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Jeff Bezos wants to end standard raises and gut severance at the Washington Post

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
So he's making the Post like most other companies these days.

Sad.. workers have lost almost every gain they made in the last 50 years.
 
Since taking over, the fortunes of the WP have improved dramatically. Sales and revenue are up, readership, content output, investments in their tech and processes, even numbers of reporters has increased which is pretty much unheard of in this day and age. I dunno if this change will actually result in people getting paid more or less, but I do know that this team clearly knows how to run a newspaper. I'm sure there are lots of people here on GAF who are also very good at running newspapers, so I guess we'll have to just wait and see who is right.

So you're saying you have no idea what you're talking about?
 

JABEE

Member
Watch as various American cities give Bezos millions and let him do whatever he wants. We should all woo him for he is a great "job creator."

The east coast of the United States is jonesing to give Amazon corporate welfare.
 
he'll have an AI writing news stories by the end of the decade

not even sure if I'm joking

If he doesnt want to pay people now

Whats his plan for when the UBI debate heats up?


I feel like these rich fuckers are just waiting until dystopia sets in and they are lawfully able to force the rest of us to just die off
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Bezos even has the belief that philanthropy doesn't help. It's why Amazon doesn't donate to anything, whether it be the local community or a national/international charity.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-a-virtual-no-show-in-hometown-philanthropy/

In a 2010 interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Bezos expressed doubt that philanthropy was the best way to solve social problems.

”I'm convinced that in many cases, for-profit models improve the world more than philanthropy models, if they can be made to work."

He noted that Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle, might be seen as a low-cost, efficient way to distribute books worldwide to the underserved.

In many ways, Amazon's culture is shaped by Bezos' beliefs and background.
 

Kremzeek

Member
ugh Amazon is a horrible company that is destructive to the economy.

i used to like them way back when but the more i heard about their work culture and how they don't value their employees AT ALL it really upsets me.
 
This is one of the leading news papers in the world and their 401K match is 1%?!

I’m sure Amazon is matching more than that

Yeah, this is what shocked me the most. That is a pathetic match, they obviously don't want to offer it at all but do so they can advertise '401k match' to prospective new employees.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
For those asking for comparisons to Amazon's own tech workers 401k's.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-24/amazon-s-401-k-plan-is-pretty-brutal-too-idpw28hz
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-401k-plan-gets-slammed-too-2015-8

Amazon doesn't offer its employees a terribly good 401(k) retirement savings plan, according to an analysis of the plan by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg even calls the plan "pretty brutal."

In any case, Amazon continues to be under scrutiny as an employer. With that in mind, Bloomberg delved into the company's 401(k) retirement savings plan and found it greatly lacking in a few ways.

For one, Amazon didn't offer much in terms of matching contributions: It matched half of employees' contributions up to 4% of their total pay (so, Amazon chipped in no more than 2% of their total paycheck).


That low match landed Amazon in last place in Bloomberg's recent ranking of the 401(k) plans of the top 50 companies in the S&P 500. In contrast, Oracle matched half of up to 6%, as did Microsoft. Facebook matched half of up to 7% and Google matched 100% of up to $3,000.

One more concern: Amazon's match is not in cash but is in Amazon stock, reports Bloomberg. That's something most big companies don't do anymore, given up in the wake of Enron when workers' retirement savings, heavily invested in Enron stock, vanished when the company went bankrupt.

On a positive note, employees can immediately reallocate their retirement money out of Amazon stock.
 
But that fast delivery though....

I remember that thread where someone said they want Amazon to own everything so that their lives can be super easy. Well this is what part of it would look like for everyone else.

A lot of people have that viewpoint.

Whenever there's news of retail's decline there's dozens of replies about how they only use Amazon and wouldn't think to use any the else and it's there fault for not offering the same services as Amazon. It's often "Amazon deserves to do everything".
 
Watch as various American cities give Bezos millions and let him do whatever he wants. We should all woo him for he is a great "job creator."

The east coast of the United States is jonesing to give Amazon corporate welfare.

Cities all over the country are whoring themselves out to Bezos. Bloomberg published an article today calling them out for how pathetic corporate ball-washing has become.
 

flyover

Member
ugh Amazon is a horrible company that is destructive to the economy.

