What's funny is even if you hate unions, surely the demographics who frequent HN at least has a solid grasp of the capital investments and R&D costs necessary to "replace them with robots" - We are talking about delivery station roles here. You gotta build something that, amortized, can do it for less than $500/day in a climate where Wall Street is putting pressure on tech stocks to control costs. Have at it.
We heard this same argument about automation in food service. Remember when Miso/Flippy was going to put all those $20/hour fast food workers out on the street? Turns out hiking prices was way easier.
> We heard this same argument about automation in food service.
Have you been to a fast food joint lately? Even at peak traffic they have maybe three people working when they used to have 7-10. Now you walk in and you have to order from the kiosk, which is literally the iPhone app on a vertical touch screen. You don't even talk to a human until they hand you the food.
Ordering from a machine actually makes sense, and, crucially, is easy to implement.
Replacing the actual burger-fliping workers, or order-assembling workers is much harder. An adequate robot, even if built with today's technologies, will likely never pay for itself.
this doesn't happen with a literal human flipping burgers replaced with a robot flipping burgers. It's complex drinks made with a button push instead of mixed by hand, more of the delivery chain pushed to the left of the restaurant, like Tim Horton's making all the donuts in factories and "finishing" them in store instead of hiring bakers, shifting traffic to drive through, and gig-delivered take away. Having customers order and queue up, etc. There are way less employees and they are only doing the "hard" work, massively parallelized.
That might be what you see but during your rush shifts you're looking at 10+ at places like McDonalds with 6-7 during less busy shifts and those 6-7 people are busting their asses. Churn has also jumped way-up post-COVID. A bunch of once-reliable food service workers moved up the labor value chain and left the industry and this has left the F&B industry with some pretty major staffing problems.
Fast food - like McDonalds - have followed through with this. They now have a single human register and much smaller kitchens, and 1/2 their business is take out. It's not all automation; a lot of it is factory prep and shifting the work on to customers & gig workers.
That's fine, this is the natural and expected response to labor getting more expensive. The bad outcome is when government steps in to artificially push wages down.
Almost none of it is automation. McDonalds invested in a fully automated fry machine but they basically don't get deployed because thanks to COVID "labor shortages", they all figured out a much better strategy:
Just have fewer employees and make them do more work. It doesn't matter how much people bitch about wait times and product quality on twitter, they still buy. Americans love to bitch about things on the internet, but they still wait in the drive through line for tens of minutes for "fast food" that is demonstrably worse than it was five years ago.
Americans have comprehensively demonstrated that they are unwilling or unable to just, not fucking buy stuff. Despite all the rhetoric about the economy suffering before the election, even here on HN (which coincidentally disappeared the day after the election, how about that...) we are seeing record breaking holiday consumer spending. It's fucking insane how willing Americans are to just throw money at companies that are outright hostile to them. I cannot fathom the unwillingness to not buy stuff that the average American has.
Quality, service, value, all of it will continue to degrade until US consumers finally figure out that you have an OPTION to, you know, not buy worthless trash. When PepsiCo basically doubled their prices in the past couple years, for products that are literally colored water and automatically cooked potato chips, which had near zero increase in cost of inputs, PepsiCo called it "inflation". In France, the news ran articles about clear price gouging by PepsiCo. In the US, Americans blamed it on Biden, somehow, including Americans who literally grow and sell the potatoes PepsiCo buys and therefore KNOW that PepsiCo did not pay more for those inputs, and KNOW that Biden has zero input on the prices anyone in the chain charge. It's insane to me how unwilling my fellow countrymen are to just consider they might be taken advantage of by business.
They correctly figured out customers could tolerate slower times for fast food because a significant chunk of their orders are delivery and pickup, so having it take 7 minutes instead of 3 won't really be noticed by the consumer.
(off topic) I was thinking today about how robots should throw packages to each other. It'd be faster and it's all the things robots are great at: hand-eye coordination, weight and holding angle, and group coordination.
> If the world doesn't need a particular task to be done by humans, then the task should be performed by robots.
The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Employment opportunities for the low skilled have all but gone down the drain - there is a reason why Walmart, Amazon and the other usual suspects love to set up shop in devastated communities: they have a captive audience that has no other realistic opportunities for gainful employment and thus is much, much less likely to resist when faced with exploitative and/or abusive conditions.
Warehouse work and logistics in general is the last employment opportunity many of these people have, and while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests), just standing by idling around while the markets enforce the shift is going to be a political disaster.
Everyone cheering for automation and AI always says "oh we'll just implement UBI" but none of them ever seem to actually be working to help make that happen; I doubt we will get a glimpse of that until things get bad enough for CEO-murder to be a much more common thing.
UBI at this point is entirely a political decision to be made by the legislators. How do you expect others to "actually be working to help make that happen"?
