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Amazon engineers and marketers were asked on Monday to volunteer their time to the company’s warehouses to assist with grocery delivery (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 27 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Maybe I read this differently than you. I don’t see this as volunteering personal time, but asking people during their work time to help iwith a different job. Not that the article says either way, but volunteering personal time seems unlikely

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Also, even the article mentioned this, but Amazon has always done this. For example, engineers can volunteer to help out wrapping presents at Christmastime.

    An engineer can barely do these jobs properly and they aren't used to manual labor, so they work fewer hours than normal. And yes, it replaces their normal work.

    And, these white collar workers are many times more expensive than normal warehouse workers. This only makes any financial sense because they are desperate for extremely short time workers during rush times.

    This article isn't really news. Just rage bait.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago* (11 children)

    If they're asked to do so during regular work time, they're probably still expected to do their normal tasks too (as unpaid overtime)

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    In the cases where I've been asked to do things like this it was instead of my regular work, not on top of it. US labor laws are tricky, but in general they need to assign you an amount of work that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. (contact a lawyer for details)

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Unfortunately in the white collar world.

    it was instead of my regular work,

    'regular work' typically isn't covered by someone else.

    It piles up until you get to it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    labor laws are tricky, but in general they need to assign you an amount of work that can be done in a reasonable amount of time

    I very much doubt it. It may help your argument when you're applying for unemployment but I very much doubt it's illegal for them to assign whatever work they feel like reasonable or not. Unfortunately.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    I was literally told once “yes we can have meetings all day because you have all night to finish your code.” The same was expected when they had ‘team building’ outings.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    That does happen. The law doesn't back them up, but many companies have that culture and good luck proving you were let go because of that vs something that is legal.

    There are plenty of jobs that are more reasonable. They tend to be boring jobs though, so many are willing to pay the price to work a more exciting job.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    I think maybe you don’t understand the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees here in the US. The law absolutely backs employers up on this unfortunately. Especially if, like me, you live in an at-will state.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (3 children)

    Exempt employees are expected to get their work done, but the work does need to be reasonable. If they give you 40 hours of meetings you can have a good case they are asking too much to expect anything more. While hours are not given by law, there is still an expectation of reasonableness.

    Which is to say they cannot fire you for not getting your work done. However at-will means they can let you go - but that is not firing you for cause and there is a big difference in how the law treats that.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I wish I still had your optimism and naivety. Last time this happened to me I was let go for “not fitting in with the culture” (the aforementioned culture of working all day), which is a completely legal reason in my state. I was denied unemployment despite being able to prove that I had been told to work all night. 10 years earlier I was let go for the same reason after refusing to participate in prayer during a meeting.

    There is no protection for employees in the manner you are speaking of, at least not here.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Asking about the culture and work environment is what you are supposed to be doing when they ask "are there any questions". I've never had a problem finding a job where I'm expected to work about 40 hours and go home. Once in a while they ask for extra work in an emergency, but that is rare and they have all made it up to me somehow.

    The protection isn't great I'll agree, but it isn't hard to find places that don't treat you like that. Don't work for the rest no matter how interesting the job is.

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