Outside the scope of electoral politics, I've thought that the best thing that could happen to this country in the short/medium term would be the unionization of every Amazon worker at every level. But if the Post's union gets crushed here, I'm not even sure how much that would help, anymore. (It would still help some, though.)
 

Arcteryx

Member
Honestly, I'm fine with ending the raises they've had. That shit is barely cost of living anyways.

The only TRUE raises these days are merit based or holding another job offer over their head.
 

Foffy

Banned
Amazon pulling that whole Uber thing where their employees really are seen as temporary aspects of labor production until technology comes in.

I totally see them wanting to automate warehousing, distribution, delivery, and even retail chains. Why would they not want to eventually replace writers, too?

Like, how clear does it have to get we're rigging this shit to be a straight up catastrophe because the response measures will likely come too late, as if we realize a solution is needed in an "oh, oops" type of moment.

I would hope those reshaping the landscape take responsibility, but it seems they only care about money, so reshaping is all that matters.

What rubbish.
 

Fatalah

Member
e8opaEX.gif


To the moon!
 
Amazon pulling that whole Uber thing where their employees really are seen as temporary aspects of labor production until technology comes in.

I totally see them wanting to automate warehousing, distribution, delivery, and even retail chains. Why would they not want to eventually replace writers, too?

Like, how clear does it have to get we're rigging this shit to be a straight up catastrophe because the response measures will likely come too late, as if we realize a solution is needed in an "oh, oops" type of moment.

I would hope those reshaping the landscape take responsibility, but it seems they only care about money, so reshaping is all that matters.

What rubbish.

America in economic ruin is an existential threat to the entire world. Facism is already popular here, if we go much further in the direction of increasing precarity things are going to get out of control quickly.
 

bionic77

Member
b-b-but Technocrats will save us!
People believed this?

Please at least tell me that no one believes this any longer.

The internet and computers are basically steroids for capitalism. Extremely great for the people that benefit but if you don't have the desired traits then it is a huge negative. Hopefully society and governments can find the right solutions moving forward (i.e. not fascism no matter how appealing it may sound at first).
 

Foffy

Banned
America in economic ruin is an existential threat to the entire world. Facism is already popular here, if we go much further in the direction of increasimg precarity things are going to get out of control quickly.

Indeed. The problems of precarity shouldn't be any clearer seeing as populism nearly hijacked the entire political system in last year's election. Populism clearly comes from people failing to thrive in a dying social game, and we had warnings of this at the start of the decade. Noam Chomsky and Guy Standing perfectly called it.
 
Indeed. The problems of precarity shouldn't be any clearer seeing as populism nearly hijacked the entire political system in last year's election. Populism clearly comes from people failing to thrive in a dying social game, and we had warnings of this at the start of the decade. Noam Chomsky and Guy Standing perfectly called it.

I think progressives are going to get one more shot at preventing disaster. If we don't make good and do something to lower medical costs, increase housing supply, and lower educational costs/debt I'm not sure we will be able to prevent the rise of someone worse than Trump.
 

Amory

Member
Watch as various American cities give Bezos millions and let him do whatever he wants. We should all woo him for he is a great "job creator."

The east coast of the United States is jonesing to give Amazon corporate welfare.
Amazon will be an absolutely massive get for whatever city they choose. Can't blame cities for going all out to try to lure them
 

wandering

Banned
People believed this?

Please at least tell me that no one believes this any longer.

The internet and computers are basically steroids for capitalism. Extremely great for the people that benefit but if you don't have the desired traits then it is a huge negative. Hopefully society and governments can find the right solutions moving forward (i.e. not fascism no matter how appealing it may sound at first).

Of course they believed it, look how people talked about Elon Musk
 

bigedole

Member
Most of you guys are being ridiculous. This daily newspaper business isn't bringing any owners or media outlets buckets of cash. If the people there aren't happy with his terms, they can find an outlet that will offer better ones. If there aren't better ones, than that job must not be very valuable to the media business. Call it heartless or simply a byproduct of "greedy capitalism" but there is no better mechanism for shepherding people into the most productive and useful forms of employment.

I love how so many people are deriding the 1% matching 401k contributions when that's better than the industry standard of 0 for their career field.
 

Foffy

Banned
I think progressives are going to get one more shot at preventing disaster. If we don't make good and do something to lower medical costs, increase housing supply, and lower educational costs/debt I'm not sure we will be able to prevent the rise of someone worse than Trump.

