Corporate employees of Amazon were asked on Monday to volunteer their time to the company’s warehouses to assist with grocery delivery as it heads into its annual discount spree known as Prime Day.
In a Slack message reviewed by the Guardian that went to thousands of white-collar workers in the New York City area from engineers to marketers, an Amazon area manager called for corporate “volunteers to help us out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on our biggest days yet”. It is not clear how many took up the offer.
“No, no, they’re not slaves. They’re highly skilled workers with short-term contracts. And they even get food.”. This is how I see it.
If you work without pay that’s slavery
They’re paid a salary, which is probably significantly more than what drivers are paid.
Labor is labor. Stay united, comrades!
Generally this kind of thing would be overtime, though.
I thought we were boycotting bezos? Why are people still buying on Amazon?
Because we are in the smallest minority of people that care enough to change our shopping habits or willingly pay more for something to avoid Amazon.
I know literally nobody in real life that shares my views and most will think I’m a weirdo for being so vocal about avoiding certain companies, taking part in boycotts, or protesting.
volunteer to cover our glorious CEO’s wedding costs and be a part of history!
why would anyone volunteer to do amazon warehouse work
Desperate fear of termination. There’s like a 5% chance this will help.
Is Amazon too poor to pay their employees now?
Well did you see that wedding? That shit don’t pay for itself.
Hey, that’s socialism.
You mean “buy nothing day”? Cuz that’s my plan.
I’ll volunteer some more work if you volunteer some more pay
Corporate people should spend some time periodically in the trenches anyway. Otherwise, they’re totally clueless about how everything works.
Yes, but not volunteered
It’s business hours Tue-Fri. Sounds like the volunteer isn’t for unpaid work, but for volunteering to do this instead of their normal duties for the week.
Tho I’m sure they’ll get dinged on their performance review if their regular work output reduces, so I’m guessing they will end up needing to put on unpaid hours to compensate.
I volunteer for stuff like this if it gets me out of meetings. I’ve donated over a gallon of blood at work.
One of the core rule of business is that you don’t sell what you do not have. Because that is basivally the definition of fraud (at least one of them).
If you don’t have the manpower to deliver “Prime Day”, don’t offer “Prime Day”, as simple as that.
Dude. Like half of our GDP is about selling shit that we pretend exists.
Um, no dude. You hired me to code your cloud infrastructure. You have an army of delivery people. Leave me alone.
And here’s a reminder that it’s actually illegal to volunteer at the same company you’re employed at. Specifically to prevent situations exactly like this, where employers attempt to pressure their employees into volunteering, so they don’t have to pay overtime. If you’re working for your employer, you’re required to be on the clock.
Given, that only works if the rules are actually enforced. And this administration has done a good job of dismantling agencies that would be enforcing this.
Easy, you’re a salaried employee and “seasonal duty: light warehouse work”
Boom, it’s part of your job.
There are specific requirements for being exempt from overtime, even for salaried employees. There are three big exemptions, and each one has multiple requirements; You need to meet ALL of the requirements for any exemption in order to be legally exempt. I’d advise you to check the requirements here, because employers regularly misclassify workers and lie through their teeth about it to avoid paying OT. Intentional misclassification is one of the most overt ways that employers steal wages, but also extremely common in many industries.
Also, there’s a blue-collar clause that says all manual labor positions are non-exempt. So if they’re dumb enough to write manual labor into your job description, you’re non-exempt no matter how highly paid you are.
next youre gonna tell me something crazy like how the most theft in america is from unpaid wages or whatever
Data is beautiful and goddamn infuriating.
I think you’re mistaking volunteering for a different task as them not being paid - these employees are salaried, they’re being paid for this. It’s basically just doing 2 hours of warehouse work instead of 2 hours of their usual corporate job. Potentially some people would have to do additional work after hours to make up for work they didn’t do in those two hours, but I assume busier people wouldn’t volunteer.
What kind of brainwashed loser would fall for this
Plenty. If you’ve ever worked retail you’d know the answer to this question. the “lifers” will volunteer. You know the types if you’ve worked in retail. They’ll do it thinking it’ll look good to some upper manager and allow them to get promoted for simply showing loyalty to the company. The ones who believe and tell you constantly how the company can do no wrong, how great it is to work for said company, and how the company has their best interests in mind.
When you’re stuck working at a desk all day, every day, forever, suddenly spending a day or two checking out a big ol’ warehouse sounds pretty fun. You’re still getting paid a white collar salary and benefits, and you don’t have to worry about grinding your bones down and all that because it’s only a few days, not decades of backbreaking g work.
You’re still getting paid a white collar salary and benefits
That’s not generally what “volunteer” means. From the article,
Amazon office workers in New York requested to donate time over to Fresh delivery process during firm’s busiest time.
Your quote is from the sub-headline, which was probably written by an editor if not AI. I wouldn’t put too much trust in it without supporting details. To the contrary, the detail about being able to step into a conference room to take work calls implies that they are expected to stay connected to their normal job and not bill it as vacation/time off.
The way it works in my company (not Amazon) is that office workers will occasionally be given “volunteer” opportunities to help with a temporary workload crunch and these will be paid at your normal salary. Sometimes it’s a good deal to get a break from routine, show the boss you’re a team player, and pad out weak progress on yearly goals. Other times it may require uncomfortable work and prolonged absence from home (without overtime pay). But they’re upfront about it and participation is truly voluntary.
Well we currently share this country with people that voted three times for the Trump regime. I’m just saying we don’t currently have a dearth of incredibly stupid people.
The funniest thing about this is that Prime day is a “holiday” of their own making. It’s not like it’s the Christmas push caused by consumers.
