71–80 of 339 posts
Happy to hear workers are standing up for themselves. The anti-union FUD campaign in the US has contributed significantly to the erosion of middle class wages over the past 50 years (check out Thomas Piketty's work if you're curious about this).
Black friday is a thing in Italy??
American cultural imperialism is really impressive. I can understand why Halloween gets more and more popular over here since it's a fun holiday for kids but I can't figure out how black friday makes any sense when you don't celebrate Thanksgiving. I also don't understand why they hope to make "black friday" a positive brand when the only thing I associate it with is videos of Americans trampling each other to get cheap appliances.
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> where unions realize that competitiveness trumps wages. It seems like you’re sneaking an assertion in there. Can you clarify your point a bit? What is the relationship between competition and wages, and why is one better than the other for unions?
Well if a company cannot compete because wages are too high then the company goes under and jobs are gone. Germany is a good example of this, they have a ton of unions and lots of production but the unions understand that competition is key to survival so there are very few strikes.
I suggest you look into the differences in the management of companies of those countries rather than the unions.
Great way to make sure in the near future Amazon will send packages to Italy from France, Austria, Slovenia or Switzerland - the countries sharing a border with them. (Same happened - and is happening - in Germany. Staff at logistics centers started to strike (in small numbers). Totally unrelated Amazon started shipping from Poland and Czech Republic)
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Yes. There was a major strike of screenwriters in 2008. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–08_Writers_Guild_of_Ame...
And notably, scripts from that time really are problematic (somewhat crappy dialogues, weak storylines), and I think some shows even got postponed or cancelled.
Now that's something I haven't heard about in the US for a few decades: strikes. I'm partly kidding, but have there been any major strikes in the US lately?
Strikers in US media are often belittled. Think back to the Occupy Movement. The banks were bailed out, none of those people who caused so much misery were ever put in jail, and the media belittled Occupy as being directionless and pointless. The protest was huge, stretching across cities and countries, but there was never any accountability for the banksters. It shows again as the Equifax execs were cleared of insid…
It is also true that Tube drivers are well paid and yes that does impact the levels of sympathy available to them. The change was absolutely funded - just not as well as the union would like.
In essence, however, tube drivers having veto rights over being scheduled to work nights presents an opportunity to cause shortages and disruption without any ramifications or declaration of strike etc. It was a giant liability for TFL to accept.
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> The anti-union FUD campaign in the US has contributed significantly to the erosion of middle class wages It's way more complicated than that, and it can't simply be dismissed as a "FUD campaign". Union members are actually disproportionately likely to support things like right-to-work laws, which unions dislike because it (more or less) means workers aren't obligated to be members if they choose not to. Similarly,…
I think union membership rates have been dropping due to the fact that companies have been increasinly more anti union.
Contrary to popular belief, companies have incredibly little power in that regard, especially when you're talking about an already-unionized closed shop (as opposed to a company that wants to prevent its workers from unionizing in the first place). Legally and practically, it's incredibly difficult even for union members to decertify or deauthorize their union, and companies are basically forbidden from taking any part in that process. The NLRB is incredibly strict on this; both the NLRB and the courts bias heavily in favor of unions if there's any evidence that companies are seen to be interfering whatsoever in the process.
But beyond this, it's not as simple as "companies have been increasingly more anti-union" because this increaseingly anti-union sentiment comes from the union members. We know this from direct public polling, from their actions on the ballot at union elections, from their actions at the polling booth in government elections, and from what we can see of internal politics with union governance.
To put it another way: if it were easier for union members to decertify or deauthorize their union without getting fired[0], we'd probably see these elections happening more often (both successful and unsuccessful ones). Instead, union members support laws which allow them to bypass this process.
(Note that, after accounting for race, union members overwhelmingly voted for Republicans in the last two election cycles, despite the unions themselves endorsing union-friendly Democrats).
[0] Even if they manage not to get fired in the process - which is totally legal for a union to do, unlike a company firing an employee for supporting a union - the NLRB can overrule the results of the decertification or deauthorization election, which invalidates the whole process.
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And so will either increase prices or slow down delivery. Also, I don't know wether Italy has sane strike laws or not, but in Germany amazon would not be allowed to just fire the strikers, and there is and was non-negligible PR fallout from the strikes. Just to present the full picture. In the end, either there will be a price found. But I'd say good for Italian workers for making the labour market more of a market
Just to make clear, I am not on either ones side here. Striking is a right in Italy and Germany, so the employees sure can do it. But the reality is how it is as well :/ > And so will either increase prices or slow down delivery. Not really. Germany is small enough that it doesn't really matter if you get it from a German or a Polish warehouse (that sits directly behind the border). (Amazon Prime deliveries and simil…
I hope I didn't come off as aggressive. While I am very much on the sides of the workers here as a self identified socialist (since I run a company I don't really get much cred from most socialist in-groups though), I try not to be blind to market realities and alternative view points
>Not really. Germany is small enough that it doesn't really matter if you get it from a German or a Polish warehouse (that sits directly behind the border). (Amazon Prime deliveries and similar stuff excluded - but that's a very small percentage)
Margins matter at that scale, otherwise amazon would have never opened warehouses in Germany (they never did in switzerland AFAIK). Same thing with the "small percentage" of prime: anecdotaly, if I can't buy it with prime, I don't bother with amazon, because then I can just support some independent store. It won't affect people too much, but it is definetely not a no brainer.
>You don't fire anyone. You just don't invest there any more to keep up with your xx% growth every year. You just do that behind the border.
True. But then you also have politics to think about...without investing, you don't have as much indirect political clout.
If anything ,while the most likely outcome is what you describe, there will be the next time the question of an "amazon tax" comes up and without being an employer, amazon will have to invest more into lobbying, which might work but fuel resentment...nothing ever stays still, unless people just accept the status quo
Now that's something I haven't heard about in the US for a few decades: strikes. I'm partly kidding, but have there been any major strikes in the US lately?