauty competition, Amazon has received almost $123 million from the state of Ohio in cumulative tax breaks, plus $2.9 million in cash grants. That has been a great deal for the company, but what about the people of Ohio? A new study by Policy Matters Ohio found that more than 700 Amazon employees receive food stamps, or more than 10 percent of the tech giant’s 6,000-strong workforce in the state. That’s because the jobs provided by Amazon in exchange for these tax breaks barely pay above the $26,208 poverty line. So much for the much-vaunted “multiplier effect” supposedly created by this panoply of government largesse.

[Plucketeer]

19. Walmart of the internet!

A pox on Jeff and those close to him.

[TwistOneUp]

22. I've seen both sides...

I've see both sides of unions. I've seen carpetlayers who weren't in unions get water on the knee because they had no knee protection and had to quit work because they weren't covered by medical. Union workers got knee protection at the exorbitant cost of about $10 per worker and got medical care. $10 per emplyee to save their knees and the cheap fsck employer wouldn't pay for it...

And I've paid IBEW workers $600 to replace an electric outlet and paid $125 for them to plug in a display at McCormick Place that took all of 30 seconds.

But overall, unions ARE necessary to protect workers from abusive employers. Wal-Mart said workers will get a $1000 bonus. What they didn't say is that the workers - most of whom don't work enough hours to be covered by health care - see the bonuses amortized over a 20yr work history. So, someone that has managed to last two years of Wal-Mart's grinding days while paying for their own health care gets a whopping bonus of - wait for it - $100. Wow! Now Mom can get that operation she's always needed...

[C Moon]

24. I'll complain about CEO's before hard working Union workers.

I despise when someone says Union workers make too much money.
No they don't, the rest of the country should be making what they are making, instead of giving billions upon billions to overpaid CEO's.

[iluvtennis]

28. Agreed. And companies can afford to pay union level/better salaries. It is only their greed for

higher profit margins that preclude it. They can easily pay ppl a decent salary and still make profit...they just want MORE.

[whathehell]

30. Exactly...The correct response to a working person who says

'Union Workers make too much money' is: "No, you make too little and your company's CEO makes too much".