I worked for a Walmart store as a young man. It was well run, and they were adamant that you took your breaks throughout the day. I faced no exploitative or abusive conditions and was well paid.
This is the same experience a friend of mine had working for Walmart for a couple years, until they moved earlier this year. I suspect each location is going to vary, though, just like any chain store.
Yeah, but manufacturing picked up a lot of the slack... until that went down the drain when China came, so Amazon et al picked up the slack, but now there is nothing left.
The US Navy is rebuilding to fight a war with China. There are jobs available in the shipyards, mostly unionized. It's tough work, probably harder and more dangerous than an Amazon warehouse.
>It's tough work, probably harder and more dangerous than an Amazon warehouse.
My buddy who is a union welder at a shipyard doesn't have to piss in a bottle to make his quota. His job is fucking fantastic, thanks to the union, and the hardest part of it is navigating controls around what the navy allows civvies to touch.
It's predominantly a lot of professional work by tradies, NOT grunt work. Use the proper PPE and you probably won't even have any lasting injuries or bodily damage. Take your time and follow the rules and you won't even be the cause of death for a hundred sailors like with the Thresher.
>> the hardest part of it is navigating controls around what the navy allows civvies to touch.
Well, that and using the proper PPE so that you probably won't even have any lasting injuries or bodily damage and taking your time/following the rules so that you probably won't even be the cause of death for a hundred sailors or coworkers.
Compare that to putting the wrong shipping label on the package. I'd rather piss in a bottle than be a welder, to be honest.
The US Navy, like all parts of the DOD, knows that the best way to build support for any weapons system is to have part of it manufactured in a Congressman's district. The most unsinkable projects are built, little by little, in 435 districts.
So, yes, the shipyards need to be on the coast. But much of the material on the inside of the ship may be built elsewhere.
>while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests)
While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.
> While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.
Agreed. But in general, the efficiency gains got redistributed to the people - usually, by (bloody) revolutions and strikes.
Across the Western world, we haven't seen any meaningful progress in that redistribution in a fucking century - the 40 hour work week got introduced around 1926 [1]. Instead, all we got was that women now get exploited by employment providers as well, so the pool of available labor power virtually doubled, driving down wages while over the last few decades housing costs exploded and the demand for labor went down, further driving down wages. It remains open if the rise of pacifism and "non-violent action" in general that has happened in parallel in the same timeframe was coincidence, causation or consequence.
We are in for a wild ride over the next years. Luigi will not be the last one of his kind, I think this was just the start...
Is that really the case? So far all the examples I've seen were closer to "change X caused people to shift to another type of job, or to a new area opened up by X". Very recently some creative work has been impacted by LLMs, but apart from that, are there real stats on the intellectual work being taken over?
Amazon warehouse work pays almost $20/hour where I live, which is well above the federal minimum wage and more than almost every other company in the area for this type of work. This is a living wage.
"should be replaced with robots"
I also think it's funny we are having this discussion. When songwriters and other creators were complaining about piracy in the 2000s, the general response from the tech community was that this was the future and you didn't deserve to earn a living.
$20/hr still isn't much money and you can only survive, note I'm not saying thrive here, on that amount in the poor areas in America.
There are very few jobs that actually pay well in America nowadays, and the ones that do tend to be congregated in few geographical areas and require extensive schooling.
The vast majority of Americans deserve more money.
Also check your priors, there are many musicians that do not complain about piracy and even partake in it (see Trent Reznor being part of oink/what, or Dead Kennedys encouraging people to record music on their tapes). I know many musicians that would upload their music on private trackers, regardless of what their label wanted or said.
> The vast majority of Americans deserve more money.
This is pedantic but I strongly dislike when people say anyone deserves anything.
I support an equitable system that allows citizens to move up in economic class (which we don't currently have) but I don't subscribe to the idea that everyone inherently deserves anything.
That puts you at odds with the tradition of natural rights. The Declaration of Independence says everyone deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Declaration of Independence doesn't actually say that. It says that everyone is endowed with certain unalienable rights including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness whether they deserve it or not. Just like people have the right to free speech or a jury trial in front of their peers, whether they deserve it or not.
The distinction is important because whether someone deserves something is a normative statement while having the right is a descriptive statement.
What you deserve because of your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is up for debate.
its "have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", not "deserves" which is entirely different. Go to your boss and tell them you deserve a pay raise.
No, I don't think so. You specifically rejected the idea that everyone inherently deserves anything. Objectivists would agree, but I don't think Ayn Rand would have been popular with Jefferson.
Perhaps you could clarify - what do you mean by "everyone", and what do you mean by "anything?" Does everyone deserve UBI? Do workers deserve disposable income? Do the homeless deserve housing? Healthcare? Food? An attorney, if arrested? Do children deserve college? High school? Primary school? Orphanages?
