Mac McClelland Was a Warehouse Wage Slave:
Several months prior, I’dreported on an Ohio warehousewhere workers shipped products for online retailers under conditions that were surprisingly demoralizing and dehumanizing, even to someone who’s spent a lot of time working in warehouses, which I have. And then my editors sat me down. “We want you to go work for Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc.,” they said. I’d have to give my real name and job history when I applied, and I couldn’t lie if asked for any specifics. (I wasn’t.) But I’d smudge identifying details of people and the company itself. Anyway, to do otherwise might give people the impression that these conditions apply only to one warehouse or one company.Which they don’t.
(Via Daring Fireball)
I guess we should think about this story next time we’re complaining that an Amazon order took two days instead of one to get to the house.
People like to think that simply building everything in the US would make poor working conditions go away somehow. But the sort of abuse we see over in China is happening right here, too. The problem is unrealistic expectations, built up over decades of promises companies can’t deliver on without pushing the limits of what’s legal, let alone what’s morally right. I don’t even know if this can be reversed at this point.
Convenience always comes at a cost. It might not be our cost, but someone always pays.
