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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

#151

Post by omegaworks »

random5634 wrote: post #21
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…

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…

Google employees walked out to protest the golden parachute offered to two serial sexual harassers on their executive team and the conditions that allowed people like them to rise consequence-free through the ranks at the company.

That you believe it's a "fit" thrown for causes that "don't connect with the average person" is reflecting pretty poorly on your priorities. Nobody wants to believe your boss is skipping over you for promotions because you rejected their sexual advances.

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

#152

Post by kortilla »

spiznnx wrote: post #124
opinion-is-bad wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why only cops and not all public sector employees? I don’t see how you can make an argument that police work isn’t work.

The argument that cops are not workers, in a Marxist sense, is because they work to protect the interests of capital, rather than do "productive" work that is useful to the rest of the working class. It's not a broadly held view, even among communists.

What a profoundly disconnected notion of what police do. Stopping violence and reckless behavior (e.g. driving drunk) has nothing to do with protecting the interests of capital.

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

#153

Post by pmyteh »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #116
edent wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how it works in the UK. I have a choice of unions in my workplace. Some are targeted more at one job sector than another - but all of them will gladly take my (cheap!) subscription. I get a vote in the union's policies. Employers can't require you to be a member of a specific union - or any union at all. You ccany join at any time - or leave whenever you want. What does it take? Just join a union and get othe…

I'm curious how that works with regards to your contract. Do you get to pick a different contract, with different terms, benefits, etc., depending on which union you join, or are contract terms not negotiated directly by your union in the UK?

In most UK workplaces with union recognition, the contract is negotiated between the employer and the (recognised) unions, but applies to all employees. Closed shops are illegal, so free-riding on the union is quite straightforward.

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

#154

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #26

I asked this in the google union thread, but was too late to the party to get any answers. Copy pasting it here: Everybody here seems to agree that unions have the potential to do good or bad in every thread on it. The next logical step to me is that there needs to be a selection mechanism in place. For companies, the selection mechanism is competition. If someone else does better, the consumer or worker can choose s…

Why would people want competition on a union? They don't work like corporations - competition weakens them.

I think this fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and function of a union.

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

#155

Post by robert_foss »

tinyhouse wrote: post #125
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."

It doesn't matter if there's a union or not. It matters what actually is being done. From the news it seems that Amazon has been consistently improving conditions of its warehouse employees. For example, making the minimum wage $15/hour.

Even if unions are affecting no change, their are able to give the workers at least some power.

Who knows, maybe they'll make Amazon to allow unmetered bathroom breaks one day.

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

#156

Post by ekianjo »

pmoriarty wrote: post #104
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…

The problem is when anecdotes about isolated abuses are used to reject unions outright rather than looking at whether unions as a whole would benefit society. You could argue from personal experience that you went to a bad school therefore all schools are bad, or you had a bad experience with therefore all people of that sort are bad. It's just not very convincing.

> isolated abuses

It's not isolated abuses, it's a feature of unions.

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

#157

Post by stefan_ »

Sodman wrote: post #81
WitCanStain wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is there such a mechanism for unions? Unions should be democratic. The workers in the union should collectively decide how it is run, and it should have a fairly flat hierarchical structure. So if you feel that your union does not sufficiently represent your interests, you can get rid of the leadership and change the union for the better. As opposed to companies where you essentially have the choice to tolerate it o…

The problem is that democracy is imperfect, it can be (and is) frequently gamed and manipulated. Many people are worried about the following scenario: - Software engineers unionize - Some "bad" rules get implemented, perhaps passing vote by misleading slogans or over-represented groups etc. Maybe it was a narrow 51% vs 49% vote. - Top talent leaves, over time that 51% in favor of the bad rules becomes a larger and la…

Well that's a convoluted mess. Here is the game plan on the other side of the bargaining table:

- Conspire with others to not pay top talent market rate and not poach employees

- The end.

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

#158

Post by _jal »

spiznnx wrote: post #124
opinion-is-bad wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why only cops and not all public sector employees? I don’t see how you can make an argument that police work isn’t work.

The argument that cops are not workers, in a Marxist sense, is because they work to protect the interests of capital, rather than do "productive" work that is useful to the rest of the working class. It's not a broadly held view, even among communists.

Voting this down is nonsense. It is useful contextual information explaining why some people make the claims they do.

The groupthink runs deep; people who don't even understand what they're downvoting. Sad.

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

#159

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #144
kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the alt-left is, but I imagine these extremely exploited workers are going to focus on their terrible working conditions.

How are they exploited? Is amazon the only company they are able to work at?

Go work there and then tell me they're not exploited.

Edit: This was flippant because I was annoyed. There are a lot of people who work in well-paying jobs and have never really experienced what the labor that enables their relatively privileged lifestyle actually feels like. They often weigh in with "well, get a better job" but not only is that not an option for everyone, it means you're devaluing absolutely critical work. The snobbery among people who fail to see that is aggravating.

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

#160

Post by sct202 »

ryanmercer wrote: post #14
paul7986 wrote: post #3

They should and should be making no less then $20 an hour to start!

I don't even make 20$ an hour after 15 years at my job... when I was 18 I was doing the kind of work Amazon workers do for minimum wage which was 5.15 an hour IIRC. I was happy to have a job and fully understood warehouse work is not a career. 20$ an hour is 2.75x the minimum wage here in Indiana. A significant portion of the people I know don't even gross 41k a year.

Other people getting their employer to pay them more doesn't harm you. There are already people in warehouses that make that much. The warehouse I used to work started at $18 (for general labor, and like double that for mechanics and machine operators) and that was a decade ago.
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