Amazon workers to vote union in Alabama.

[hal2kilo]

He's right about the Dems of that era and Clinton, Gore, and the rest of the Southern Leadership Council gang. The Dems lost to Reagan and Bush I so they said, "screw principles" and ran the center-right Clinton/Gore ticket. It's been thirty years and the Dems are still a center-right to rightwing party. Old school New Deal liberals are still considered the embarrassing cousins in the Dem party.

SLC is a cuss word to me.

 

[NWRMidnight]

And how do you make "human" labor more productive? You reduce the number of "humans". If every robot needed a full time "human" to maintain it, then automation would be a money pit.

3 shifts of "human" take breaks, eat meals, take days off, get sick, get hurt on the job, and make mistakes (software errors). Meanwhile, "robot" continues to work without interruption with a much greater MTBF.

Nope, automation does not reduce the number of humans working, it allows the same number of humans to produce more and keep up with growth and demand, and in many case requires the company to hire more humans. You also keep throwing out all these excuses related to human down time, all while ignoring the vast amount of costly downtime that also takes place with automation (I listed a bunch of it for you). If you think automation doesn't cause mistakes, or malfunction, you have not worked in the real world with automation. I work with automation daily. It's not cheaper or without it's own set of equally if not more costly issues. Automation is not cheaper.. Maybe read my post #116.

 

[MtnMan]

Nope, automation does not reduce the number of humans working, it allows the same number of humans to produce more and keep up with growth and demand, and in many case requires the company to hire more humans. You also keep throwing out all these excuses related to human down time, all while ignoring the vast amount of costly downtime that also takes place with automation (I listed a bunch of it for you). If you think automation doesn't cause mistakes, or malfunction, you have not worked in the real world with automation. I work with automation daily. It's not cheaper or without it's own set of equally if not more costly issues. Automation is not cheaper.. Maybe read my post #116.

Well those at MIT have a different perspective, but what do they know vs. an anonymous poster on the internet?

A new study measures the actual impact of robots on jobs. It’s significant. | MIT Sloan

mitsloan.mit.edu

 

[fleshconsumed]

Automation allowing for better efficiency can go both ways, it can allow company to produce more with the same number of people, or produce same amount with lesser number of people. Generally speaking automation is expensive, so it mostly makes sense to deploy it at scale, meaning more output with the same number of people, but there are clear examples where technology and automation is used to increase output while reducing headcount, for example coal mining, or even self order kiosks at fast food restaurants.

As it applies to amazon warehouses, from what I understand they're already highly automated, there isn't much room to automate them further. The only thing Amazon can really do is close the warehouse to stop future unionization attempts. As it right now, IMO, stopping further unionization will "add" a lot more to their bottom line as opposed to improving automation which is already at absurdly high level.

 

[Ajay]

Automation allowing for better efficiency can go both ways, it can allow company to produce more with the same number of people, or produce same amount with lesser number of people. Generally speaking automation is expensive, so it mostly makes sense to deploy it at scale, meaning more output with the same number of people, but there are clear examples where technology and automation is used to increase output while reducing headcount, for example coal mining, or even self order kiosks at fast food restaurants.

So, anecdotal response here. I watched a documentary a while back on automation in America. A small US manufacture with 30ish people had to bring in some automation and cut it's staff in about half in order to compete with Chinese companies. The depreciation of the automation (capital equipment) could be written off on their taxes over time an then there was just maintenance. It's a good thing that this company was able to stay in it's community, but the cost of lost wages cascades though that same community. We need a solution to this - it's a two for - first losing manufacturing jobs to China, now losing them to automation. It's not sustainable.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

One of the problems with retaining workers vs replacing them is that the typical line level box packer can't handle the training to become a robot fixer. You dump ten box packers, but you have to hire three or four robot fixers, or contract for tech help. Your bottom line might look better, but what about the ten box packers?

 

[mect]

So, anecdotal response here. I watched a documentary a while back on automation in America. A small US manufacture with 30ish people had to bring in some automation and cut it's staff in about half in order to compete with Chinese companies. The depreciation of the automation (capital equipment) could be written off on their taxes over time an then there was just maintenance. It's a good thing that this company was able to stay in it's community, but the cost of lost wages cascades though that same community. We need a solution to this - it's a two for - first losing manufacturing jobs to China, now losing them to automation. It's not sustainable.

This is why a generous social safety net is critical to go along with automation. Automation should be a net positive for society. Automation generally takes the place of repeatable tasks that most people aren't that interested in doing anyways. I've done a very small amount of assembly line factory work, and it was soul crushing. As long as we don't throw people out on the streets as robots take over these types of jobs, automation should be a net benefit society. As long as all Americans benefit from the increased efficiency brought about by automation, not just the owner class, automation will make life better for people. The problem is we have an entire political party that is opposed to sharing the benefits of progress. As long as this is happening, automation is going to steer us instead towards a dystopian future.

 

[Ajay]

This is why a generous social safety net is critical to go along with automation. Automation should be a net positive for society. Automation generally takes the place of repeatable tasks that most people aren't that interested in doing anyways. I've done a very small amount of assembly line factory work, and it was soul crushing. As long as we don't throw people out on the streets as robots take over these types of jobs, automation should be a net benefit society. As long as all Americans benefit from the increased efficiency brought about by automation, not just the owner class, automation will make life better for people. The problem is we have an entire political party that is opposed to sharing the benefits of progress. As long as this is happening, automation is going to steer us instead towards a dystopian future.

