Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#21

Post by pksebben » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

patwolfe wrote: post #18

Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.

it's not just the way the world works. it's the way capitalism works. I don't think it's unfair for people to be fed up with watching these things happen while the root causes continue to be largely taken for granted.

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#22

Post by khalilravanna » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

Seems more helpful to link to the original article on Motherboard: https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports...

Among other things the article differentiates between the internal Amazon org monitoring union-forming activities and the Pinkertons who were tasked with looking into warehouse workers for unrelated reasons which the NPR headline seems to conflate.

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#23

Post by FpUser » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

llimos wrote: post #10

The levels of corporate greed in the world today are making me give up on humanity.

>"... today ..."

Are you implying that they were less greedy at some other time? The whole economy is driven by greed. Always was, always will. You can get some exceptions here and there but the general picture is pure greed.

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#24

Post by Angostura » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #21

patwolfe wrote: post #18

Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.

it's not just the way the world works. it's the way capitalism works. I don't think it's unfair for people to be fed up with watching these things happen while the root causes continue to be largely taken for granted.

It's not even the way that capitalism works. It's the way that unproperly regulated capitalism works

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#25

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

In itself, this may suggest something is really going on here.

We're seemingly turning from ebb to flow in the union/anti-union pendulum. Meanwhile, amazon's employees are a genuinely vast group. Quantity is a quality, and amazon knows that scale can change how things work in hard to predict ways.

It's possible that amazon is ahead of the game. Most of what I've heard/read from the pro-union side is fairly generic. Why unions are beneficial generally. I definitely hear more positive sentiments towards unions, but...

I haven't heard much about goals, tactics, strategies, proposed unionisation structures. I haven't heard any ideas relating to novel 2020 realities: amazon's size, digital economics, amazon's record profits and market cap.

I haven't heard anything approaching deliverables. Pay rises? Who? How much? Benefits? Amazon have $250k aws engineers, part time whole foods workers? How does this relate to unionisation strategy or goals.

Even is the sentiment pendulum is swinging back to pro-union, a big role for unions still seems distant. It could take decades.

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#26

Post by badRNG » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

Grimm1 wrote: post #11

"Pinkerton operatives were inserted into an Amazon warehouse in Wroclaw, Poland, to investigate an allegation that warehouse workers were circumventing sort of the application process for applying to warehouse jobs" How does this match the title of the piece. Then, "So I imagine that in the U.S., they're tracking labor organizing activity but not union members yet." So they have no proof and this is all speculation.…

Leaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center reveal the company’s reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental activists, and other social movements. [1]

This isn't "speculation" or "poor journalism", it is an assessment that exists within the context of a company that has been aggressively anti-union for years, for which employees are trained to rat out union organizers,[2] and, of course, in light of their retention of Pinkertons to infiltrate employee Facebook groups dedicated to organizing.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports...

[2] https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-re...

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#27

Post by criddell » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #3

"Pinkerton: for over one-hundred years, the ones to call when you've got a union problem." I mean, that has to be their schtick, right, even if it's unspoken? Because that pretty much sums up what I know about Pinkerton, so I would assume they are happy with that. As for the topic at hand, yeah well, that's what companies do...for over one-hundred years as well.

Somebody should try to unionize Pinkerton employees.

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#28

Post by hpoe » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

patwolfe wrote: post #18

Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.

Can I just point out that I think the "horrible working conditions" things is a little played up.

You want to know terrible working conditions dancing with a sign for 5 hours a day in the sun when it's 90+. I did that for 3 years and was happy to do the job, mind you this was only 10 years ago so it isn't forever. I made 7.50 an hour. I would've killed to get a job at amazon back then.

People are getting payed $16 that is incredible for an unskilled labor position.

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#29

Post by sempron64 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #14

HarryHirsch wrote: post #6

Why would you expect anything else? Amazon is a logistics company like UPS; if Bezos didn't squeeze every last drop of profit from their employees it wouldn't be world-dominating.

The world-dominating is largely a negative from my perspective: it pushes it's smaller competitors out of business which decreases the competitiveness of the market and extracts profits/wealth out of local communities where it would likely be spent productively into the pockets of Jeff Bezos and Amazon investors where it is not nearly so useful.

The services they provide have been of incomparable quality to any other offering in the US. They made free 2-day shipping and free returns the baseline. Amazon lockers provide online shopping opportunities to those not privileged to own a house with a secure front yard (I do wish shipping to amazon lockers was possible from other online-only retailers). And in truth the vast majority of amazon’s income is still invested back into the salaries of its workers and building infrastructure — they have notoriously thin profit margins outside of AWS. Bezos’ fabulous wealth comes from stock.

Edit: I’m not affiliated with amazon and my acquaintances had very stressful experiences working there. But as a customer I really appreciate their service

Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions

#30

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

patwolfe wrote: post #18

Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.

> the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.

Who is forced to work in Amazon's warehouses? Is Amazon rounding up people with guns everyday to make them work there?