You can't say that nobody inherently deserves anything, then say I'm intellectually dishonest when I take you at your word.
"There are very few jobs that actually pay well in America nowadays, and the ones that do tend to be congregated in few geographical areas and require extensive schooling"
There are plenty of blue collar jobs that don't require schooling and can make a comfortable living. If you are talking about a job anyone with a pulse can get? This won't ever pay well.
"I know many musicians that would upload their music on private trackers, regardless of what their label wanted or said."
All the indy artists I knew ended up having to get out of the business because they couldn't sell their music anymore (people would just download it and expect it for free) and making money from live performances are mostly controlled by large corporations.
Piracy only hurt independent artists and forced all of them with talent to sign with large labels to make a decent living.
Again, with piracy, you want no protection for the artist (and even justify why taking their music, without asking, is fine). Yet, you want the unions to collude with the government to force corporations to halt all technological advances, so workers don't lose their jobs.
Can you please name a single city in the US where you can easily live on $20/hr that isn't stricken with massive poverty?
I find it insulting that you don't think Americans, especially those that work, don't deserve dignity through their labor in having a meaningful life. Especially when they work for one of the richest companies in the world.
A livable wage is a wage a husband can make to raise a family, including housing, food, transportation, schooling, etc.
$20/hr is about $40k/yr. Using 30% towards housing, that means they can only denote $12/yr to housing, or $1k/month. At current interest rates, that translates to a $150,000 house.
What can you get for $150? There's nothing in any area I've looked that was actually habitable ever since the government's COVID debacle.
I think your standard for a living wage is way, way too low. We should be able to comfortably afford food, housing, and medical care at minimum - both without spending most of your paycheck, to be able to afford it during periods of joblessness, and with a retirement at a reasonably young age. You cannot do this at $20/hour, and the only reason this isn't the normal standard is incredible greed and capitalism.
I don't think it's worth considering the comparison.
But sure, maybe working at a distribution center pays well enough where you're located. Likely that's not the case where these strikes are happening. It's expensive out there.
Also, what you wrote gives the impression of "I've got mine already so I don't care what happens to you."
Everyone deserves the opportunity to earn a livable income, but not all jobs can or should be paying a "living wage." Some jobs by their nature are part time and some people only want to work part time.
That doesn’t seem like a contradiction. Full time jobs should offer livable wages, part time could offer less. However, you can’t do some shenanigans like force workers to be part time by making them work less than 40 hours a week just so they don’t get classified as full time.
What is a livable wage? That differs if someone is living with their parents, or if they have 3 kids and are living alone and the sole earner in the family.
My unscientific view is a person working 40 hours a week should at least be able to afford a modest home, fresh food and other ordinary expenses. If a job pays less than that and needs to be topped up by some kind of public assistance then we should think of that as a subsidy to the business rather than welfare to the employee.
There’s many facets to the eco only tho. Why blame Amazon for not paying a livable wage instead of blaming the government and NIMBYs for shitty planning and not building enough housing? If housing and healthcare cost 1/3 of what it does today wouldn’t this be more of a living wage?
Negative. All jobs should be paying liveable wages. One off type of jobs for 'this and that' sure, but showing up every day and expectation for deliverables or being on time? Absolutely, pay a liveable wage. Too many Ferrari, BMW, new speed boat from the PPP loans greed to show that employees mean nothing. All jobs deserve liveable wages. We should be advocating for a more peaceful society.
Some large number of them have been "agitated". You can't acknowledge that propaganda exists which is capable of manipulating people into doing things they wouldn't do on their own (or that they shouldn't do), and then say that the left does not create that sort of propaganda.
They're striking not for better wages, but so that some local or state politician wins an election in 2026.
Yeah, they're being agitated alright... by horrible working conditions, declining real wages, and the people who apologize for it and pretend they're all bots or something rather than real people with real interests that are every bit as deserving of respect as some corpo's bottom line.
Anyone thinking this is a one time thing and is going to blow over hasn't been paying attention.
To start with, any definition that ends with a constant number is wrong. The living wage in an area depends on the cost of living in that area. I don't have that number on hand, but I expect it to be included in any discussion of what people should get payed.
After that, we need to ask how much profit a person should be allowed to make on their labor.
Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start. Then some left over on top after essentials so you aren't living paycheck to paycheck.
So you acknowledge that the job should be done but the people doing it deserve to live in squalor even though they work a full time job. Just for corporate profit and your convenience.
Just so you know, all things I listed are things most people in Western Europe already have. Including employees of Amazon and McDonald's.
Here's my perspective. Not exactly related, but I hope you understand how I think:
If I am a small shipping company, and all I need is someone to wrap boxes and store them, and the load isn't much, then should I be paying them full time for the job? Heck, should I pay them a living wage? No. I pay them the value of the job.
