Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #146

dxdm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If not with government officials, i.e. the executive part of the system taking care of public concerns, how should they negotiate with "the public"?

Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus. Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge, let alone approval. Government workers already have a lot of job security, so I don't think unions should be allowed to affect that. I do think that public servants have a right to negotiate safety and other technical issues without public…

> Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus.

Generally, they do require a vote of the appropriate governing body, with all the associated public information and opportunity for input that goes along with that.

> Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge

If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care. Because if they did, even if they were too lazy to find out themselves, it would be too convenient a lever for opposition to whoever the current majority is in the relevant governing body to use with the public to unseat them to go unused.

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

#202

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

ibudiallo wrote: post #64

Unions 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…

> Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers

It was illegal for the controllers to strike.

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

#203

Post by purple_ferret » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #166

purple_ferret wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 fro…

I think you mean exploitation.

i did ty

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

#204

Post by refurb » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #83

j_walter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Port of Portland is now shuttered because they intentionally slowed down work to the point of forcing companies to go elsewhere." Unions should be everywhere, so these companies could not escape them by relocating. Capital trying to feel the country should also be taxed heavily for the same reason.

Sounds like a planned economy. We know how well that works.

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

#205

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #162

slg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't surprising once you reframe the issue. These unions are successfully suppressed for the exact same reason that people are inclined to form them. The labor class in the US simply doesn't have (or perhaps more accurately doesn't yield) the political power that the labor class does in many other countries. The forming of unions will help them get more power, but the act of creating a union already requires a ce…

That is by design, really. The working poor in this country have been ideologically divided by moral wedges such as abortion for decades now. Few poor republicans and poor democrats would like to admit that they are in the same economic boat, and as a result typically the former votes against their own economic interest on the grounds of their moral principles. For the wealthy in this country, the political footballi…

> Few poor republicans and poor democrats would like to admit that they are in the same economic boat

They might agree that they're in the same boat, but they'll disagree with why they're there.

Poor democrats will blame corporations for keeping wages low and sending jobs to China and lack of government assistance programs. They think the solution is to increase taxes on the rich to provide better social programs.

Poor republicans will blame illegal immigrants for stealing their job, or they somehow think the government is in their way. They think the solution is to cut taxes on the corporations to create jobs (regardless of the fact that this never works).

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

#206

Post by Alupis » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

Honestly curious - are there any laws that would stop Amazon from just terminating employment for anyone found to be participating in this union?

When a company can hire 100,000 new employees at the drop of a hat[1], I see no reason why Amazon would ever cave into unfavorable union demands.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/amazon-to-hire-100000-wareho...

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

#207

Post by mynameishere » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

j_walter wrote: post #19

legitster wrote: post #9

I 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.

I've never fully understood public unions to be honest. Unions used to be the best way to protect yourself from a bad employer...but the employer is the government (and to some extent the people). It used to be that public sector workers made less in exchange for better benefits, but in the last few years the war was waged on the public to increase wages to that of "private companies". Now teachers in my state make m…

What don't you understand? The point of a union is to extract more money and reduce productivity (yes, it is). A company will resist this since it's the company's money that's getting extracted and their productivity that's getting hurt. Politicians will not resist it since it's public money and public services--not specifically their own.

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

#208

Post by lawnchair_larry » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

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 used to think that, but then some new grads at Google decided to start one. I think the head of their union has only been in the workforce for about a year.

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

#209

Post by atmosx » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

Following the 2017 "Power and Politics" lectures at Yale[1] on Youtube (lecture 5) I came across this graph[2] showcasing the relationship between inequality and union membership.

I know that correlation does not imply causation but here there are at least two strong narratives offered at the lecture supporting the relationship.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDqvzFY72mg&list=PLh9mgdi4rN...

[2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-and-the-rise-...

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

#210

Post by jedberg » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #184

jedberg wrote: post #141

I sympathize with the folks who want to unionize and I wish them luck, but I suspect this will quickly backfire on them. Of all the companies in the world, the one I would be most worried about automating away human jobs would be Amazon. If this warehouse unionizes, I suspect it will quickly become their number one automation test site. As the cost of labor goes up and the cost of automation goes down, they'll have a…

Whole Foods has never been unionized. I don't know where you got that impression.

Yeah, you're right my bad. They've been trying to unionize and formed a group to push for unionization but haven't been successful yet. I thought they had actually succeeded.