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Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

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Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#91

Post by jjulius »

underseacables wrote: post #85
jariel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are like corporations - there is good and bad, benefits and drawbacks. One thing I've noticed, is that where 'new unions' are forming, there is' probably a good reason for it.

There is no good reason for it. Employees at top companies are forming unions because they think that will allow them to say whatever they want on the job, and if Google says no don’t talk about politics at work it creates tension and conflict, they will say sorry where are union you have to listen to us now. It’s spoiled, overpaid techies upset they can’t use work time to preach political and social issues.

>There is no good reason for it. Employees at top companies are forming unions because they think that will allow them to say whatever they want on the job... It’s spoiled, overpaid techies upset they can’t use work time to preach political and social issues.

... you do realize you're making those broad, blanket statements in the comment thread of an article that's about the unionization of Amazon's warehouse workers who aren't "spoiled, overpaid techies", yes?

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#92

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

LatteLazy wrote: post #39

Can anyone outline what unionisation means in this case? If they vote yes, is everyone at this location required to join? Are amazon required to negotiate with the union? Can amazon simply close the plant? Presumably if unionisation works for these workers (better pay etc) then other centres will follow suit...

Hi, I was a union organizer before I was a software engineer. I'll try answer your questions without much commentary:

Is everyone required to join? No. Following Janus, they might not even be required to pay dues. However, the union contract will apply to everyone in the bargaining unit (generally all non-management) regardless of membership.

Is Amazon required to negotiate? Yes, they're legally required to make good faith negotiations. Whether or not they actually do this is an open question, as companies regularly stall here.

Can Amazon simply close the plant? Not legally, no. They would probably end up owing the workers quite a bit of money if they did. Whether or not they take that course of action may be a business decision.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#93

Post by jandrese »

Given the multiple reports of deplorable working conditions in Amazon warehouses it seems like they would be ripe for unionization. Unions can be seen as the backpressure on corporations mistreating the workers, which Amazon has become notorious for.

It's one of those things businesses have to take into account when trying to compete. You can abuse your employees to gain competitive advantage over your rivals, but in the long term such tactics tend to result in the formation of a union which is a major competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.

It's bad news for Amazon if they can no longer honor next day delivery for Prime members because of strikes at the warehouses. The workers have some leverage with strikes. It's not like coal miners where strikes were rather abstract because the lights never went out. This pain will be felt by the customers, and it's not like there aren't other businesses out there where you can mail order stuff. Maybe not all from the same shop and maybe you have to pay for shipping, but if Amazon doesn't know when it will be delivered because the product is in the warehouse and labor negotiations have stalled it's a reasonable tradeoff.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#94

Post by purple_ferret »

j_walter wrote: post #12
simpixelated wrote: post #5

Along 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…

Unions in the US and unions is Europe are completely different. In one they cooperate to see that the company succeeds...and in the other they seek to drive up the cost of doing business to the point that shitty products are extremely expensive (GM, Ford). Unions used to be for protecting the workers and ensuring that companies were getting the very best skillsets when hiring. Now they protect the lazy, promote the w…

>Unions used to be for protecting the workers and ensuring that companies were getting the very best skillsets when hiring.

Labor unions in the US formed primarily to combat exploitation by employers, often in the face of great oppression and cronyism that led to literal bloodshed[0]. This is one of the reasons unions can't be part of the companies their members work for, unlike in Europe. Unions in Europe formed from trade unions that had a longstanding history in European economy. That said, all you have to do is look at union activity in France, where there seems to be nationwide strikes every year, to dispel the myth that they are somehow more cooperative or amenable to making concessions.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#95

Post by varispeed »

It's weird that the US didn't catch up with the UK how to "solve" the "problem" of unions. You see last year we got changes to a law that is called "IR35" which essentially says that people working like employees should be taxed as employees. Nothing wrong with that - until now (I simplified this), if someone had a business of providing a service (for example bespoke software development) and if they realised their relationship with the client is of the employment in all but name, they had to declare themselves in scope of IR35 and pay the tax accordingly. Person inside IR35 has to pay all the taxes employees pay, but they don't have any employment rights (because they are not employees). And here is the genius twist - someone thought, what if the decision about the relationship is made by the client? That sounds innocent, right? Now (from April) a company can start hiring contractors instead of employees and write their contracts in a way that will make them always caught by IR35 (and declare the relationship as such). Since contractors are not protected by any employment laws, such de facto employees cannot form unions, can be hired and fired at will and don't have other protections - for example if your "employee" gets pregnant, they can be fired without consequences.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#96

Post by Ericson2314 »

seibelj wrote: post #50
Frondo wrote: post #32

Earlier 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.

