Reminder: if you're buying from amazon, you're a strawberry floating scab

I bought some stuff yesterday. Wouldn't have if I had known about this thing.

Ordered Crank on blu ray from Amazon Italy yesterday, i've found that they stock a whole bunch of movies which aren't available on blu ray in the UK.

Corazon de Leon wrote:I wish I'd known this before I bought the damn PS Mini or whatever it's called.

Sorry Benpool , that's my fault.

Isn't the "don't cross a picket line" thing about workers not customers?

Jenuall wrote:Isn't the "don't cross a picket line" thing about workers not customers?

Yep, and I always thought (based on my deep knowledge of the Keanu Reeves film "The Replacements") that the term "scab" only referred to workers that were brought in as replacements for the duration of a strike. Doesn't seem to work in the shop/customer dynamic being discussed here.

Yeah that was my understanding of it as well.

Doesn't validate Amazon obviously who are still awful in so many ways! I guess the difficulty is that buying from basically any large shop like Amazon you are funding something which is to some extent corrupt and riddled with bad practice.

I'm pretty sure strikes at shops always aim to dissuade customers from going in. Look at Stop & Shop in the US recently.

I think it says a lot about you if what you want to take from this thread's rhetoric is "well actually I don't meet the dictionary definition of a scab".

In the sense of putting your own convenience over the success of your striking comrades, you are definitely a scab if you knowingly use a shop while its workers are striking.

Karl_ wrote:I'm pretty sure strikes at shops always aim to dissuade customers from going in. Look at Stop & Shop in the US recently.

I think it says a lot about you if what you want to take from this thread's rhetoric is "well actually I don't meet the dictionary definition of a scab".

In the sense of putting your own convenience over the success of your striking comrades, you are definitely a scab if you knowingly use a shop while its workers are striking.

I literally said that my point "doesn't validate amazon".

And as I say - whilst Amazon are absolutely at the pinnacle of the commerce gooseberry fool storm in terms of bad practice, workers rights etc. - the alternatives are often only marginally better. And whilst marginally better is still better I think it is disingenuous to paint a picture that if you buy from anywhere other than Amazon you are a saint. Most big sellers of this kind will treat both their suppliers and workers like gooseberry fool sadly.

Karl_ wrote:In the sense of putting your own convenience over the success of your striking comrades, you are definitely a scab if you knowingly use a shop while its workers are striking.

They're not "my comrades", they're just employees that are having a dispute with their employers.

Karl_ wrote:I think it says a lot about you if what you want to take from this thread's rhetoric is "well actually I don't meet the dictionary definition of a scab".

Oh it's not just that, I also take warm nostalgia from the below:


Kramer

Jenuall wrote:And as I say - whilst Amazon are absolutely at the pinnacle of the commerce gooseberry fool storm in terms of bad practice, workers rights etc. - the alternatives are often only marginally better. And whilst marginally better is still better I think it is disingenuous to paint a picture that if you buy from anywhere other than Amazon you are a saint. Most big sellers of this kind will treat both their suppliers and workers like gooseberry fool sadly.

Again, that sounds a little like whataboutism. The point here is not the practices of Amazon in a comparative sense but a demonstration against these practices specifically.

If you're going down the 'well this protest is pointless as everything is strawberry floated' route you're essentially asking what's the point in voicing dissent about anything.

It's not whataboutism to condemn Amazon whilst simultaneously lamenting that the problems they suffer from are seen to some extent everywhere you look.

At no point have I said - carry on using Amazon because everyone else is just as gooseberry fool!

Preezy wrote:

Karl_ wrote:In the sense of putting your own convenience over the success of your striking comrades, you are definitely a scab if you knowingly use a shop while its workers are striking.

They're not "my comrades", they're just employees that are having a dispute with their employers.

Sure, whatever. You aren't a leftist, and you don't have any sense of solidarity or empathy with struggling people, which is why your instinctive urge is to sneer at striking workers, imply their action is a joke, and make excuses for people who cross picket lines.

Tafdolphin wrote:

Jenuall wrote:And as I say - whilst Amazon are absolutely at the pinnacle of the commerce gooseberry fool storm in terms of bad practice, workers rights etc. - the alternatives are often only marginally better. And whilst marginally better is still better I think it is disingenuous to paint a picture that if you buy from anywhere other than Amazon you are a saint. Most big sellers of this kind will treat both their suppliers and workers like gooseberry fool sadly.

