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Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

reuters.com

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Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#201

Post by KozmoNau7 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #200
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of companies are desperately trying to make it a thing here in Denmark, as well. By the looks of it, they jack up their prices slightly about a month in advance, and then offer crappy 20-30% "rebates" on Black Friday. It is simply not worth it.

Fight it. There's all kinds of collateral damage. https://www.strongtowns.org/blackfridayparking/

Luckily, that isn't an issue here in Denmark. Not yet, at least.

This year, I am looking to see if a very specific configuration of laptop goes on sale on a local refurb dealer, and if it's not exactly what I want at a good (ie. heavily reduced) price, it's #buynothingday for me again this year.

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#202

Post by mrighele »

jasode wrote: post #148
tw04 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This pattern isn't as simple to dismiss as "anti-union FUD", especially since it's seen among people who are already union members in closed shops. You act as though anti-union FUD can't affect members. That's kind of ridiculous... if it didn't affect MEMBERS as well as non-members, what would be the point? If I'm a less-educated union member who has no concept of what life was like before unions, and constantly hea…

>For the average joe who just wants to go to work and get a paycheck, the bigger picture is often lost. Isn't it possible the armchair talking heads like us are the ones missing the bigger picture and the actual workers are the ones who actually get it? Let's consider the Boeing workers in South Carolina: - 2009-09 74% of employees vote against the union and decertify it[1] - 2009-10 Boeing breaks ground on new South…

This happens because unions in the US are fragmented. In countries with bigger unions (e.g. France, Italy) those unions act at national level. This means that moving the assembly line from Seattle to South Carolina would simply move the strikes from one place to another. The underlying idea is that the behavior of the S.C. is just a race to the bottom and in the same way that those jobs arrived they will be gone one day once another plant accept even worse wages.

The downside is that if the union's approach is too strict, those jobs may simply disappear because it is not feasible to pay those workers more, or it may be cheaper to move those job abroad and import the resulting products.

This also requires workers to struggle and strike not for their job, but for someone else's.

(I am not saying one approach is better than the other, in fact I am usually not too fond of unions, but I am trying to explain the union's point of view)

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#203

Post by curun1r »

jasode wrote: post #148
tw04 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This pattern isn't as simple to dismiss as "anti-union FUD", especially since it's seen among people who are already union members in closed shops. You act as though anti-union FUD can't affect members. That's kind of ridiculous... if it didn't affect MEMBERS as well as non-members, what would be the point? If I'm a less-educated union member who has no concept of what life was like before unions, and constantly hea…

>For the average joe who just wants to go to work and get a paycheck, the bigger picture is often lost. Isn't it possible the armchair talking heads like us are the ones missing the bigger picture and the actual workers are the ones who actually get it? Let's consider the Boeing workers in South Carolina: - 2009-09 74% of employees vote against the union and decertify it[1] - 2009-10 Boeing breaks ground on new South…

The SC Boeing plant doesn't exactly come off looking very good in the Aljazeera documentary [1] on the 787. Just having a job shouldn't necessarily be the goal...the quality of the job and the rights of the workers to advocate for the safety of workers and the public are also things the Unions have traditionally done. I don't usually advocate for or against unions...I think they make sense in some situations and less so in others, but the Boeing case doesn't seem to be a good argument against unions. Boeing prospered tremendously when working with the unions in Washington state and it seems that a lot of their recent anti-union behavior is part of a number of decisions they've made that are quite short-sighted.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#204

Post by colejohnson66 »

09094920394314 wrote: post #166
stale2002 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of doing that I am just going to oppose all unions everywhere and try and prevent them from getting any power at all. Why? Because as soon as they get a foothold, it is done. Over. Can't get rid of them. There are literally rules where they can fire you for trying to end the union. If it weren't for attitudes like yours, I wouldn't be opposing unions. But your attitude DOES exist, so my only option is all out…

Posting this here, because I realize this poster is literally spreading FUD: you can not be fired for not joining a union in a unionized shop: http://gotfired.com/blog/2016/04/can-i-be-fired-for-not-join... >You are protected by law in all 50 states from being fired from your job for not joining a union. You can be only liable for no more than the requirement to pay either union dues or a reduced amount to work in an…

Why are you required to pay the dues if you don’t want the benefits?

