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

npr.org

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

#31

Post by JPKab »

Pinkerton has a long history of criminal activity.

It's unbelievable that Bezos gets away with this with such minimal media attention. (Yeah, it's on NPR, but I highly doubt I'll see it on CNN, at the most, maybe Fox will say something because they view Bezos as a political enemy)

My great grandfather was a miner in southern WV during the time period where Pinkerton agents intimidated and harassed the families of union members, and often assaulting them. Eventually it all culminated in this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

It should be noted that Blair Mountain was the only time in history where US warplanes (very primitive at the time) dropped bombs on US soil directed at US citizens.

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

#32

Post by vulcan01 »

Loughla wrote: post #4

It just astounds me that the Old Timey Pinkertons are still around, to be honest. That is a company that my 98 year old grandfather tells stories about from his childhood. I know there are other old companies, but Pinkerton is one of those that just sounds old fashioned.

Same here. I'm a high school student; I learned about the Pinkertons last year in US History... (Carnegie Steel's Homestead Strike https://www.britannica.com/event/Homestead-Strike)

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

#33

Post by TheRealSteel »

Interfering with unionization needs to be illegal, and not met with fines that affect only the bottom line of a balance sheet, but jail time for everyone involved, with mandatory minimum sentencing. If this is true Bezos should be behind bars.

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

#34

Post by VonGuard »

Ah, lovely of Amazon to employ the EXACT same people that Carnegie and Frick hired to beat and kill steel workers in 1892. How long before Amazon has the Pinkertons open fire on the unionizers?

Great prescident, Amazon. No bad choices here. Just the honest, fair dealings of the richest man in the world hiring the same people who've been murdering strikers and unionizers since 1850. Stay classy Jeff!

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

#35

Post by badRNG »

hpoe wrote: post #28
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 th…

"You are unreasonable for calling out a bad thing, since I can conceive of an even worse thing."

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

#37

Post by moocowtruck »

kome wrote: post #17

We are letting amazon going way too far. This is unacceptable. A global coalition of trade-unions is mobilizing against amazon, https://makeamazonpay.com/ Also legislators should get more aware of companies undermining workers right. But I feel legislators to be part of the problem.

unionizing amazon would be horrible, I've been working at usps for 15+ years and unions are the reason for most of our troubles. Please lets not turn a company who makes a good product and pays people well for it into the enemy

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

#38

Post by natpalmer1776 »

hpoe wrote: post #28
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 th…

It is incredibly played up.

10 years ago, warehouse conditions were the same or worse as they are now except you would be lucky to get $16/hr without a forklift operator certification or some other credential that made it more than just 'unskilled labor'

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

#39

Post by TheRealSteel »

Angostura wrote: post #24
pksebben wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The way that capitalism works is to prevent proper regulation.

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

#40

Post by Grimm1 »

badRNG wrote: post #26
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…

Fine but you had to use alternative sources to get that information.

This particular piece is trash because it didn't go get those leaked documents and then discuss them in depth like the vice link. That is real investigative journalism. This linked piece speculated the entire way through.

This should be dropped from the front page and we should be discussing the vice or gizmodo article which actually put in the work to go through the allegations.

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