Again, that sounds a little like whataboutism. The point here is not the practices of Amazon in a comparative sense but a demonstration against these practices specifically.

If you're going down the 'well this protest is pointless as everything is strawberry floated' route you're essentially asking what's the point in voicing dissent about anything.

This.

The 'what aboutism' and 'both sides' memes are so vacant of logical and cognitive thought that It actually saddens me that people use these things to somehow make a point whilst simultaneously completely missing it.

Jenuall wrote:It's not whataboutism to condemn Amazon whilst simultaneously lamenting that the problems they suffer from are seen to some extent everywhere you look.

At no point have I said - carry on using Amazon because everyone else is just as gooseberry fool!

Neither did I accuse you of saying that...what you said was that comparatively Amazon isn't so different to other outlets which I don't think is an observation relevant to this discussion. We're talking about industrial action against Amazon, not its ranking in bad work practices comparative to others.

For your purchasing power to hold any sway, it needs to be withdrawable. It's only withdrawable if there are alternatives available. Amazon is monopolistic in the extreme, so even if your money instead goes to a company that is only marginally better in terms of working conditions, worker's rights, tax evasion, whatever - at least you're supporting a market where competition may provide an incentive for those things to be improved, in which we as consumers have choice and can potentially vote with our wallets.

Being anti-monopoly is my main reason for not using Amazon. Obviously I'm against their numerous immoral practices, and I'm under no illusion that the alternatives are saintly, but the size and power of Amazon as a single company is the real concern and sets it apart. We should be terrified of the influence and power a single business has over the world and our lives, accountable to only its shareholders.

Jenuall wrote:It's not whataboutism to condemn Amazon whilst simultaneously lamenting that the problems they suffer from are seen to some extent everywhere you look.

You've stumbled into the very definition of it.

The problems at Amazon and others have been known about for years - but very little is changing. Workers striking is a move that gets attention, which is good. People boycotting Amazon and buying from other shops hurts Amazon's sales and that is also good! But the level of boycott required to really make Amazon suffer, and suffer enough to actually enact significant change is probably next to impossible to achieve through this kind of action. (NOTE: I'm not saying that makes it pointless to do this!)

A larger force, or combination of forces, is needed to have enough leverage to make it so that companies cannot operate in this way. That requires governments to actually show some back bone and stand up to these massive companies - enforcing better rights and closing the many loopholes that they use to strawberry float everyone but their shareholders.

The general public will always have too many limitations on them which will make a market being regulated by the power of the consumers a pipe dream. Whether it is just down to a degree of ignorance, selfishness, or simply a lack of ability to change their purchasing patterns due to lack of options etc.

Tafdolphin wrote:

Jenuall wrote:It's not whataboutism to condemn Amazon whilst simultaneously lamenting that the problems they suffer from are seen to some extent everywhere you look.

At no point have I said - carry on using Amazon because everyone else is just as gooseberry fool!

Neither did I accuse you of saying that...what you said was that comparatively Amazon isn't so different to other outlets which I don't think is an observation relative to this discussion. We're talking about industrial action against Amazon, not it's ranking in bad work practices comparative to others.

Fine, to me that is a perfectly acceptable part of the discussion.

I want Amazon to fix their working practices, but I don't want JUST Amazon to fix their working practices.

Saying "I'm not going to buy from Amazon anymore!" and then thinking you have done something great in the world - whilst ignoring the fact that those who work for your alternate choice of shop (either directly or in the wider supply chain) are still being dicked over is a harmful simplification.

"I'm not heating my house with that evil, climate destroying coal any more, I'm going to burn wood!"

"Uh okay, but you do know that burning wood is actually worse for the enviro-"

"Shut up, we're not talking about that!"

Photek wrote:

Jenuall wrote:It's not whataboutism to condemn Amazon whilst simultaneously lamenting that the problems they suffer from are seen to some extent everywhere you look.

You've stumbled into the very definition of it.

I quite literally have not.

Whataboutism is a mechanism to divert attention from the original problem - again at no point have I either dismissed or ignored the original strawberry floating problem.

Amazon suck 100% agreed.

@Jenuall: Do you, in fact, agree that customers shouldn't use Amazon while there is ongoing industrial action? It's still unclear from your posts, which might be why you are drawing flak.

Well you did divert it. I don’t want to derail
things any further but saying other companies are as bad is the same as saying Boris Johnson isn’t as bad as Hitler. That’s an extreme example but it’s the same mechanic. I didn’t say you liked Amazon either, that’s not the point I’m making.