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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

#331

Post by shevek_ »

jamiequint wrote: post #95
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > We need to note that Amazon is an NPR funder. The original Motherboard article [0] is extensive. The NPR version is deliberately incoherent. [0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports...

You actually believe that Amazon has editorial control over NPR and specifically exerted that leverage to make this article incoherent?

This is the story of our entire media. No, they didn't line by line come in and edit the article, but any media outlet is going to self-censor to not lose a big sponsor. I think that's pretty self-evident at this point. The classic Manufacturing Consent does a deep dive into this dynamic.

Related, newspapers are historically unprofitable. Why would someone like Jeff Bezos buy the Washington Post? Like any investment, he expects some kind of return. And the return in this case clearly isn't direct revenue.

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

#332

Post by andybak »

syshum wrote: post #329
thomascgalvin wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main points are: 1. Their own struggles aren't new: companies have been trying to fuck workers over since time immemorial, and 2. There is a well-known solution to these problems: unions. Are you working 16 hours a day, barely able to afford rent + food + utilities, and slipping further into debt every day? It doesn't have to be that way , and we have a really good idea, based on historical facts, about h…

you do know that Appalachia is still the poorest area in the US, and the unions did not fix the economic problems. yes it provided the employees that were still employed with greater protections, but it is not the utopia you seem to believe it is

Nobody claimed a utopia. Extracting natural resources is always going to be a tough job that is ripe for exploitation.

Did unions improve the lives of members? They certainly did where I come from. American labour history is more complex (union corruption and take over by organised crime seemed to run deeper)

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

#333

Post by ardy42 »

dalbasal wrote: post #55
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.

For those who identify strongly with unions, union-busting stuff like this is triggering... like "bringing up the war" in a war traumatised nation. I get that. But... 2020 isn't 1920 or even 1980. Fresh eyes might see more clearly. To the advantage of union organisers, mass communication and organisation is a lot easier today. Surveillance is easier too. IDK. Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just le…

> To the advantage of union organisers, mass communication and organisation is a lot easier today.

But that's a double-edged sword. It's also an advantage to employers and businesses. And recent history has shown they have the advantage: they been successful at thwarting union formation (see Wal-Mart, the movie American Factory, etc.) and even labor laws (e.g. Prop 22).

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

#334

Post by ImaCake »

djsumdog wrote: post #181
_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…

This is where the Tennessee Ernie Ford song comes from, "Sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't call me cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store." There was an episode of South Park last season where they played this song as a backdrop to Amazon workers in a warehouse.

This reminds me of a similar, and quite popular, 90's rock song in Australia called "Blue Sky Mine" [0]. It refers to the horrible exploitive activities of CSL on an asbestos mine in the Pilbara region of Australia where they controlled their workers in a similar manner to what you describe here.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Sky_Mine

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

#335

Post by LatteLazy »

I'm a brit, can someone give me an overview of the law on US unions? If one forms, are Amazon compelled to work with them like in European nations? If its still just At Will employment, I don't see how a union would make any difference there, Amazon can (will) just fire everyone who joins and replace them tomorrow right?

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

#336

Post by andybak »

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.

You've got it the wrong way round. You start by assuming everything is permitted and then you selectively (and ideally reluctantly) bring the weight of law to bear when you discover that it's a net benefit to society. It's a correction for gross inequalities of power.

That's something the libertarian left and libertarian right surely agree on - minimising the application of the monopoly of force and all that.

So you assume both employers and employees can freely organize and associate. That's your starting point.

Now - we've decided that the right to join a union should be protected (it evens out an existing power imbalance) and that collusion to force down wages should be illegal (because it amplifies an existing power imbalance to the detriment of society at large)

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

#337

Post by anon73044 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #81
dalbasal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who identify strongly with unions, union-busting stuff like this is triggering... like "bringing up the war" in a war traumatised nation. I get that. But... 2020 isn't 1920 or even 1980. Fresh eyes might see more clearly. To the advantage of union organisers, mass communication and organisation is a lot easier today. Surveillance is easier too. IDK. Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just le…

> Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just let it happen without a fight. Same as always. Which is, if I recalled correctly, illegal.

>Which is, if I recalled correctly, illegal.

Entirely legal in a "Right to work" state.

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

#338

Post by andybak »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #229
bildung wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Where do you draw the line with what a “human right” is?* By looking into the declaration of human rights: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Which is even more unenforceable than the 4th amendment.

It still has value even if enforcement is imperfect and selective.

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

#339

Post by hnlmorg »

hnlmorg wrote: post #87
TheRealSteel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way that capitalism works is to prevent proper regulation.

[flagged]

The interesting thing about moderation of this comment (and please note this isn't a complaint about the moderation) is that it was up-voted heavily when during Western European office hours then down-voted heavily during SV office hours, which is a correlation to the different cultural opinions I've also observed between SV and Europe when it comes to discussions regarding capitalism.

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

#340

Post by mcguire »

_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…

Pinkerton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)) was one of those security companies.
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