I didn't see these get much play, in the post or the comments, but it seems to me that they are both obstacles to getting any real reform.
First, there's a sort of Gresham's Law of employment at work here. Bray, who was speaking out about things that he saw that were not in accordance with how he thought warehouse employees should be treated, was forced by company hostility toward his viewpoint out of his position. Presumably, the next person in that position will be more inclined to yield to the company line, which will further stultify progress toward more human treatment of warehouse employees. We can see this writ large in the current administration, which has from the start made a nearly ubiquitous practice of driving out ethical and principled people and replacing them with sycophantic toadies with dubious, at best, qualifications for the positions they were rewarded with.
Second, there is not nearly enough recognition that current corporate treatment of low-rank employees amounts to externalization of the cost of paying them enough and providing them enough resources to do their job without harm (of all sorts!). I don't know whether or not it's worse than releasing toxic chemicals into the environment rather than dealing with them properly; people are getting hurt either way. But, while unions are a worthwhile step in that direction, I doubt much will change until we once again have a government for the people that willingly accepts and projects its responsibility, in the name of the people by whose authority it governs, to redress this imbalance. (I know, I know -- good luck with that. But hitting companies where it really hurts -- in the bottom line -- and compensating the people who have been hurt by their actions, is something that might be worth a try.)
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A couple of other points
Date: 2020-05-05 12:23 am (UTC)First, there's a sort of Gresham's Law of employment at work here. Bray, who was speaking out about things that he saw that were not in accordance with how he thought warehouse employees should be treated, was forced by company hostility toward his viewpoint out of his position. Presumably, the next person in that position will be more inclined to yield to the company line, which will further stultify progress toward more human treatment of warehouse employees. We can see this writ large in the current administration, which has from the start made a nearly ubiquitous practice of driving out ethical and principled people and replacing them with sycophantic toadies with dubious, at best, qualifications for the positions they were rewarded with.
Second, there is not nearly enough recognition that current corporate treatment of low-rank employees amounts to externalization of the cost of paying them enough and providing them enough resources to do their job without harm (of all sorts!). I don't know whether or not it's worse than releasing toxic chemicals into the environment rather than dealing with them properly; people are getting hurt either way. But, while unions are a worthwhile step in that direction, I doubt much will change until we once again have a government for the people that willingly accepts and projects its responsibility, in the name of the people by whose authority it governs, to redress this imbalance. (I know, I know -- good luck with that. But hitting companies where it really hurts -- in the bottom line -- and compensating the people who have been hurt by their actions, is something that might be worth a try.)