What are your thoughts about Amazon warehouses unionizing?

[Brainonska511]

Its not a little inflation. Housing has become very speculative when prices used to track inflation% back when politics wasn't so polarized. Healthcare also very expensive because, well you know why. These take huge chunks of the paycheck. Wasn't it big news that full time minimum wage workers can no longer afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment across the country. This is not a minor annoyances and petty grievance politics. Its a huge shift for the country where the middle class has shrunk below 50% of households (or something like that) years ago when it used to be the broad majority.

Housing has been out of wack at last since the great recession. Building has not kept up in the places people want to live, and the federal government isn't going to fix that problem because it all comes down to local land use laws. Thank your NIMBY neighbors who only want to see their property values go up and have their neighborhoods sealed in amber the day they move in.

 

[IronWing]

Meanwhile, unions can help counter the power of large employers like Amazon. This is a thread about Amazon workers unionizing, after all.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

More mature me looks at it as are you better off negotiating for pay, benefits and work conditions on your own which in Amazons case is you vs tens of thousands of others or you and tens of thousands negotiating together.
I’ll choose the bigger group it is the only way to get something consistent.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Unionizing won't stop Amazon from bot-sourcing the work. Full automation or close to it is inevitable. There are projections that the humanoid bots they use will be approximately $3 an hour to operate.

I think it's great humans won't have to do that kind of work. But the "retrain for another job" mantra also has compounding problems because of automation. I am not certain "the buggy whip makers" meme carries forward much longer. Then what? UBI? I hope the accelerationist have thought this all through, and without the dystopian hellscape intermediary results that normally go along with the vision.

 

[brianmanahan]

I am not certain "the buggy whip makers" meme carries forward much longer. Then what? UBI?

i don't see UBI ever getting passed, at least in the US. my guess is over %20 unemployment by 2050 and a trend of returning to more prominent stratification of society like it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

it's why i'm saving as much money as possible and working as long as i can. "old money" is probably going to be vital to a good life so i'm trying to save and invest as much as possible now.

a lot of white-collar writing, art and customer support jobs have been rendered obsolete in the past 3 years by generative AI which is "good enough" and getting better exponentially fast. the software industry is starting on this trend as well.

in the end, unions won't matter when the need for jobs disappears.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Just noticed this is in OT; why? It's way too political an issue for this forum. I vote move it there. I could do it, but I am actively posting so another mod should.

i don't see UBI ever getting passed, at least in the US. my guess is over %20 unemployment by 2050 and a trend of returning to more prominent stratification of society like it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

That would result in the dystopian hellscape. 50+ million unemployed and desperate Americans won't be anything like those eras, and can't be. That world no longer exists. 1800s had slavery and civil war. The rest of that century and start of the next were an epic shitshow as well. All part of the evolution of the U.S.. You can't reverse order it.

a lot of white-collar writing, art and customer support jobs have been rendered obsolete in the past 3 years by generative AI which is "good enough" and getting better exponentially fast. the software industry is starting on this trend as well.

in the end, unions won't matter when the need for jobs disappears.

I agree unionizing is not a long term solution to automation replacing human labor. UBI is the most peaceful solution. Everyone shares in the profits and leisure it brings. Otherwise who will be the customers for the products? They can go the extermination route, but I don't see the profits in that either. No point in human warehousing and using us for slave labor if the bots can do it for less than it costs to keep us alive and incarcerated.

 

[kage69]

Automation and robotics do indeed change the dynamic. I often hear it cited as a result of humans needing food, sleep, breaks, vacations, healthcare, etc. And I get that.

Just as long as when that company says goodbye to human labor, it also says goodbye to subsidies, tax breaks, loopholes and bailouts. If you largely say no to human labor then you should be largely forbidden to be assisted and protected by anything funded by human labor or the taxes it supports.

"Nuture a robotic workforce that will support an elite that forbids UBI? Uh, go fuck yourself?"

 

[MrSquished]

i don't see UBI ever getting passed, at least in the US. my guess is over %20 unemployment by 2050 and a trend of returning to more prominent stratification of society like it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

it's why i'm saving as much money as possible and working as long as i can. "old money" is probably going to be vital to a good life so i'm trying to save and invest as much as possible now.

a lot of white-collar writing, art and customer support jobs have been rendered obsolete in the past 3 years by generative AI which is "good enough" and getting better exponentially fast. the software industry is starting on this trend as well.

in the end, unions won't matter when the need for jobs disappears.

You can either get busy living, or get busy dying.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

"Nuture a robotic workforce that will support an elite that forbids UBI? Uh, go fuck yourself?"

Precisely. I don't think the powerful would be content ruling over robots either. Got to have us other humans to adore and applaud you as captains of industry and saviors of mankind. Seems like the choice between WALL-E and Terminator would not be that difficult collectively. I am certain there are a few psychos that'd favor exterminating us with drones or something, but can't see that getting any traction. Pacifying us is the logical solution. Probably the most cost effective too. Trying to enslave or exterminate 100s of millions of humans will require time, resources, and effort that fails the ROI calculations.

 

[jmagg]

Strikers are close by, ill bring them some doughnuts. Gonna be fkin cold on these dudes the next few days.

 

[brianmanahan]

You can either get busy living, or get busy dying.

option 3 - get busy working a full time job and a side job, saving %80 of my income and living like a broke 22 year old until i'm 70

then giving all the money to the nieces and nephews and their kids when i die

that way they might have a better chance of avoiding the almost inevitable dystopian suckage that the late 21st century is destined for

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Automation and robotics do indeed change the dynamic. I often hear it cited as a result of humans needing food, sleep, breaks, vacations, healthcare, etc. And I get that.

Just as long as when that company says goodbye to human labor, it also says goodbye to subsidies, tax breaks, loopholes and bailouts. If you largely say no to human labor then you should be largely forbidden to be assisted and protected by anything funded by human labor or the taxes it supports.

"Nuture a robotic workforce that will support an elite that forbids UBI? Uh, go fuck yourself?"

You're basically expecting self-regulation in the peoples' interests from the oligarchs who own the government. Fat chance. American oligarchs can't even stand the New Deal which was the only thing that saved them from a communist revolution, so no way in hell we'll ever see them support a UBI. There is only one way this can end.