Amazon's warehouses aren't the future of work. They're its history.<p>That kind of zero-skilled, follow-the-instructions work is going fully robotic, much more quickly than people realize. Amazon themselves are investing heavily in robotics.
Man, fuck this world.<p>Go into a STEM job? Well, maybe you'll get hired, maybe you won't, you have to hope that you picked an area that was hot 4 years ahead of time and that the people managing recruitment don't have their heads up their asses. Also you need to hope that any company isn't already in the process of globalizing or outsourcing said STEM jobs because they can do <i>those</i> cheaper elsewhere (see IBM story yesterday).<p>And if you didn't go into STEM, well, fuck you because STEM is the only college that's any good by 95% of all accounts.<p>And if you didn't go into college, then fuck you because you're going to do back-breaking labor with no guarantee of financial security.<p>Something's gotta change or things are going to be grim. They're already getting grim.
I'm going to copy and paste from something I wrote in another thread.<p>From my experience with warehouses/fulfillment centers, all the other options are same or worse than Amazon with regards to worker treatment. Besides, on Amazon plenty of merchants do their own fulfillment, and those that do fulfill with Amazon are going to fulfill with Amazon on eBay or Rakuten or their own website anyway. To do so morally you'll have to look into the fulfillment details of any individual company you do business with.<p>Honestly, it just sucks to be an unskilled worker in today's society, its not something new to Amazon.
For the life of me I can't fathom how moving the bulk of our workforce to temporary employees benefits us as a nation in the long run. Is there anyone here who an provide any metric to support this as a good thing?<p>I do see where some wish to blame the consumer for this trend which is a bit surprising to me. That idea seems paradoxical in that the majority of people do not have good paying would, by necessity, want things to cost less. Yet if you propagate this throughout ecosystem you end up in a viscous cycle where companies, in order to meet lower price points, squeeze their employees which only propagates the cycle.<p>Most of us on this site are not the type of unskilled laborers who are currently impacted by this. Yet such trends have a way of working their way up the the food chain so to speak. Companies will trumpet "think of the consumer" as a way to depress or wages.
This has been going on in warehousing and Distribution Centers for a long time -- over a decade. Same goes for many call centers.<p>I don't like the nature of the work, but I look at it like this: if you want robots to take dreary work from people, then that work needs to be quantified and structured. These kinds of things are the last step before total automation.<p>So in a way, the news is even worse than crappy jobs. These jobs are leaving. This is just the last vestiges of them. What will replace them? Beats me. I think the question itself is wrong, that is, as things change and become more efficient, there are new scarcities having nothing to do with food or shelter that people pay for. If you could predict the future of these scarcities you'd be rich beyond belief. So while it sounds like a good question, "Where do all these people go?", it's not one that's answerable in this case -- nor was it ever answerable.<p>One thing I know: this issue has nothing to do with Amazon. They're just being used as a prop here.
They (media, leftist groups) tried to create a scandal about this in Germany and succeeded to some extent. I found it kind of amusing that the mere description of people having to do actual work already seems to be so shocking to middle class people. If you don't work with your brain, you work with your body... I don't think working a farm or maybe a slaughterhouse or whatever other manual labor jobs there are are much better than an Amazon warehouse. I saw a documentary about garbage men recently and apparently they have to be fit like Marathon runners. Some jobs simply are hard.<p>Now I am glad I don't have to do that kind of job, but people should question what they are really asking for. They should then really support basic income, and also be prepared to pay a lot more for stuff. In fact, I wish instead of complaining people would just cough up more money. I wonder how big the engagement would then still be.<p>Or, you know, go full communism and have everybody take turns at doing the hard manual labor, no matter what education they have. In Christmass time, there would be a random selection of people who would be sent to Santa's warehouse (I mean Amazon) to work.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this too - because computer/ robotic automation is not just going to take warehouse jobs, it will eventually come for all of our jobs.<p>But this doesn't have to be a bad thing, if you think about it from a community perspective, how great would it be if all our basic needs were automated and low cost? Theoretically, this should free people up to pursue other interests, like science, art, sports, religion -- kind of like the premise Star Trek TNG.<p>Unfortunately, this isn't the reality today. If things keep going like they are, then this automation will enable a small oligarchy even greater wealth and power, and leverage over the civilization. I don't mean this to be alarmist, this is a really logical progression, and 'they way things are' has created some pretty amazing achievements for us to-date. I think this will be the next big social evolution and I can't wait to see how it unfolds.
