It's a wake up call, or at least an attempt at that, for the likes of Amazon that if they are looking to have reputable people, like Tim Bray, associate themselves and their name with you, there are certain standards that have to be met.
Amazon, MS, Google, Apple, etc. rank among the most wealthy companies in the world and they've each had to deal with internal pressures where their employees voiced concerns about certain things or where there was some kind of whistle blower situation. And they each dealt with it in their own ways.
IMHO firing whistle blowers is the kind of action that should be called out as very negative and not something to be apologetic about.
So, I admire what Tim Bray is doing here and fully understand that he's having a hard time justifying working for what he's diplomatically not quite calling out as aholes; though the undertone is quite clear.
Of course as he is pointing out, he's in a position where he can afford to do so financially. But then, being able to and actually doing are two things and he's showing some back bone here by 1) walking away and taking a hit financially, and 2) writing about it in the hope that leadership steps up and acts to correct the situation: compensate individuals affected, offer to rehire them, and discipline executives involved in pushing this through. Unlikely to happen, but one can hope for someone with a backbone stepping up. It would be the right thing to do. At the minimum, they've just been exposed for what they are and that might have consequences elsewhere for them.
> IMHO firing whistle blowers is the kind of action that should be called out as very negative and not something to be apologetic about.
Agree 100%. Daylight is the best disinfectant, especially in publicly traded companies. Every CEO, CMO, etc loves white-knighting ("We care about the environment/our employees!") until the shareholders start calling. Then they're the first to start covering up problems.
That's not to say that you can't have your cake and eat it too - the first place to start is that these corporations have to be honest with themselves and their shareholders about social commitments and financial returns.
I think there's some truth in that. But it also assumes that the consumer (of whatever crap they're spewing) isn't smart enough to understand or see this. IDK - I think most people are capable of seeing through it _provided_ they are exposed to counterpoints. That's not to say that there shouldn't be some level of monitoring. Obviously someone breaking an egregious law and posting it on YouTube should have their post taken down. Admittedly there's probably grey area in that too.
What worries me about content policing and deplatforming is that now the companies that run the platform become the de facto police. And as we see in this very post and many of the associated comments that is a very, very dangerous thing.
Yes, I agree that deplatforming is a bad tactic.
That's how you get a bunch of crybullies playing the victim card and complaining about censorship even in unrelated topics.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Unfortunately this exists. And before I get downvoted (for obvious political reasons) I acknowledge that it happens on both sides.
> Of course as he is pointing out, he's in a position where he can afford to do so financially
I'd just want to point out that the workers who are in the middle are the ones who can afford to do so financially and have the power to make management change things. If you're a programmer and make decent money, consider not putting yourself in a position where you must compromise your morals, such as accepting the company you work for firing whistleblowers over poor work conditions. $100k in the bank makes it a hell of a lot easier to decide to organize.
Also why a FAANG anticompetitive stranglehold on tech is so horrifying. If you speak out against Amazon, will another tech giant hire you? Probably not...
There are alternatives though. You tend to get paid a lot if the work is very dangerous, soul-devouring, only very few people can do it, or you're expected to look the other way.
When you pass on working on the new team that uses ML to predict the likelihood of workers knowing their rights based on resume and application cover letter, you may not make the $400k total comp next year, but it's not like you'll be unemployed either. There's plenty of work at pretty normal companies to be done. They won't pay as good, it may not sounds as impressive and you may have to explain at family dinners what your company does, but it's an option.
You can clearly see from the comments that many people here are still very much on the "but they're employees ... why would they have any rights? if they complain just crush them into paste to oil the machines" camp.
The occasional high profile person quitting one of the big tech companies because of their constant illegal employee/whistleblower abuse happens regularly at this point. Is Tim Bray's particularly different in some way I'm not seeing?
I think the next big revolution in political thinking will be the debate over the question of whether money is amoral. If I spend a dollar by giving it to someone, what does that enable them to do? What behaviors does that encourage and reinforce?
I think a lot of people would say that at some level money is moral (don't pay terrorist organizations or render services for them) but that distinction blurs as we get closer to mundane, real-life concerns like spending money at Amazon, Wal-Mart, or Whole Foods. I think it gets blurry because of desensitization and the need for folks to feel like they're not screwing over others during the normal course of their life. But the fact is that capital enables behaviors in a capitalist economic system, so allocating the capital you have control over is necessarily a moral act.
Spending dollars is one thing but I think it's doubly-true for investing. The usual advice about investing if you're not an expert is to invest in index funds like VTI, which I think is sensible as far as prudent investment goes, but on the other hand I feel bad knowing my money is being used to "maximize shareholder value" without regard to the moral choices made by those companies.
"There's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism" comes to mind. Even if some folks are in a position to spend all of their money in ways that align with their values (which seems impossible given the extent of global supply chains), it's out of reach for the vast majority until systemic change is realized.
