The Labor Report

[K-Dog]

Amazon on strike.  Will anyone care?

[RE]

Amazon on strike.  Will anyone care?

Depends how long it goes.  Lotsa small biz depends on Amazon to ship them their merchandise.  In a week or so inventory will be drained and it should start affecting people directly.  When they can't get their toys, they'll pay some attention.

RE

[K-Dog]

A strike at one distribution center will not matter.  Software will send orders to other distribution centers and the shutdown will hardly be noticed.

There are several hundred distribution centers.  I found a list.  It is long enough that there could be over a thousand.

I picked one at random and looked at it on a map.



1656 Old Greensboro Rd, Kernersville, NC

That one alone can eat the loss caused by the granola eaters in NY walking around with signs.  Jeff Bezos will wait them out.

We live in the society of the spectacle.  Freedom is an illusion.

[RE]

I wasn't aware it was only 1 DC.  I thought it was all of them.  Unless they have solidarity and all go out together, it's a waste of time.

RE

[K-Dog]

I wasn't aware it was only 1 DC.  I thought it was all of them.  Unless they have solidarity and all go out together, it's a waste of time.

RE

I saw coverage of the Amazon strike today and called in to the show which gave an interview with a striker.  The situation there was described.  The show was two hours long and I saved the part where I called in to the show.

Here it is.

[K-Dog]

The warehouse is the size of multiple football fields.  Amazon has refused to recognize the union which was voted in two years ago.

Listen to the awful truth. I am going to boycott Amazon as best I can.

There was time for the man to go to space, but no time to recognize a union.  Time to take, but no time to give.

[K-Dog]

Oh yeah, I was contract at Microsoft.  I was treated like shit.  I worked next to H1-Bs and was treated like them.

Been there done that.  At Microsoft your raw rate was at times fabulous.  Trouble is contract rates are short term and laying people off four times a year to hire them back on a new project weeks later was part of the game.  Commonly done to the American contract engineers.  It was their way to control wages.  Knock you down.  When 2008 hit weeks off became months off.  The end result I was glad to leave Microsoft behind.  H1-B had everything to do with it.

As things are nobody cared then and nobody really cares now.  The band plays on.

[K-Dog]

Oh yeah, I was contract at Microsoft.  I was treated like shit.  I worked next to H1-Bs and was treated like them.

I made the most per hour that I ever did at Microsoft.  But I did not know that my contract times would be manipulated so craftily that working contract jobs at Microsoft would be a waste of my time. My years working contract jobs at Microsoft would result in work years that do not even count on my SS statement in determining my SS check.  2007 - 2011.  I have other older years which adjusted for inflation bump my Microsoft years off of my 35 year SS work history list. 

Thanks to my erratic earnings record, my current part time job has already replaced one of my lower earning years and SS upped my payment $18 a month because of it.  The years being bumped have large inflation adjustments, and are old.  SS takes the highest 35 years and  my years 31-35 are low enough so that after adjustment for inflation these years remain in the ball park of what I earn with my part time job, and can be replaced if I earn more now.  I should see another $18 a month or something like that in about a year because of last years work.  The lowest year currently is 24K and some change and last year my job paid at least $27K.

With normal inflation I will be replacing SS years in my list as long as I work.  I will earn more every year, though the difference will soon enough be measured in pennies.

Now I am doing better at half the pay  than ever did at Microsoft.  The Microsoft hire and fire cycle saves Microsoft a lot of money, and lets Microsoft have a reputation they do not deserve since hourly rates look so good.  I am only part time at a McJob, but I work year round and am not laid off between the times our 18 wheeled trucks arrive like I would be at Microsoft if I were doing the same thing there.

People do not understands the devastation a revolving door employment policy does to workers,  And to people not paid benefits.  Something else a high hourly rate can hide. 

Am I bitter at Microsoft?  The answer is in a very qualified absolutely.  The years I worked for Bills ex-partner Paul Allen after Microsoft are my highest earning years, and as my SS check is healthy,  my anger is academic.  Bill would have had me eating dog food in my retirement.  Instead I eat better than most dogs.

Neener neener.

The video neglects to mention how years are adjusted for inflation and the retiring at 62 info is off topic.

*  If Microsoft hires you for three contracts in a year and you are laid off between contracts three times in a year for an average of six weeks each time, pay must be adjusted for equity. 52 * rate1 = (52 - (3 * 6)) * rate2.  Rate2 over rate1 is a 1.5294  ratio.

Meaning a $40 an hour an hour job at a regular employer would require a contract rate of $61 for parity given this layoff scenario.

** Actually workers do a little better if they can get some unemployment when they are laid off.  Microsoft has corporate welfare from the state of Washington.  Regular people end up subsidizing part of the layoff cycle.

*** The relevance of all this is that H1Bs are used in a labor market that allows employers to punch down rates and employment security to benefit the employer.  This labor market is created by the employer and is an artificial construct.

**** I know exactly what Musk is up to.