Yeah I used to work for a large retailer here in the UK when I was a student. That was far worse than any stories about amazon. My manager used to lock the toilets so we couldn’t go and forced us to break H&S regs by carrying shelves full of stuff rather than dismantle and move them piecemeal. If we didn’t do what he said he threatened to call the police and report us for the things he was actually stealing from stock. That job was 8pm to 8am overnight with no breaks and we usually had to do an hour of overtime. And this was for min wage and we had to fight to get the money out of them every week.

I quit after 6 weeks and reported him to their HQ who did nothing at all. Eventually his pride and joy Mitsubishi Legnum was mysteriously rolled onto its roof writing it off.

> If we didn’t do what he said he threatened to call the police and report us for the things he was actually stealing from stock.

For the record, and the benefit of everyone else reading this who might be too young or naive to know what to do, when your boss commits an actual felony (extortion) on you, you do not "report to their HQ". You go straight to the police.

Erm we did. Nothing happened. They didn't even send anyone out. That was pretty usual for the local police back then. Hell I was threatened with a knife by my neighbour in 2005 and got a letter two days later from the police apologising for not attending and if I wanted to do anything, call them back.

> That was pretty usual for the local police back then.

When was "back then"? 1902? These are vaguely 'Jungle'-esque scenarios you're describing.

London UK 1991.

Another fine example was my cousin who apprehended someone stealing post from some flats. Eventually he had to let the guy go because he was too tired to maintain an advantage after the police failed to come out when a resident called them.

And in the age of smartphones, the first thing you should do is start recording your crazy boss.

Agreed, but be sure to check you the applicable laws in your jurisdiction to make sure it's legal. Or, even if it's not legal, be sure to know what consequences you may be facing.

After getting some evidence, I hope.

That's my thinking, Amazon just seems to be a popular target. Even though they pay warehouse workers double the federal minimum wage at $15 and provide benefits.

From what I've read negative instances are isolated to specific managers which isn't really different from any other job and doesn't make for a systematic abuse of employees.

If I was an unskilled worker Amazon seems like a pretty good bet.

So basically you have no idea about what the situation is (nor do I) but you choose to believe that Amazon is in the right. That's called bias.

Empirically at my own account? How could I, without working for them, but I do read the news and follow these events.

That's not bias that's a somewhat informed opinion and a conscious decision. I suppose I could go talk to people as a further step, but frankly I don't care that much and that's what journalism is supposed to be for.

That's not to say I don't have bias, just that it's not some magical word you can say to make someone's statement irrelevant or that in this context you were even correct.

There are plenty of published articles depicting the working conditions at amazon warehouses. there are worker willing to unionize (which is a hard and difficult thing to do) calling out on these conditions.

You picked a single piece of the narrative, the pay and its relation to the minimum wage. And pretty much ignored the rest of the narrative. This is the bias I was talking about. The information exists, but you seemed to pick the part of the information that coincide with your POV, this is called bias. Bias is normal and benign. calling out the bias is not meant to dismiss your opinion, it's meant to maybe cause you to be aware of it.

When someone shows me how I ignore facts because of my biases, I might feel uncomfortable, but I'm happy for that to happen. For me, this is the best kind of dialog.

You didn't show me anything though. I've read those articles, I mentioned one point (actually I mentioned at least 2) but I've surely considered the others and many of the articles you mention are in fact cherry picked to cast Amazon in a bad light. Which is why I mentioned they don't make up systematic abuse.

That fact that you're trying to position this as you showing me the error of my ways when, no, in actuality I've considered the angles and still very much disagree with those positions says a lot more about you than it does me. I'm against unions, pro corporate in many cases and think Amazon goes above what they even have to.

I find this interaction pretty representative of the problems in online discourse. Namely that because I hold a widely different position to you, you assume I must not have considered multiple sources or am letting my biases talk for me. I assure you I'm pretty well considered in everything I write.

Please take your "virtue" elsewhere.

Edit: In fact thinking more about it I think your assumption even violates one of the guidelines here on HN which is to hold your opponent's thoughts in the most charitable light. That is it's on you to assume that I have put the thought in and considered multiple narratives instead of me being intellectually lazy.

The fact that you generalize the mentioned reports also reveals your own bias. We have a limited view on a very small section of a very big issue. Having any beliefs on this topic reflect a willingness to over-generalize from limited information; the directionality reveals the bias.

I hope that I have made you happily uncomfortable.

It's the business that's owned by the world's richest person. It's going to get a lot of focus.

They address why they are targeting Amazon a bit further down. They view Amazon as one of the most extreme examples of problems many companies have, and Amazon has done exceptionally well compared to other companies during the pandemic.

Isn’t that just whataboutism? Isn’t it just as wrong to treat workers badly even if others are doing it too?

Is every comparative comparison whataboutism ?

No, only when it’s being used to dismiss and distract.

Diamond mines in the Congo seem like a genuinely bad place to work, but that has no relevance to whether Amazon is mistreating its workers.