Democrats have made blunders too. When Clinton helped China enter the WTO, he had no transition plan (not that I was aware of). The Germans were smarter, requiring, at the time, final assembly being done in German factories, design engineering required to be completed in Germany - plus special import restrictions for critical industries. We did nothing like this.

IMHO, we should have done something like this with automation - though that ship has probably sailed. So a better social safety net would help. But in the long term, improving our education system from top to bottom is the only way to prepare young Americans for a future with with more intellectually demanding jobs. Oh, and again unions - my preferred solution to the Owner/Investor 'monopoly' over wages and benefits.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Well those at MIT have a different perspective, but what do they know vs. an anonymous poster on the internet?

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made...measactual-impact-robots-jobs-its-significant

The problem with the flawed MIT study, and your argument which is also flawed, is that you both are looking at automation as competition to human labor. Automation is not competition to human labor, and trying to make it out as though it is, is ignoring a lot of variables and leaving a lot of valuable and important data off the table, specially those pertaining to increased number of jobs brought about due to automation. When automation is added, it's not for competition reasons. It's to allow companies to increase productivity of their human labor by allowing them to shift those humans to more productive tasks and usually requiring them to hire more humans to keep up with the increased productivity. Automation is also put in place due to safety reasons to preserve human life.

Also, the MIT study is about the impact, or rather the claim of the impact on wages and workers, all based off of population vs workers, where they claim their study shows automation reduces wages and works per 1000 jobs by sub 0.5%. or for the loss of jobs, it's 3.3 jobs per 1000 works which they are basing off of a population and worker ratio.. Pretty sure that is all within the the margin of error, and is also influenced by many factors that have nothing to do with automation. Of course, the labor shortage and increase in wages that has been taking place for months now, and the statistics going back for decades since the Reagan administration when wages started to decline, indicates that automation doesn't really have any influence on wages or the work force as they claim.

I saw an article the other day that said the minimum wage should be $27 an hour if it was based off of productivity, as our productivity has increased by 35%. Automation is why our productivity increased. It didn't replace us, it made us more efficient, and created more jobs. But due to corporate greed, not automation, IE, to make bigger profits, these companies have chosen to under pay the work force or keep wages low, hence, one of the factors in our current labor shortage and the increase in wages. People are tired of being screwed and are no longer falling for the fear tactic and manipulation, which the threat of automation and the claim of it being cheaper was/is a part of. But wages going down really had nothing to do with the costly automation, but the greedy corporations.

A great example is the automation they put in place where I work. It didn't replace me, it made it so my output doubled, by allowing me to use my abilities in a more productive manner, and it also made my job less tiring, less stainuious and healthier on my body It also required the company to hire more humans to keep up. Automation does not take jobs it creates them and allows businesses to use their human work force doing tasks that are more productive.

Even McDonald's, who has put in kiosks for people to order, they didn't reduce their staff they actually increased their staff and added more drive up lanes and windows to serve more people, IE keep up with population growth and demand. Hence they are creating more jobs, not reducing them.

If automation is taking people's job, why is it that companies that invest heavily In automation are also having to increasing their staff size rather than reducing their staff size? If automation was competition to human labor, they wouldn't be adding more staff, they would be adding only more automation.

As I already said, human labor and automation go hand on hand.

 

[Rebel_L]

Automation isn't cheaper, it makes human labor and businesses more efficient.

More efficient, known to the rest of the world as more value per money invested or lower costs for the same return or cheaper for the same output.

The only way the math works out that automation is cheaper is if you do not include the costs of designing, installing, setup, ect of the automation and only include the daily basic upkeep costs. You also have to ignore major repairs, non basic maintenance costs which includes the human trained technicians/maintenance personnel, which results in downtime, upgrades and/or software updates, and replacement costs to have them be cheaper. Automation costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to Millions of dollars to get going before you can even calculate daily running costs. We have had automation for decades, long before most people even realize it, and there are many companies who "thought" automation was going to be cheaper and the way to go, only for those systems/functions to be disabled and returned back over to a real live human worker because the downtime, glitches and daily problems the automation introduced, as well as low quality results.

So when automation isnt cheaper than humans people go back to using humans instead of sticking with machines.... its almost like it makes no sense to use automation unless its actually cheaper...

What it ends up being is a balance between human labor and automation for the most efficient results. The best efficiency which leads to the lowest costs, requires both elements, as neither can achieve lower costs and/or efficiency without the other.

Yes since automation isnt universally cheaper than humans it makes sense to only use automation where its cheaper.

Most companies who are able to use automation effectively (Amazon for example) require a larger human workforce than those without automation. Why: Because automation and human labor go hand in hand, as automation creates jobs because human labor is needed to keep up with the efficiency the automation may create, which in turn makes them more money, even though the automation is more costly than the human labor.

What sort of weird circular reasoning is this? If machines make workers more efficient it leads to less workers per work done, not more. The only way to increase efficiency and total workers is to find a reason to do way more work. If amazon needs more workers and automation to do the same amount of work as another company with just worker, that other company is waaay more efficient than amazon.

Example.. with human labor, a company may product 10 pieces a day which they make $5 profit on each, which is $50. With automation and human labor, they can produce 20 pieces a day, which they make $3 profit each. But because they produce 20 pieces, they make $60 a day in profit, rather than the $50 a day in profit.. it's not because automation is cheaper, it's because the automation adds efficiency, which means a company can have a higher daily output, giving them a higher profit. Efficiency increases are a must to keep up with the demand of population growth.

You have to be using some Donald Trump level thinking to not simply double your workers to make your 20 units, make $100 profit a day, and invest less money to do it since you insist machines are more expensive than people.