Current Events > Somali workers in Minnesota force Amazon to negotiate

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/technology/amazon-somali-workers-minnesota.html

Soon after Hibaq Mohamed immigrated to Minneapolis from Kenya, where she had been living as a refugee, in 2016 she got a job at a new Amazon warehouse near the city. At first, she enjoyed packing boxes for delivery to consumers.

But over time, she said, Amazon required her and her co-workers to pack at a faster rate, at least 230 items an hour, up from 160. Ms. Mohamed, who is Muslim, said that Amazon let her take paid breaks to pray, as required by state law, but that her managers had told her that she still needed to keep pace.

There is just pressure, Ms. Mohamed, 24, said. The people they dont fire worry one day they will be fired.

Ms. Mohamed and scores of East African colleagues, many of them, like her, born in Somalia, responded in an unusual way for Amazon workers: They organized to complain.

Now, tied together by a close cultural connection and empowered by a tight labor market, they appear to be the first known group in the United States to get Amazon management to negotiate.

After modest protests over the summer, the workers have had two private meetings with management in recent months. Labor organizers and researchers said they were not aware of Amazon coming to the table previously in the United States amid pressure from workers, even for private discussions.

Last week, Amazon offered some compromises at its facilities in the Minneapolis area. The company said it would require a general manager and a Somali-speaking manager to agree on any firings related to productivity rates, designate a manager to respond to individual complaints within five days and meet with workers quarterly.

By Saturday night, though, a group of about 40 workers had decided the compromises were insufficient, with a primary concern being the pace at which they are expected to work. They voted to stage a large protest and walkout on Dec. 14, in the thick of the holiday season.

Each community is a little different, and in each one, we work to ensure our employees have a great experience with the most important element being our direct connection to our employees, Amazon said in a statement.

Ashley Robinson, a company spokeswoman, added that the company did not see its work with the East African workers as a negotiation but rather as a form of community engagement similar to its outreach efforts with veterans and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

To workers, the formal meetings were the result of more than a year of organizing by the Awood Center, a nonprofit focused on helping East African workers.

Nobody would assume a Muslim worker, with limited language skills, in the middle of Minnesota can be a leader in a viable fight against one of the biggest employers in the world and bring them to the table, said Abdirahman Muse, Awoods executive director.

Amazon has sought to squeeze more profit out of its operations as growth slows. Brian Olsavsky, the companys finance chief, told investors in October that getting better efficiencies from operations was a corporate priority.

The company now has more than 110 so-called fulfillment centers across the country, and other outposts that handle logistics. Each is like a mini-city, as another company spokeswoman once described them, with a unique culture and demographics.
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Sixty percent of Amazons 3,000 workers in the region are East African, Awood estimates, but the group has found only one manager who speaks Somali. Amazon said that the number of East Africans was notably lower, and that four of its managers in the area spoke Somali. For one of the meetings with workers, in September, Amazon flew in from Texas a Muslim manager who works on accommodating Islamic practices. He was originally from Libya.

Solidarity
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Ms. Mohamed and scores of East African colleagues, many of them, like her, born in Somalia, responded in an unusual way for Amazon workers: They organized to complain.

Now, tied together by a close cultural connection and empowered by a tight labor market, they appear to be the first known group in the United States to get Amazon management to negotiate.

Hmmmm, I'm glad the booming economy is empowering them by making labor in high demand which means more leverage over employers. But they might benefit from more diversity rather than just a singular culture being represented there.
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The fact that amazon was quick to dispute that this was actually a negotiation should really spook people out
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230 up from 160 is an insane jump for Packers. Amazon already works you to death to make rate or reprimand you because of it.
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Another refugee success story. Got out of a shitty country and now complains about the new one.

Tables got reversed on me and I fled my country I'd be damn happy getting a job in the new one and grateful.
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KillerKhan420 posted...

Another refugee success story. Got out of a shitty country and now complains about the new one.

They aren't complaining about the country, they're complaining about their boss.
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Fossil posted...

230 up from 160 is an insane jump for Packers. Amazon already works you to death to make rate or reprimand you because of it.

Nearly 50%.

230 per hour is nearly 4 per minute. I've done packing at another job and that just seems crazy.
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Hire more workers to comfortably reach the desired packing rate? Nah, exploit the ones we have to their limits

Excellent. I want to see more of this.
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Fossil posted...

230 up from 160 is an insane jump for Packers. Amazon already works you to death to make rate or reprimand you because of it.

Unfortunately, it's considered taboo as fuck, and possibly illegal, to pay less productive workers less money.

This is the natural outcome of "Fight for 15" - if you can't hack it, you're out the door. There's plenty of people in line behind you.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Fossil posted...

230 up from 160 is an insane jump for Packers. Amazon already works you to death to make rate or reprimand you because of it.