Again, I agree. I am reminded of the documentary Before the Bridge which I saw earlier this week as it hits a lot of the big themes coming ahead.

When Barack Obama warned the Democratic Party to smarten up about problems, I thought we can handle a "slow burn" problem, even if the suffering was unjustifiable from humanistic views. But this was before we got Trump.

Slow burns are no longer acceptable, as we can easily fall into a climate where we simply choose to detonate the whole thing to the ground. If people feel this society is actively working against them -- and one has a mountain of reasons to believe this -- how many are quick to press the "eh, fuck it" button? Wasn't Trump literally this button? And of course, he got in because he has a type of charisma that can deflect things that would kill other candidates. That's a highlight of how bad things are for people, because while we can all agree he got help from another country's government, he was simultaneously the amalgamation of everything wrong of this country in the last 30 years but also the image of what we've made successes and "the guys at the top" to seem like.

What if for you and I, the concept of the GOP as enemies of reason and reality isn't really of Reagan's "children," in that our enemy today normalized the views of a senile person who created deep chaos, but one of Trump's "children?" Can this country even survive? We're barely keeping on due to the cancerous ideas, ideals, and memes of Reagan, and Trump has created an entire new platform for a new generation.

What in the world do we have to even oppose this?
 

jchap

Member
News papers don't make money like they used to. They need to find new ways to monetize their content or such action is inevitable. Instead of throwing around capitalist pig jabs subscribe if you feel the WP is something valuable and worth keeping around.
 
Most of you guys are being ridiculous. This daily newspaper business isn't bringing any owners or media outlets buckets of cash. If the people there aren't happy with his terms, they can find an outlet that will offer better ones. If there aren't better ones, than that job must not be very valuable to the media business. Call it heartless or simply a byproduct of "greedy capitalism" but there is no better mechanism for shepherding people into the most productive and useful forms of employment.

I love how so many people are deriding the 1% matching 401k contributions when that's better than the industry standard of 0 for their career field.

There are countless tasks and jobs out there that are valuable to society that aren't being done or offered because they aren't profitable.

Insuring old people is not profitable, that's why the government had to step in with Medicare. Exploratory research also isn't profitable, that's why the government funds it.

It's a sign of our failure as a culture that responsible media organizations are failing en masse. Just because the money isn't there doesn't mean that a job isn't valuable or worth doing. Capitalism is only as good as the people pulling the levers. And right now the majority of people doing that are rotten to the core.
 
Most of you guys are being ridiculous. This daily newspaper business isn't bringing any owners or media outlets buckets of cash. If the people there aren't happy with his terms, they can find an outlet that will offer better ones. If there aren't better ones, than that job must not be very valuable to the media business. Call it heartless or simply a byproduct of "greedy capitalism" but there is no better mechanism for shepherding people into the most productive and useful forms of employment.

I love how so many people are deriding the 1% matching 401k contributions when that's better than the industry standard of 0 for their career field.
Um.
 

dreams

Member
This sucks.

Anyone seriously considering dropping Amazon? It's hard, right?

I will 100% admit that I am addicted to Amazon, considering I live in the butthole of the midwest and NOTHING ships in 2 days for me besides them. Not to mention they're kind of one of the only places that even sells stuff for me to get here in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, I'm moving to another country, so I will be forced to quit them cold turkey anyway. But if I wasn't, it would be really hard. There's just nothing here that offers that kind of service and abundance of choice.
 

Locke562

Member
Amazon pulling that whole Uber thing where their employees really are seen as temporary aspects of labor production until technology comes in.

I totally see them wanting to automate warehousing, distribution, delivery, and even retail chains. Why would they not want to eventually replace writers, too?

Like, how clear does it have to get we're rigging this shit to be a straight up catastrophe because the response measures will likely come too late, as if we realize a solution is needed in an "oh, oops" type of moment.

I would hope those reshaping the landscape take responsibility, but it seems they only care about money, so reshaping is all that matters.

What rubbish.

Yeah, we’re heading toward some kind of Fahrenheit 451, Player Piano, Brave New World mega corporate cyberpunk type future. Here we go.
 

JABEE

Member
News papers don't make money like they used to. They need to find new ways to monetize their content or such action is inevitable. Instead of throwing around capitalist pig jabs subscribe if you feel the WP is something valuable and worth keeping around.

Subscribe so Bezos can buy more power in this country to protect his various monopolies.
 
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