It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91DoiansHqk

67•whosgotch•57m ago

Comments

pandanube•37m ago

This guy cant stop winning, can we clone him and get one for each state?

slackfan•35m ago

Absolutely, we are SO looking forward to replaying 1918-1922 in Post-imperial Russia.

jasonlotito•33m ago

The irony.

runako•33m ago

Is that because he's filling potholes, or because rich NYC residents are paying slightly less in tax than they did in 1994?

toomuchtodo•27m ago

If this is what Post imperial Russia looked like, sign me up comrade. We tried to hyper individualistic capitalism, and that failed unless your the very top of wealth pyramid. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

I’m supposed to be afraid of socialists but not authoritarian technofeudalism paperclip maximizers? If both scenarios are “you’ll own nothing an be happy,” I’ll take the system where someone actually tries to make their constituents happy.

You can’t scare people who realize we’re already at rock bottom. People who are delusional and think they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires and billionaires are always a lost cause, they are in a cult or belief system similar to a religion.

slackfan•19m ago

Modern communists are such reactionaries that they can't even see the value in decimating the petite-bourgeoisie population. Sad.

toomuchtodo•18m ago

I cannot speak to communists, I currently align with democratic socialists and max out campaign contributions to those candidates. Some capitalism, but not too much, and a firm floor under everyone. I am wealthy because I was lucky. Existence is non consensual, no one asked to be here. One should not suffer through their existence because they were unlucky.

slackfan•13m ago

noted, comrade. Don't worry, your wealth will serve the working class future very well.

toomuchtodo•13m ago

I certainly hope so, it’s just a tool, and I can’t take it with me. Would you hoard a hammer or your toolbox? Or let anyone use it who needed it? Do the Amish hoard wealth?

Measure impact, outcomes, and improvements in quality of life. Numbers in a database or spreadsheet are none of those.

To die with zero and an overflowing funeral attendance is success. If you don’t want to be hated as a very wealthy person, super simple, give most of it away (efficiently!) and make lives better. Keep enough to be cozy (nice crib, don’t have to work, fancy trimmings), but not enough to be a villain.

We may see wealth and the purpose of life differently, totally cool. But these are my thoughts from ~half a century of existence.

levinb•2m ago

> To die with zero and an overflowing funeral attendance is success.

great comment. However, you could say that about alot of horrible people as well!

I live in a place where alot of those that claim the title 'Democratic Socialist' seem more drawn to 20th-century style identity politics rather than a philosophy of 'the world is complex and we need ethical and competent people to use the power of government to solve problems that markets don't solve', which is a way I might encapsulate my views.

Accepting the premise of my framing, how do you square the two?

noir_lord•8m ago

Well you have the Tsar surrounded by his court and a rich elite completely out of touch with what is happening to the average person in the US so you have similar conditions (not really though, panem et circenses will apply until it doesn't and there is a lot more bread yet plus some more UFC matches can be arranged in what was a rose garden so the circus is covered as well).

christkv•2m ago

Distractions from running the city I guess. The massive economic black hole they are facing is not something to put the focus on.

dylan604•9m ago

As someone from another state, it's amusing how the mayor of a city has more clout than governor of the state.

manphone•6m ago

Look at the mayor of London. Same shit, different city.

gruez•9m ago

Progressives love to point out how popular their candidates are but fail to realize they're in a filter bubble that doesn't reflect the wider electorate. They were jubilant when al-Sayed won, but betting market odds for democrats winning dropped as a result.

RGS1811•30m ago

Democracy depends on public education about policy needs, not just electoral fundraising and stupid campaign ads. This video is a brilliant piece of political rhetoric, because it says “here’s an issue you should care about”, gets a little technical in ways normal people can understand, and then says “hey we want to do something to fix this, please join us in this effort”.