Unfortunately, it's considered taboo as fuck, and possibly illegal, to pay less productive workers less money.

This is the natural outcome of "Fight for 15" - if you can't hack it, you're out the door. There's plenty of people in line behind you.

I feel like the definition of "productive" here is a little off base.
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Rexdragon125 posted...

Hire more workers to comfortably reach the desired packing rate? Nah, exploit the ones we have to their limits

More workers costs money, but if they just make outright impossible demands of the workers they have they don't have to raise their pay by a single cent. And then they can even save money by firing those that don't meet the unreasonable expectations they've set, meaning the workers that are left have to pick up the pace even further to compensate again without any raise!
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Bio1590 posted...

I feel like the definition of "productive" here is a little off base.

Is it?
Why shouldn't the guy who packs 230 (or 300) boxes a day be paid more than the guy who peaks out at 160?
Seems a preferable situation to "230 or GTFO".

This is why production jobs have been becoming almost impossible for anyone looking to have a steady income, lots of people destroy their bones and body's trying to just do the bare minimum, people can't move like machines and will end up disabled.
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Amazon is literally the devil.

I used to be on board with the whole initiative, but now ive realized if theres ever going to be one of those dystopian future companies that rules over everyone it has to be amazon.

Its crazy too because the work environment was supposed to be very good a few years back, but i guess that was all just a front in order to get employees so they can exploit them down the road
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Unfortunately, it's considered taboo as fuck, and possibly illegal, to pay less productive workers less money.

Performance based raises are a thing, so it really isn't. There's nothing really stopping a place from starting new employees at a low pay and then after a few weeks, give them varying raises based on how well they've been doing.
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Spooking posted...

When will machinery finally replace these workers? I'm tired of hearing every month about somebody not having enough time off to watch Maury.

fuck off
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uwnim posted...

There's nothing really stopping a place from starting new employees at a low pay and then after a few weeks, give them varying raises based on how well they've been doing.

Well...
https://berniesanders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FIght-for-15-resized-300x266.jpg

Questionmarktarius posted...

Bio1590 posted...

I feel like the definition of "productive" here is a little off base.

Is it?
Why shouldn't the guy who packs 230 (or 300) boxes a day be paid more than the guy who peaks out at 160?
Seems a preferable situation to "230 or GTFO".

If that's your argument then sure, I mean tons of places have performance incentives or bonuses.

I'm just trying to say that 230/hour is an insane ask and shouldn't be seen as the baseline.
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This is where the free market fails for laborers. When their supply is oversaturated for the demand, the employer can get away with treating them like garbage when there are always more to take their place. It already happened during the industrial revolution.

I thought refugees are hard working people
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Bio1590 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Bio1590 posted...

I feel like the definition of "productive" here is a little off base.

Is it?
Why shouldn't the guy who packs 230 (or 300) boxes a day be paid more than the guy who peaks out at 160?
Seems a preferable situation to "230 or GTFO".

If that's your argument then sure, I mean tons of places have performance incentives or bonuses.

I'm just trying to say that 230/hour is an insane ask and shouldn't be seen as the baseline.

Nobody saw this coming when Bezos announced a $15 minimum, huh?

it says my stuff is delayed. ordered some things from them (maybe it's from that warehouse they're doing the walkout). have to wait till monday at the earliest it says. was thursday.

i'm going to have to get my shipping charges refunded because they screwed up.
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Kinda surprised that Trump has yet to deport them.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Bio1590 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Bio1590 posted...

I feel like the definition of "productive" here is a little off base.

Is it?
Why shouldn't the guy who packs 230 (or 300) boxes a day be paid more than the guy who peaks out at 160?
Seems a preferable situation to "230 or GTFO".

If that's your argument then sure, I mean tons of places have performance incentives or bonuses.

I'm just trying to say that 230/hour is an insane ask and shouldn't be seen as the baseline.

Nobody saw this coming when Bezos announced a $15 minimum, huh?

This has been going on for longer than that being announced though.
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If Bezos wants to go full 80s teen movie villain, shut down that warehouse and just ship all our crap to Minnesota from the Michigan and Wisconsin warehouses.

Bio1590 posted...

This has been going on for longer than that being announced though.

Then it's just going to get worse, as Amazon churns through "disposable" workers only to fire about half of them at the end of December anyway.

uwnim posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Unfortunately, it's considered taboo as fuck, and possibly illegal, to pay less productive workers less money.

Performance based raises are a thing, so it really isn't. There's nothing really stopping a place from starting new employees at a low pay and then after a few weeks, give them varying raises based on how well they've been doing.

The problem is this:
Antifar posted...

But over time, she said, Amazon required her and her co-workers to pack at a faster rate, at least 230 items an hour, up from 160. Ms. Mohamed, who is Muslim, said that Amazon let her take paid breaks to pray, as required by state law, but that her managers had told her that she still needed to keep pace.

