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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

#291

Post by mmcgaha »

dalbasal wrote: post #183
_wldu wrote: post #145

In 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and…

I respect a history lesson, but honestly, I think old comrade tales are not helpful. I don't mean that it's irrelevant, strictly, but we hear more of these than 2020 tales, 2020 strategies and concerns. This is 100 year later, and despite of how many union die hards see it... most workers aren't likely to buy int a centuries long struggle. They're interested in their own lives & jobs.

I get that 100 years sounds like a long time, but the coal miners unionization stories are my grandfather's. Things change fast and it is good to keep the past in mind when evaluating the decisions we make today.

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

#292

Post by jahaja »

rayiner wrote: post #231
jahaja wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see any power disparity here?

I do. But power disparity doesn’t have anything to do with freedom of association. It’s a different basis for allowing unionization.

But we have to realise that the common situation here is a corporation against a single individual. How is it comparable to a cartel of corporations?

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

#293

Post by mrtksn »

sangnoir wrote: post #290
mrtksn wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything stopping workers from crowdsource their own protection anonymously? Does it have to be some kind of formal union? If you think about it, work is just a business deal and wouldn't be possible for employees create some kind of company that deals with the companies they are employed? Pretty much like an agency, I guess.

Oh, do you honestly think such an "secretive, radical union cell" funded by "dark money" would be allowed to exist and interface with corporates? (words in scare-quotes would be how this would be framed by employers and the media - they may or may not throw in foreign funding, Venezuela or China could get name-dropped with zero evidence).

It doesn’t have to be secret, just your membership is secret.

It can have open plan offices in a cool neighborhood, pay politicians and all.

Just have centralized Emlpoyers information management system where information about employers, like salaries they pay business they do, the good and the bad to work there etc.

So when you are getting a job you apply to your not-union and they tell you what to expect and how much to ask. No more guesswork.

It’s like an HR that works for you. So it’s BR, businesses resources.

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

#294

Post by michaelyoshika »

JPKab wrote: post #31

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 uni…

I honestly don't know why you got downvoted.

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

#295

Post by berelig »

JackFr wrote: post #195
berelig wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live in a small town with small businesses that are undercut by Amazon's price and scale. Those businesses slowly die out as everyone in your region switches to ordering online (primarily from Amazon). Amazon opens a warehouse in the region to meet the demand and is now the largest employer around. This exact transformation already happened with Wal-Mart in the 80s and 90s. Obviously no one is literally forcing w…

My life was transformed with the growth of WalMart and Amazon. The quality, variety, convenience and price of goods available to me all improved. The Mom and Pop who had been financing their lifestyle on the backs of the rural poor were forced out of business. I feel a little bad for them, but it seems wrong to elevate them over the rest of the population.

As Colin says, I don't disagree. I don't think twice about ordering an item on Amazon for $2 that a hardware store downstairs sells for $5. I understand why the store's margins need to be that high but I also need to make sound financial decisions and don't make enough to subsidize anyone else. At the end of the day I'm still contributing to Amazon's growth at the expense of a more fragmented market of small businesses.

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

#296

Post by jodrellblank »

JackFr wrote: post #137
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 Who is being forced?

If given a free choice of literally anything they could do to contribute to the world, do you think Amazon warehouse employees would put Amazon warehouse work as their primary choice? Something they said they wanted to do "when they grow up"? "Something with dehumanising conditions, please!"

If not, what is your answer to the quesiton "why are they doing this job at all"?

Because they have to do something, and this is the best they can do? Then "have to do something" is the force, and they are the forced.

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

#297

Post by Klinky »

mrtksn wrote: post #293
sangnoir wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, do you honestly think such an "secretive, radical union cell" funded by "dark money" would be allowed to exist and interface with corporates? (words in scare-quotes would be how this would be framed by employers and the media - they may or may not throw in foreign funding, Venezuela or China could get name-dropped with zero evidence).

It doesn’t have to be secret, just your membership is secret. It can have open plan offices in a cool neighborhood, pay politicians and all. Just have centralized Emlpoyers information management system where information about employers, like salaries they pay business they do, the good and the bad to work there etc. So when you are getting a job you apply to your not-union and they tell you what to expect and how mu…

So it's like Glassdoor or Salary.com? That's not a union, that's not HR, that's not armed protection.

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

#298

Post by berelig »

dcgudeman wrote: post #122
berelig wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live in a small town with small businesses that are undercut by Amazon's price and scale. Those businesses slowly die out as everyone in your region switches to ordering online (primarily from Amazon). Amazon opens a warehouse in the region to meet the demand and is now the largest employer around. This exact transformation already happened with Wal-Mart in the 80s and 90s. Obviously no one is literally forcing w…

Do you have any evidence that Amazon has decreased overall employment? To me it is totally plausible that with the convenience of online shopping they have increased the overall “retail pie” and have not taken away from local businesses. So I would prefer when you make claims about how small business are dying out because of Amazon you provide evidence

I should have prefixed that this is drawing heavily on what I remember reading about Walmart and their effect on rural/suburban economies when they expanded. In that sense it is conjecture on my part as I'm not drawing on any studies about Amazon in particular. I only wanted to show how large corporations that compete directly with small retail employers can get an unfair advantage against their labour force.

Your theory could obviously be valid as well.

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #267
_wldu wrote: post #145

In 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and…

Is there anything stopping workers from crowdsource their own protection anonymously? Does it have to be some kind of formal union? If you think about it, work is just a business deal and wouldn't be possible for employees create some kind of company that deals with the companies they are employed? Pretty much like an agency, I guess.

[deleted]
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