Ex-Amazon employee sounds off on 'dehumanizing' work environment
Study shows working for Amazon is more dangerous than rival companies; Gabe Kaminsky and Rep. Ro Khanna react on 'Fox News Primetime'
Former Amazon employee Gabe Kaminsky and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., sounded off Thursday about the former's previous work as a low-level employee of the Jeff Bezos-founded e-commerce behemoth.
Kaminsky, a Pittsburgh college student and intern at the Federalist, wrote a recent column about his experience—which he told "Fox News Primetime" on Thursday was almost entirely without human contact or supervision.
Kaminsky described what he in his column called an "alienating experience," telling host Ben Domenech that he was even shocked at the time of his first-day orientation by how virtual the job truly is.
"I essentially showed up to orientation expecting at least some degree of maybe a supervisor or someone to really walk me through sort of a very basic position which entails packing groceries that delivery drivers would eventually pick up and essentially I got to orientation and there was really no one to walk me through the experience," he said.
"The entire job [was done] through a work phone. And it was really a glimpse into the job, as there was really no one to walk us through how we would do the position."
In the column, Kaminsky described a senior citizen employee having trouble with the apparently low-grade smartphone's technology, while when his own phone malfunctioned and froze his progress, none of the employees in his area seemed to be able to or know how to help.
Khanna, whose district includes Silicon Valley, said he agrees with Kaminsky's concerns—adding that there is now a "great divergence" in corporate America.
"You have in my district a market cap of $10 trillion. A lot of small businesses, a lot of left-behind communities aren’t participating in modern wealth generation," he said. "I thought Gabe brought a very inspiring piece where workers have basically become accessories to robots."
Khanna noted he supports technological research and advancements to make life easier, but that such evolution should not be used to hurt workers or strip them of their humanity.
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"We should not use technology as a tool to grab power away from workers to management and dehumanize the workplace," said Khanna. "And we need regulation that would prevent companies from doing this."
"This is why we need nuanced policies. It’s great that there are rural communities, underserved communities that now can have access to products that they may never have had. So we don’t want to wholesale reject the innovation economy."
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