Obviously, we need a certain minimum wage because nobody deserves to get scammed and make 10 cents a day, but at the same time, this push for all these benefits isn't realistic. I wish it was, but it isn't.
Obviously, my example is different from Amazon, but this is more a business owner perspective.
I don't know, but I think it is unfair to put all responsibility onto the business owner. In theory, a job is an agreement where you work for someone, and they pay you. Certain benefits may be required depending on circumstances, but making companies provide so many benefits is not a fair option.
Keep in mind, I'm not opposed to companies providing benefits, but I think regulating this would create more trouble than good.
We let businesses exist for one reason, so people can actually live (and I say let, because it is society - that is, its individuals - that has a put a system in place whereby such entities can exist and do what they do). If a job doesn't pay enough for that, the business isn't worth keeping around from the society's point of view. Workers should be paid decently, no matter what — profits or no profits. If an industry or company can't afford to pay fair wages, it’s not worth having, plain and simple.
On top of fair pay, companies owe their employees more. Businesses don't exist in a vacuum—they're tools we use to make life better for everyone. The entire economy is just a system we built to serve people, not the other way around.
Right now, companies often act like mini-dictatorships, where the tradeoff — giving up freedoms in exchange for money — ends up hurting society even if it props up the economy.
In short: if a company isn't contributing positively, it's failing at its purpose and should either disappear, or forced to fulfill its role.
My ex wanted to go work at a veterinarian's office. Several in the area had openings, but one significant caveat:
Each was offering only part-time hours (16-24h) but required "full-time availability".
That is not an fair exchange of effort.
Small business owners all too often (as much as they are also a valuable part of the community) think that they are entitled to far too much of their employees, and seem to think they have some inherent right to not just their business, but to their desired profit margins.
One local business here closed recently with this self-centered, presumptuous and tone-deaf message:
> It is so sad to see that our dream with all its potential has collapsed because the community was not willing to support it.
I understand your frustration with these unfair offers, and I am not supporting that. In your case, you make an unfair generalization of small business owners and base your explanation of it.
In theory, if one employer offers a job with great benefits, they will win over the employer with not as many benefits. Clearly, that wasn't happening in your example.
Unless you're the only one selling a product that people need and want to buy you're going to be undercut by your competitors that aren't paying for these things either as that is how it works in America. Quite expected when there's no worker shortage so companies have to compete for workers, but that's not the kind of competition capitalists want.
In most of Europe workers wouldn't have to worry about any of that, everyone enjoys the basic package. So your competitors wouldn't be able to undercut you on price by not providing healthcare and thus force you to do the same.
Is it the best system for startups, corporate profits and the stock market? Obviously not but people are happier.
Thank you for your response. I hope I'm not misunderstanding here, but enlighten me if I am.
I wish all the benefits are possible, but it isn't feasible because different countries function differently, and I think your point explains it much better than I could have explained it.
America and Europe are different places, with different economies and as a result have different luxuries they can afford and costs they must bear. This means it is easier to offer benefits in Europe than America.
> Healthcare, decent sized apartment, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free or easily affordable pre school, overtime pay, decent schools and free college, is a good start.
This is literally the (by-law) standard of living for people with full time jobs with employment contracts[1] where I grew in Italy... that's not Silicon Valley, but one part of Italy that has been depressed for many years. (It's also the second top region in Italy by life expectation, that's between the 6th and 7th place in the world ranking by country) So much that in this very town Amazon is building a new warehouse that opens next year.
[1] Granted, permanent positions are rare; but permanent or temporary positions do offer this stuff by law. Fake contracts (partita IVA) and the gig economy exists there too.
Free college almost... public universities tuition fees are 500-4000 EUR per year, depending on the location and prestige.
I don't think it's a question of who deserves what. They deserve a living wage. The kids deserve to get their presents on time. I deserve a pony. The question is how whether to see it as a smart tactical choice to get that they "deserve" or a cynical move to strike when they get maximum publicity and do maximum damage.
You're going to have a bad time if you plan your strike at the most opportune time for your company.
Whether or not striking is good for society is a separate discussion, but striking when you have the most leverage over your company makes the most sense for those striking to get what they want.
Just to add to this, the point of laborers striking is to show the company the value of their labor. If laborers not laboring means profiteers not profiting, it's good for the laborers' negotiating power because the profiteers really want to profit.
I would apply the term "cynical" to the decisions made by Amazon's management which create the working conditions that compel their workers to strike, while providing top 1% compensation to themselves.
These people are just doing what they have to do to survive. If anything, going on strike a truly desparate move. Insinuating that they are childishing in doing so (as if they feel they "deserve a pony") on the other hand, seems simply -- snide.
All the best to the union, I sincerely hope they meet your demands.