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#205

Post by RobertoG »

rconti wrote: post #158
TulliusCicero wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Right-to-work laws are like prop 13 in California: sounds good on the surface, but hidden terrible impact. On the surface, "I should be able to choose whether or not I join a union" makes sense, Americans lo…

I absolutely agree free riders are a problem with unions. But that doesn't mean right to work laws shouldn't exist. Maybe it just means unions shouldn't exist. I mean, if your entire business model is flawed, should the world change around your business model? This is more of a devil's advocate position, as I'm not particularly anti-union, but I personally have zero desire to work in a union or be forced to be in one…

"[..] if your entire business model is flawed [..]"

Unions go a little deep than the concept of "business model"

"[..] I personally have zero desire to work in a union or be forced to be in one."

I'm going to speculate that's only because you have good working conditions.

"unions [..] have a place in the past"

That's a common opinion. What have changed from the past?

Because the laws of capitalism tell us that if any profit or benefit goes to the worker is because there is no way around it. Sometimes is a good idea look back to history. For instance the eight hour working day:

" In 1919 in Barcelona, Catalonia, after a 44-day general strike with over 100,000 participants had effectively crippled the Catalan economy, the Government settled the strike by granting all the striking workers demands that included an eight-hour day, union recognition, and the rehiring of fired workers."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day)

Sometimes I think that we are all "free riders" on the fights of the past.

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#206

Post by yardie »

petre wrote: post #169
yardie wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has a modern welfare system. When demand goes down, salaries go down. So the state welfare system makes up the difference. German unions also have a seat at the board. Unlike most board run companies a decision isn't made without input from the union. So yes, there few strikes in Germany because labor and management actually behave like adults.

I wonder where the money for the difference comes from? Taxes. Also German economy is pretty solid since they're a net exporter at the expense of the rest of the EU. This modern welfare system wouldn't work in France, let alone Southern Europe.

Yes it comes from taxes, where else. There is no reason German union rules wouldn't work elsewhere. But I believe other companies simply do not want it. They want to delegate to the workers what they want with little feedback. German companies take worker feedback into the cost and rate of production. Therefor, no one is surprised. Workers no what they are expected to produce and management knows what to expect from labor.

This is why Walmart has utterly failed to expand into Germany. They thought they could take their abusive worker policies into Germany and when that didn't work they pulled out.

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#207

Post by plandis »

09094920394314 wrote: post #52
Sujan wrote: post #46

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)

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

Wait, what? You can’t fire people who refuse to work? That sounds absolutely crazy.

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#208

Post by plandis »

Kiro wrote: post #111

> The company said salaries paid to its workers were among the highest in the logistic sector and that it also provided some benefits such as private medical insurance or money to pay for training programs. I don't understand how you can strike if this is true.

It’s simple economics. The workers believe that they have the leverage to demand more pay. Even if they are making the most of any non-skilled labor with leverage wouldn’t you try to make more?

Re: Workers at Amazon's main Italian hub, German warehouses strike on Black Friday

#210

Post by mrep »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #26
erikb wrote: post #14

Is there a Black Friday in Italy? I thought this would be a purely American thing.

A bunch of companies are desperately trying to make it a thing here in Denmark, as well. By the looks of it, they jack up their prices slightly about a month in advance, and then offer crappy 20-30% "rebates" on Black Friday. It is simply not worth it.

This is why camelcamelcamel is awesome. You can see the price graph over time for each amazon product to see if it actually a good deal. I've been using it all morning and have bought a few things already.
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