You all realize half the reason we have "bad schools" is that families home lives have been falling apart for decades, and schools are the only government agency (except for maybe the police...) interfacting with those families on regular basis?

That and hyperlocal funding.

We can't like society as a whole fall part and expect schools to keep on performing well.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#97

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jariel wrote: post #71
random5634 wrote: post #21

Earlier 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…

Unions are like corporations - there is good and bad, benefits and drawbacks. One thing I've noticed, is that where 'new unions' are forming, there is' probably a good reason for it.

I tend to agree, but the flipside is that we need trust the workers' judgment when a new union doesn't form. I see a troubling tendency among union organizers to assume that anyone who's thinking clearly would want to be in a union - if a unionization vote fails, that can only mean the company must have tricked or bullied people into casting the wrong vote.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#98

Post by gruez »

maxerickson wrote: post #37
filoleg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should be making no less then $20 an hour to start! This is a noble goal, and I am all for seeing it happen. But if you think it won't just give Amazon warehouses a stronger foothold, you are mistaken. I, personally, don't think it is necessarily a bad thing if Amazon warehouses gain more workers due to their conditions becoming better as a result of unionization. But quite a lot of people will disagree with t…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795459 links an article about Amazon driving average wages down. Seems likely enough that people working in other warehouses mostly aren't the ones filling Amazon jobs. Do we have some anecdotes about people leaving logistics jobs to go entry level at an Amazon warehouse?

>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795459 links an article about Amazon driving average wages down.

That doesn't disprove gp's claim that amazon is better than the existing warehouse jobs, because it could be simpson's paradox at work. eg. let's say before amazon moved in your warehouse jobs you had in an area were the following:

* 20 forklift drivers @ $20/hr

* 100 pickers at @ $10/hr

The average warehouse wage would be $11.67/hr. Now, let's say amazon opened the warehouse and created higher paying jobs (like gp claimed), and the jobs now look like the following:

* 30 forklift drivers @ $22/hr

* 500 pickers at @ $11/hr

Every job's wages went up by 10%, yet the average wage slightly fell to $11.62.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#99

Post by willcipriano »

rjstreur wrote: post #79
Barrin92 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what I'm astonished by is the degree to which American firms are allowed to sabotage unionisation efforts despite, as I understand it, the US actually having similar protections for workplace assembly as other Western countries. If you tried interfere with unions here in Germany you'd run up against the law, the media and so on very, very quickly, it's one of the things you don't want to screw with.

There's a long history here. The American labor movement secured a lot of those protections in the early and mid-20th century, and they were strong for several decades. It was a hard, violent fight. People died at strikes for those protections. As we entered the 80's and 90's with the rise of Reaganism and then neoliberalism, however, US businesses as well as the federal and state governments started chipping away at…

> It was a hard, violent fight. People died at strikes for those protections.

Just a personal anecdote, my biological grandfathers trunk was firebombed by the Philly Roofers Union (UURWAW) due to a dispute with them. The K&A gang in that area is well known to be tied into the union[0] and was known to fairly regularly engage in violence like that to prevent "scabs". My point being, the violence was omni-directional and this fact is often omitted by those in favor of unions.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%26A_Gang#Roofers'_Union_corr...

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#100

Post by DenisM »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #2

I wonder what percentage of otherwise very liberal Amazon devs read sentences like "The company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." and come away thinking "we're definitely the good guys."

Sometime during the last year the usually heavily statist left became heavily corporatist. I'm not sure what to make of it.
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