Amazon: Building better robots with human flesh.<p>I wouldn't be surprised at all if Amazon suddenly announces a secret R&D project involving a floor of robots pretty soon. In fact, the type of monotonous line-following, retrieval and packing fits well within the line of past factory workers who've been all but replaced with robots.<p>I'd even cheer them on if they did that instead of dehumanizing those workers.
This reminds me a lot of the story Manna. In the story, robotics and machine vision is still behind human workers, however computers are able to perfectly optimize every other detail, and so tell human workers what to do step by step through an earpiece.<p>I love the idea actually, but I think most people would find it unsettling. But why not have perfectly optimized work routines and get the same amount of stuff done in half the time? Unfortunately I doubt the benefits would go to the workers and they'd still have to work the same amount of time, but that's true for all increases in efficiency.
> “The feedback we’re getting is it’s like being in a slave camp,” said Brian Garner, the dapper chairman of the Lea Hall Miners Welfare Centre and Social Club, still a popular drinking spot.<p>Just like a slave camp. You know, besides the fact that you get paid, can own property, have the full rights of citizens, can quit at any time, and go home at the end of the day.<p>> There is much to admire in Amazon’s rise, but in some dark corners of that sprawling empire the top line numbers and razor-thin earnings are being boosted by a dystopian model of neofeudalism that is jarringly out of step with the company’s shiny, ‘leaning into the future’ brand.<p>A "dystopian model of neofeudalism"? For reals, guys?<p>I have complained about jobs that were doubtless better in every way than warehouse jobs at Amazon, and I'm sure that there are legitimate complaints, but it's hard to take this article seriously. The axe to grind is so prominently on display that it's difficult to know what part of the story can be read as an objective description of the facts.
This sounds bizarrely similar to a portion of the Ken Burns documentary about the dust bowl. Basically, towards the end of the great depression tons of people migrated to California looking for work. Upon arriving they found little employment and those that did find work were doing hard labour,farms along with employment agencies were working together to drive down the cost human labour even further.<p>This created an enormous class of extremely poor that could be let go at any moment for any reason. While farms and employment agencies raked in profits.<p>Just because a company is acting within the law doesn't mean they are ethical or moral.<p>Maybe robots are better than human subjugation, maybe this is the beginning of new type of economy.
I think it's just capitalism, and economics.<p>Consumers are constantly pushing down the prices on everything, expecting more and more for less and less. Faced with this reality, companies have to streamline and become more effective in order to succeed and profit. This is what Amazon are doing.<p>We moan about having to pay for baggage, choosing seats, food and even using the bathroom on flights now - but this is solely because of our want to push down the headline price of flights. The price has been reduced...but the cost is still there.<p>AFAIK, Amazon aren't doing any illegal, they're just working very efficiently.
I'm reminded of the first half of the fictional short(ish) story "Manna"[1] by Marshall Brain.<p>[1] <a href="http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm</a>
It is asserted multiple times in the article, but is there any evidence that Amazon uses temp workers at all their facilities or just in this one UK example? I haven't seen any accounts of heavy use in US warehouses, but they could be out there.
The contracting culture is indeed awful. It gives companies a way to fire workers without making the headlines. Also let's them not dirty their hands with benifits. But it's unfair to blame Amazon alone. Many organizations do this, including the US Federal Government. The DC metro area is filled with offices where the "employees" walk in and the "contractors" badge in. The tech contractors still make handsome cash, but the job scurity is not where it should be
If the future of work is work I'm extremely depressed / afraid. We are beyond the point of continued human labor to support ever increasing consumption. Buckminster Fuller showed the way <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller</a>
Same story, in the US, IMO told better: <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor" rel="nofollow">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f...</a>
So how long after robot warehouse workers do you think we'll have robots enforcing laws? I'm getting a picture of Soylent Green but with robots instead of humans controlling the crowds.