Whole Foods workers seek to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#341

Post by ethelward » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

frockington wrote: post #326

alkonaut wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from the perspective of working unions (Scandinavia) what makes unions work and be relevant are the protections they enjoy. The unions fought for these protections. Without being able to unionize you can't improve your position as a union either. You have to start somewhere. So: first: employers can't choose (freely) who to lay off. It's first in last out, or if you want to sidestep that, you'll have to comp…

Does Scandanavia suffer from the same stigma as French companies? In the States, working with anyone in France is absolutely terrible because its near impossible to fire anyone and they never work due to labor laws. Do you think Scandanavia still encourages productivity enough? The problem of having workers rights and encouraging productivity seems a fine line to walk

You mean that the guys who are in front of the praised Germans, largely in front of your English cousins, and rocking the EU average, are “never working due to labor laws”? Your post reeks of crawling xenophobia.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/02/25/french-workers/

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#342

Post by maxxxxx » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

ProfBernardo wrote: post #218

megablast wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make things better for everyone? Not everyone is selfish.

So, working somewhere you hate in the name of bettering others is the right thing to do? Does that really help anyone?

It helps many people if they are successful and is a honorable thing to do.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#343

Post by xg15 » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #340

frockington wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the role of financial literacy is troubling. If we don't teach people to save and invest they will never be prepared no matter how healthy.

It's often the case that victors feel their successes stem from superior characteristics, even in manifestly unfair games. Medieval nobles called themselves 'aristocrats', aristo meaning 'the best', in greek. Modern winners tend to think themselves very talented and financially prudent. The aristocrats, at least, were measurably better in some ways than their serfs: larger, more healthy, generally stronger, and so on…

> Medieval nobles called themselves 'aristocrats', aristo meaning 'the best'

Interesting, I didn't know that.

Sounds suspiciously similar to today's "meritocracy"...

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#344

Post by acct1771 » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #240

imagiko wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you been pushed about getting an REI membership? I think twice before asking any REI salesman for help, because I know they are going to push me to get a membership. They're doing their job since their incentives are tied to memberships to some degree, but it makes for a poor experience. /edit:I'd rather be asked about a membership once at the cashier's than by every sales staff I talk to during my visit.

> Haven't you been pushed about getting an REI membership? I think twice before asking any REI salesman for help, because I know they are going to push me to get a membership. Do you realize that REI is a co-op [1] and the membership will entitle you to cash back on your purchases and a vote for their board of directors? It's a one-time fee, and mine paid for itself the first year I had it. It's a stupid grocery stor…

Probably better, because they don't datamine you.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#345

Post by currymj » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #285

rawTruthHurts wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You're saying that ..." No, that's not what he's saying, and no, a single person does not have the same leverage an entire collective has against a larger company.

But.. You're pregnant! You're entitled to maturity leave right? Isn't that normal? Why do you need "leverage"? I'm not kidding, so I'll ask again, even clearer. Does America not have the concept of maturity leave by law? Is it like considered a perk or something? I'm so confused because, well, where I live when you're pregnant, tell the boss is exactly what you'd do ! And then you get maturity leave. And the GGP says…

it is considered a perk. good tech jobs, for instance, often have paid maternity leave, while cleaning and food contractors at these companies might not get this.

since up to 12 unpaid weeks is mandatory, people find a way to make it work, by saving money and going back to work very soon.

it is a common rhetorical trick in discussions of labor politics in the US to pretend that employers treat everyone the way they treat upper-middle-class salaried professionals (“i’m sure the boss would be reasonable if they just went and asked!”). So people may have assumed you were doing this rather than genuinely thinking things worked differently.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#346

Post by gameswithgo » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

lordlimecat wrote: post #333

coldtea wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recognize that your comment is dripping of cynicism so I'm not entirely sure which parts are true. You're saying that you can't get maternity leave at Whole Foods (or in the entire USA maybe? Generally not, unless if you're some hot shit or in a well unionized job. Heck, in tons of jobs people are lucky to get their toiler breaks... > I don't know whether this is national or just that Whole Foods is somehow a hor…

You should either clarify that you are talking about unpaid leave, or you should read your own articles. Maternity leave is guaranteed for most employees under FMLA. >They can find 100 ways to fire you in ways that don't break the letter of the law if you ask for something the law supposedly guarantees. That can be actionable too. If you are pregnant and they fire you, they are opening themselves up to so much liabil…

normal people don't have the time or knowledge to begin those kinds of proceedings.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#347

Post by noer » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #310

spacehome wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an employee is pregnant, no one is forcing the employee to show up for work. When people talk about maternity leave, they usually don't mean the ability to not show up for work (which is a given in a free society), but rather the obligation of the employer to pay the employee whether or not she shows up for work. This meaning of 'maternity leave' is not a legal requirement of employment in the US, though some empl…

> Employers are not and should not be required to pay you for work you are not doing. Most other developed countries seem to see that slightly differently. But ok, it is a stance you can discuss - however, it becomes enormously cynical when combined with the conservative aversion against welfare rights: So you're pregnant or sick and happen to not have enough resources to live from savings for a few months. If neithe…

> it's important to negotiate it when arranging employment

I'm going to guess that a very small portion of WFMs employees have the ability to successfully negotiate their employment terms

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#348

Post by prolikewh0a » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #227

chrissnell wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're in the middle of the best economy in years. Why would a worker put up with that? Go someplace else. Whole Foods doesn't put stores in small towns. Anyone who works there has plenty of other options.

There have been umpteen articles how wages have not kept up with inflation. It's a tough sell telling parts of the country that swapped the first black president for man with a less than stellar morality record that this is the best economy in history.

>It's a tough sell telling parts of the country that swapped the first black president for man with a less than stellar morality record that this is the best economy in history.

I don't really understand what you're saying, but Obama had a despicable morality record as well. Kill list, 7 wars, drone bombed American citizens with no due process, dropped 26,000 bombs in 2016 alone, tortured people including Chelsea Manning.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#349

Post by xg15 » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:30 PM UTC

zero_intp wrote: post #312

xg15 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employers are not and should not be required to pay you for work you are not doing. Most other developed countries seem to see that slightly differently. But ok, it is a stance you can discuss - however, it becomes enormously cynical when combined with the conservative aversion against welfare rights: So you're pregnant or sick and happen to not have enough resources to live from savings for a few months. If neithe…

America is known for practicing social darwinism as though it were a positive thing.

I remember an "ask a conservative" thread on reddit a while ago. What I found remarkable was that a lot of discussions that were ostensibly about "small government" or "promotion of conservative values", when challanged by a few counter-questions, shifted pretty quickly to population control along the lines of "if the poor get too much welfare they'll just have more kids".

Admittedly, this was reddit, so apologies if I'm misrepresenting real-life conservatives here, but that thread got me thinking that a lot of the political discussion might, at the root, actually be about social darwinism.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#350

Post by bena » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #302

jimmy1 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI, everyone calls Whole Foods Whole Paycheck.

I disagree. Before today, I'd never heard of this terminology, and I'm next to a WF each workday.

People have a lot of "clever" diminutives for things they don't like for nebulous reasons they can't actually articulate.

It makes me question the thoughts of anyone who consistently uses them in an argument or rant. It feels as if the speaker is more interested in scoring laughs than making any point.