Amazon is experimenting with humanoid robots for warehouse work.
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That kind of incentivizes automation. Robots don’t go on strike.
EDIT: I remember an article on the Paris train strikes last year. Only the automated trains kept functioning:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2022/11/09/french-transport-strike-looks-set-to-severely-disrupt-paris_6003512_7.html
I remember thinking that the train operator, not to mention users of the Paris transit system, are probably going to favor more automated lines over more human-manned ones after that.
The Paris Metro example is fine as they create new lines and upgrade existing ones.
The idea with the union is that any organization will have a difficult time slowly replacing workers with robots other than waiting for people to retire. It will either have to fire all or major portions of the unionized workplace to put in scabs or robots, or not at all.
I mean either you get good jobs or it accelerates total automation which can be used as grounds for organizing socialism in the total unemployment
The idea that Amazon will not replace every job they can regardless of unionization status is preposterous.
If they can automate the job, they already have every incentive to do so. This is not going to crack the whip.
Workers should unionize, period. The company is coming for them either way.
You have two numbers – the expected value of the automated system, and the expected value of the human workforce. There is going to be someome estimating what the return is from each. If the automated one is a better return, that is the one that they will go with.
If they estimate strikes on the part of the human workforce, that will tend to make the human workforce less-favorable than it otherwise would be relative to the automated system.
The human number is ALREADY vastly higher than the non-human number.
The only reason Amazon hasn’t replaced them yet is that the technology has not been developed. Every dollar left on the table by workers right now will never be recouped.