I do a lot of work with AWS, and I care where my money goes, so I spend a lot of time researching this whenever an article accusing Amazon comes up. I have not seen anything outside a few edge cases that qualifies as "unethical treatment". This is exactly what I'm referring to in my original comment. A story about an FC worker peeing in a bottle doesn't mean they're being treated unethically. I've seen stories about Google SWEs peeing in bottles and sleeping under their desk because they were under a tight deadline, and yet I don't see people boycotting Google over their treatment of SWEs (coincidentally, one of the ways I do see people justifying these tight deadlines for SWEs is that they make lots of money, so it seems at least some people do think that good wages is justification for tough working conditions).
If you want a better manual labor comparison, oilfield workers work in grueling conditions, are forced to sleep in tiny bunks, and sometimes come out of the job with a missing limb, but I don't see posts on HN every day about how we should boycott oil companies over their treatment of workers (and again, lot's of people justify the grueling conditions of oilfield workers by pointing out they make a lot of money, so...).
I only have a certain amount of processing power in my brain and can only be outraged at so many things at any given time. If Amazon workers truly were being treated terribly, I would care. But a handful of workers (out of nearly 1 million) saying that they got stressed out at work because their boss asked them to work faster just doesn't make the cut for me. Could it be better? Sure, and with my nearly-unlimited supply of online social media slacktivism, I'll advocate for things to be better. But in the real world where resources aren't unlimited, there are many companies that I'll boycott over working conditions before Amazon.
When it comes down to it nobody can put the pressure on a software engineer to do that kind of every second counts work which forces people to go beyond their limits and ruin their bodies because they need to put food on the table and have few other options.
And even if I did take all of these at face value and was outraged at them, an average of 3 complaints per month from a workforce of nearly 1 million is... well... makes it seem like Amazon is doing a stellar job treating its employees well if there are so few complaints. Of course in reality this website only captures a subset of employees, but just based on this site alone, my opinion has not changed.
It's the other way around. People won't do tough things without higher pay. It's always been that way.
> they need to put food on the table and have few other options.
how does that make any sense? how are people being taken advantage of when they "have few other options", are "desperate for work", and "need to put food on the table"? amazon should pay less and make the job easier? then theyd just be another of the bad options.
so, your argument is amazon simply has an obligation to pay workers more (after theyre already a good option) because... why?
When your workforce consists of people taking the only job they can find, you worsen working conditions until just above where people would rather starve than work for you.
The issue isn't pay, it's employment practices and on-the-job pressures. There are very believable stories out there of the working conditions.