Their performance is uniquely impacted by the paid breaks they get by law to pray multiple times a day. This is where incentive-based performance falls apart, because people want their special perks but ALSO don't want to deal with the consequences/tradeoffs of those perks. These workers would naturally fall below their peers in productivity and if you start paying their co-workers more for it, it becomes a religious liberty issue.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

uwnim posted...

There's nothing really stopping a place from starting new employees at a low pay and then after a few weeks, give them varying raises based on how well they've been doing.

Well...
https://berniesanders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FIght-for-15-resized-300x266.jpg

IIRC, there's only a couple of cities that actually have done that. For the most part, potential employees won't be demanding that.

Really only works for things like this where you have multiple workers working in parallel. Slow people can be made up for by fast employees. In sequential tasks, slow people are a lot more damaging since your output is determined by the slowest process.

What I'm curious about is how is Amazon setting the packing goals? Is it done by performing time studies and seeing this is reasonably accomplishable or is it like someone saying we need to increase productivity by X amount and just setting it to that?
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uwnim posted...

Really only works for things like this where you have multiple workers working in parallel. Slow people can be made up for by fast employees. In sequential tasks, slow people are a lot more damaging since your output is determined by the slowest process.

Elementary schools used to put all the slow kids in the same math class. There's not much reason why assembly lines can't be similar.

As long as this ain't the whining about religious breaks, and other nonsense I'm not sympathetic to.
What was it, they wanted to be able to not drink water or some crap because of Ramadan but still wanted to "work" throwing boxes?

Seems like they've changed the narrative to something more generally palatable.

But over time, she said, Amazon required her and her co-workers to pack at a faster rate, at least 230 items an hour, up from 160. Ms. Mohamed, who is Muslim, said that Amazon let her take paid breaks to pray, as required by state law, but that her managers had told her that she still needed to keep pace.

It's almost like stopping several times a day impedes your productivity which reduces your value to the company . . .
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Musourenka posted...

Excellent. I want to see more of this.

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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

As long as this ain't the whining about religious breaks, and other nonsense I'm not sympathetic to.
What was it, they wanted to be able to not drink water or some crap because of Ramadan but still wanted to "work" throwing boxes?

Seems like they've changed the narrative to something more generally palatable.

But over time, she said, Amazon required her and her co-workers to pack at a faster rate, at least 230 items an hour, up from 160. Ms. Mohamed, who is Muslim, said that Amazon let her take paid breaks to pray, as required by state law, but that her managers had told her that she still needed to keep pace.

It's almost like stopping several times a day impedes your productivity which reduces your value to the company . . .

Y'all gonna make a post like to attack them and not acknowledge that 230/hour is a ridiculous demand in the first place?
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Bio1590 posted...

I feel like the definition of "productive" here is a little off base.

Is it?
Why shouldn't the guy who packs 230 (or 300) boxes a day be paid more than the guy who peaks out at 160?
Seems a preferable situation to "230 or GTFO".

That's per hour
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Questionmarktarius posted...

uwnim posted...

Really only works for things like this where you have multiple workers working in parallel. Slow people can be made up for by fast employees. In sequential tasks, slow people are a lot more damaging since your output is determined by the slowest process.

Elementary schools used to put all the slow kids in the same math class. There's not much reason why assembly lines can't be similar.

Depends on what they make. That works for something fairly simple since you can easily have space and staff multiple lines. Not so much for things that have a large amount of components.

If you have 10 lines of 5 people, you can go ahead and do that. If you have 1 line of 50, then it isn't an option.
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Here's an idea, don't fucking work at Amazon if you can't handle it.
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StarsOfCCTV posted...

That's per hour

Then, multiply that by 8, or maybe 12.
It's obvious that some workers are able to do 1840 boxes a day, or Amazon wouldn't have any workers and would have to lower expectations.

Just because some can, doesn't mean all should have to. It's obvious that some workers were able to endure 12 hour days during the industrial revolution, but they rightly banded together to put an end to such practices.
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Jeez, the concept of better working conditions is incomprehensible to some of you people.
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Most people at my job can barely handle 200 pieces an hour, let alone 230. That's a fucking ridiculous goal to hit.
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GATTJT posted...

Jeez, the concept of better working conditions is incomprehensible to some of you people.

It's more the thought of DEM IMMIGRANTZZ!!11 getting better working conditions that's incomprehensible to them.
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GATTJT posted...

Jeez, the concept of better working conditions is incomprehensible to some of you people.

Yeah the number of people who just completely missed the point on this is...alarming.
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Bio1590 posted...

GATTJT posted...

Jeez, the concept of better working conditions is incomprehensible to some of you people.

Yeah the number of people who just completely missed the point on this is...alarming.

we're one of the ones who can't understand completely.
it's our fault for that.
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