Very true. But it's necessary to make the first point explicit so that we can make the jump from "citizens, vote with your wallet" to "citizens, ensure that the government only deploys capital in ways you agree with".
Totally agree. Realized my earlier comment could be read as suggesting inaction or complacency, which wasn't the point I was trying to make at all. Everyone should be acting with their wallet where and when they can and pushing corporations to behave ethically while keeping in mind the sort of behaviors encouraged by the larger structures at play.
I don't think Amazon is going to have any trouble at all filling open headcount with talented people on account of maintaining a politics-free workplace.
It's become fashionable in tech among a certain crowd to bombard coworkers with divisive messaging about controversial social issues, to leak confidential information to sympathetic external press, and to demonize anyone who objects. This practice must end, and I admire Bezos for having the guts to end it. Companies have every right to ask employees to focus on work at work.
If being one of these "reputable people" you mention requires me to be a cheerleader for this kind of strident and obnoxious internal activism, I don't want to be "reputable".
It sounds like you think that the concern about Amazon is primarily about working conditions in the cushy office jobs. But that's not what anyone is talking about here. They're talking about frontline "essential" workers like those in the warehouses and delivery trucks.
While I agree with much of what you say, I feel that speaking out against serious problems with working conditions and the media should always be an option. For the boots on the ground workers, ever more so.
For those in well paying, white collar jobs with plenty of other opportunities, even in the current climate, quitting with an exit statement is more appropriate than trying to burn it down from the inside.
I respect the exec in question, and the warehouse workers who speak out. The idological opportunists pushing an agenda, not so much.
> Companies have every right to ask employees to focus on work at work.
I’m responding to this claim, maybe we’re talking about different things?
My point is really:
What if the “work” is running trains to death camps?
Shouldn’t employees object? If you believe climate change is as big a threat as scientists claim, I think workers building tools to help fossil fuel extraction have a duty by this historical argument to not “run the trains” or not just “focus on work at work”.
>It's a wake up call, or at least an attempt at that, for the likes of Amazon that if they are looking to have reputable people, like Tim Bray, associate themselves and their name with you, there are certain standards that have to be met.
Prominent VCs are calling for people to get back to work every day on Twitter. The rest of the world is waking up to these people, but we have a long way to go before Silicon Valley cares.
It is surprising that the rest of the world is already woke, but the software engineers in these companies have not risen to the reality yet. And that has led to their successful manipulation of neglecting anything but money.
I don't think many people in amazon agree with Tim Bray. The pragmatic ones know that these kind of stories have a heavy political overtone , but more importantly amazon probably have better conditions than all other retailers in the world. Granted it is not perfect but a more meaningful way to change the condition of minimum wage or low wage laborers is through legislative changes or basic income schemes.
By "many people in amazon", you don't mean those "minimum wage or low wage laborers" in the warehouses, right?
I suspect most of them who know about it appreciate Tim Bray standing up for them and consider it a "meaningful way".
I don't understand what you are saying is a "more meaningful way" than what. You are saying keeping your mouth shut at work and just calling your legislator is a "more meaningful way to change the conditions"?
That's a nice story to tell yourself when you want to preserve your good salary and safe working conditions that the workers in the warehouse don't have. I couldn't really say if most well-paid employees at Amazon agree or not, I'm not familiar with enough of them.
But if we can't learn to protect each other, we've got nothing. This is not a test.
Source needed on that first claim. I've spent a decent amount of time in some developing countries and I came out with no confidence that these types of labor laws are ordinarily enforced, if they even exist. I think you grossly overestimate these protections for relatively low-skilled labor outside of the developed world.
I'm not taking the claim you replied to at face value (it's exceedingly extreme to even be plausibly true) but they at least included a "probably" to allow for some doubt.
I think it’s more likely that smart people understand that speaking out or appearing to be in open dissent to the way amazon works is not a wise career move. Seems like a perfectly reasonable place to expect widespread preference falsification.
Amazon, MS, Google, Apple, etc. rank among the most wealthy companies in the world and they've each had to deal with internal pressures where their employees voiced concerns about certain things or where there was some kind of whistle blower situation. And they each dealt with it in their own ways.
IMHO firing whistle blowers is the kind of action that should be called out as very negative and not something to be apologetic about.
So, I admire what Tim Bray is doing here and fully understand that he's having a hard time justifying working for what he's diplomatically not quite calling out as aholes; though the undertone is quite clear.
Of course as he is pointing out, he's in a position where he can afford to do so financially. But then, being able to and actually doing are two things and he's showing some back bone here by 1) walking away and taking a hit financially, and 2) writing about it in the hope that leadership steps up and acts to correct the situation: compensate individuals affected, offer to rehire them, and discipline executives involved in pushing this through. Unlikely to happen, but one can hope for someone with a backbone stepping up. It would be the right thing to do. At the minimum, they've just been exposed for what they are and that might have consequences elsewhere for them.