It’s upbeat, it’s rational. It’s so good.

figmert•14m ago

I think if one thing Mamdani is great at, it's that he's a great marketer. His brand is just so much better than any candidate I've seen in the US. Heck even in the UK to be honest.

jvanderbot•12m ago

One issue that I have with many of these videos - what precisely is "this"? What issue is being addressed and what changes are proposed? It's entirely issue-adjacent slogans of "Amazon cheats, we will hurt them". And if I've learned anything from the most recent executive branch campaigns/elections, it's that vaguely defined "we'll get them" will get you elected but won't promise any meaningful changes other than power for the elected.

slicktux•28m ago

Honest question; it’s not Amazon that requires them to wear an Amazon vest but rather their contractor. Amazon may set the route but they don’t pay them to run the route. This should be interesting from a legal perspective.

figmert•13m ago

It's obviously Amazon that requires them to wear the vest. Just because the contractor they work for enforces it doesn't, doesn't mean it's not Amazon requiring it.

slicktux•4m ago

That’s a rather splenetic response. On paper their contractor requires them to run an Amazon route and wear Amazon logo. Therefore, it’s not Amazon. I’m asking honest question that any court law will ask; cynicism is not part of the scales in court but rather objectivity.

stackskipton•10m ago

Amazon may require the subcontractor wears the Amazon vest in contract with subcontractor. That's whole point, they appear to be Amazon employees in every way except for paycheck the employee receives and small lettering on the bottom of the car compared to big "AMAZON" lettering on the side.

This matters if they do something and you go to sue them. All of sudden, you find out it's tiny company with only 1Million in assets and crappy insurance after they crash into a bus and cause brain damage. (https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15983591/teenager-lif...)

gruez•

jtbayly•20m ago

But… what does it do?!

I’m all about holding Amazon to the same standards, but what precisely does this accomplish? The subcontracting delivery companies already have to follow the same laws as every other company, don’t they?

tptacek•14m ago

It requires Amazon to directly employ delivery drivers in New York City and sets up a licensing scheme for last-mile delivery.

stackskipton•14m ago

The act basically makes Amazon responsible for these subcontractors. BTW, they are not only ones who do this, UPS and Fedex have similar setups.

The problem here is Amazon farms out delivery to these companies, set impossible delivery standards that require these subcontractor employees to do things that break the law OR cause damage to their health. However, since Amazon is technically not employing them, they have no liability.

spongebobstoes•2m ago

isn't this the fault of the subcontractor for agreeing to the impossible?

gruez•1m ago

>set impossible delivery standards that require these subcontractor employees to do things that break the law OR cause damage to their health

Source? Is it actually physically "impossible", or simply a race to the bottom dynamic?

EugeneG

EugeneG•18m ago

Honest question: what are the actual concrete issues where Amazon is shirking responsibility they would have otherwise had? Was there a specific court case where Amazon didn't pay what it would have otherwise? A workplace injury that would have been covered but otherwise wasn't? If these exist, are they systemic - i.e., does it happen more often here than it does with UPS or FedEx delivery workers?

There are insinuations here, and a good video, but it would be good to have actual examples and then an actual demonstration of a pattern of harm, before we introduce new rules that are likely going to make deliveries more expensive.

I understand that a YouTube video isn't a policy document... and I don't expect it to have all of these things. But as a citizen, I do expect - that somewhere - there should be an actual policy document that outlines the facts.

philipallstar•9m ago

I think you're asking the wrong questions of someone like this. The point is to get power, to make sure you are well looked after. Give him more power to make your life better.

Xirdus•8m ago

The actual problem is not that Amazon breaks any rules, but that the rules are so soft that even Amazon doesn't break them. But explaining it to an average worker doesn't work. Blaming specific companies and specific billionaires for systemic problems works much better for building support - that's why the politician in the video does the latter.

EugeneG•6m ago

Ok but I expect more from my government than "here's youtube video; trust me bro - you're an average worker, you won't get it"

chii

novia•5m ago

Contractors get paid less and don't get the same benefits as a full Amazon employee. It makes sense for NYC to push for them to be recognized as employees.

It also makes sense for Amazon to push hard into drone delivery for NYC as a response, which I also support.

throw7•2m ago

So the subcontractor is "avoiding regulations" (which are what btw?) by being a "subcontractor" and NYC can do nothing about the "subcontractors" but get rid of "subcontractors"?

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