woot woot! proud this is in alabama.
Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
61–70 of 378 posts
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#62Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…
Many/most supporters of unions argue that police should not be able to form or join unions. "Cops are not workers" is a common phrase I've seen.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#63I have to imagine unions have a bit of an uphill battle right now, they took some major black eyes in 2020: - Police unions openly declaring war on their own citizens - Teachers unions causing general chaos in school reopening plans I understand that public sector unions are a different beast, but purely from an optics perspective I have to imagine public sentiment for unions can't be very high right now.
Public sector unions feel so strange to me- could you imagine there being military unions?
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#64Unions were proponents for worker safety, fair wages, anti-discrimination. They are the reason why such thing as OSHA exists today. They are the reason some laws were passed to protect workers in the US.
But once these mandates became law, corporations used the arguments of "why do we need unions if the law already protects workers?" This and following Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers changed the image of unions. They were now corrupt middlemen that charged you a fee to be part of the club.
And it worked. Trying to form a union is now news instead of being the natural course of things. I wager that most people in the tech side of Amazon have a hard time grasping why their coworkers are trying to unionize. (we get paid well, what's the fuss all about?)
I hope they vote in their interest, but I'm doubtful it will pass (I hope I'm wrong). These laws that are supposed to protect workers are enforced by the company's HR department[1]. The problem is that HR will side with the company before siding with any employee.
I think we need to start looking into reforming HR and making it a public service.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just one comment on this: > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.
> Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... Teachers union is easily one of the worst Unions in USA which has turned public education system into a wasteland of incompetent teachers protected at the expense of competent and unemployed. It has turned our education system into a soviet styled "jobs program for adults" instead of a schooling system for children. If Americans ever wanted an example of how much dam…
And if you want the second best example, take a look at the MTA union. Rife with corruption for the union managers at the top, projects delayed by years to decades, cost overruns in the billions, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#66Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
Google and Amazon unions represent quite fundamentally different kinds of organizing principles.
The Amazon union is of the much more classical form, is well past due, it's not entirely necessary, but it would be beneficial.
I don't actually think that regular Google employees should be unionized, rather, it should be the non-technical staff, contractors and so many people not in privileged positions that should be probably be unionized to the exclusion of the talent, who want to form their union for entirely different reasons. I do not believe that the Google Union is oriented towards helping those who actually are powerless.
Google technical staff are the most privileged and well taken care of workers literally in the entire world.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that it would be illegal to do that under Federal labor law (they can't punish the workers that joined the union for joining the union).
I think you're right, but they have ways to do it. They'd simply shut down the plant in it's entirety, and open another warehouse far away. They can dress it up as "operational inefficiencies" or "poor location for shipping" etc. The fact the workers were going to unionize? Oh, just a coincidence! We were already planning to shut down our Alabama location anyway.
I would expect that tactic to still require that they give the workers at the facility shutting down similar opportunities to what they have given other employees in the past in similar situations.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…
Just one comment on this: > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.
Maybe if student unions weren't a complete joke, the situation would improve. As it stands, teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed, against the interest of the students, while the students have no real representation or organization to provide balance by looking after student interests.
My mother was a middleschool teacher when I was in highschool, and drove me to highschool in the morning. Because she was a teacher, she had to get there before the school obstensibly opened, which wasn't a problem for me or my brothers because the administration of the highschool was reasonable and let us sit quietly in the office until the school opened. A handful of other kids had this arrangement too. It worked fine until my junior year, when the teachers union decided to throw a hissy fit. The result of that was all students being made to stand outside in the cold until the school was officially open. The teachers Union said that allowing students into the building before school hours unfairly saddled them with more labor... never mind that we were all quietly sitting in the office receiving compliments from the secretaries for being well behaved.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…
Just one comment on this: > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.
Teachers and police officers are public servants. If they want to bargain, they should be negotiating with the public, not government officials. Otherwise, it's just collusion.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just one comment on this: > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.
The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.
It's a strange system we live in where teachers get fired at the drop of a hat for seemingly innocuous offenses like teaching evolution or breaking up a fight, while also being absolutely untouchable.