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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

#321

Post by Frondo »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #310
Thlom wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the union stop the employer from hiring non-unionized workers?

In most union workplaces, one of the first contract demands is exclusivity, where the employer can only hire members. This is referred to as a " closed shop" [1] When a closed shop forms, works have a choice to join or leave. Some places allow non-union workers, but they must pay part of their salary to the union. This is called and "agency shop" [2] For example, if you become a police officer and do not choose to jo…

Well, since the Taft-Hartley act of 1947 banned closed shops, I'm not sure that that's really the first of contract demands anymore, at least in the US.

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

#322

Post by Frondo »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #220
joshe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American unions are quite different from European unions. European unions spend a lot of time running apprenticeship programs and doing things like advocating for more productivity. Like trying to figure out how to make the shop floor more efficient. American unions spend time preventing bad employees from being fired (like the NY teacher's rubber rooms and police unions fighting the firing of cops with 5 excessive f…

So how do we get european style unions here in america? How is it that they are able to avoid those issues and what lessons can we take that aren't "america just can't do unions right."

Repeal Taft-Hartley.

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

#323

Post by kortilla »

dragonwriter wrote: post #228
kortilla wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s the point. The “treatment leading up to that” was a mid 6 figure income and nearly free reign to do research in her field of interest. Not relatable to most of the lower or middle class in the US.

> The “treatment leading up to that” was a mid 6 figure income and nearly free reign to do research in her field of interest. No, the proximately preceding treatment was restrictions on her research that were inconsistent with those imposed on other Google AI researchers (the extent to which that is due to its subject matter, the extent to which it is due to her internal advocacy on gender and race issues, and the ex…

It being about her gender was heavily disputed even inside of Google. The only thing that can be agreed on was that her research publication was restricted by Jeff Dean and co.

The fact that there isn’t really any direct evidence of gender bias in this case is why this is so unrelatable.

A likely millionaire being asked to defer a last minute publication is not even something that would register as an annoyance to the huge portion of the US workforce that doesn’t give two shits about their job.

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

#324

Post by ardy42 »

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…

> The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that

That's like arguing against private business by citing anecdotes about people's direct experiences with car dealerships and Comcast.

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

#325

Post by aetherane »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #255
rayiner wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “anecdotes about isolated abuses.” Even parents I know who are solidly on the left are outraged by how completely inflexible teachers’ unions have been during the pandemic. Even people I know who are ardent Democrats in states like Illinois grumble quietly about the government having no money because they’re crushed under pension obligations. The problem is that, in the US, most peoples’ experiences with uni…

> Even parents I know who are solidly on the left are outraged by how completely inflexible teachers’ unions have been during the pandemic. As a dueling anecdote, I know plenty of libertarian/right-leaning folks who privately tell me that they totally understand that teachers (regardless of unions) should not have to face a highly infectious disease in classrooms just so a bunch of double-income parents want to keep…

Though you don't need unions for that. Enough teachers at a local school refused to go in individually that the administrators were forced to make sane policies.

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

#326

Post by DenisM »

jskell725 wrote: post #248
DenisM wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To this point - Lately I've found myself arguing for Medicare for All from the "right", against e.g. classifying gig workers as employees so they get corporate benefits from the "left". In a universe where public social programs are impossible; I find many of these corporatist-redistributionist arguments sort of interesting. But in this one; I really do think we should tax corporations more and fund State programs. I…

Likewise UBI has both a left-wing and a right-wing appeal.

I think MFA is not entirely antithetical to the right ideology and could be over time incorporated - it improves labor mobility which is in line with core right values (freedom of association and participation provides better free market outcomes and more self-sufficiency). It’s just at any point in time it’s too convenient to crap on it for cheap points. A local optimum of negative variety.

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

#327

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

WitCanStain wrote: post #40
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…

>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…

Democracy is great, but why democratically try to arrive at a single choice when you could democratically arrive at multiple choices? It would be great to have a union. If my union had different priorities than mine, it would also be great to have other options too that also benefit from collective bargaining.

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

#328

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #257
kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #130

I worked at and organized a local grocery store in 2015 into the UFCW local. Workers there have six weeks of vacation after a year, much higher than average wages and excellent health benefits. They also have a real shield from arbitrary discipline, which had been a rampant problem. Seeing all the anti-union propaganda makes me wonder how many people spreading it have ever been in a union. It seems like most of it is…

Positions on unions should not be absolute. There are many people who are these anti-establishment, universally pro-union types, as if they improve everything they touch and there are no downsides. The reality is that unions are a big tradeoff. For grocery workers and warehouse workers and other low skill positions, they tend to make sense. Labor laws are definitely a better way to handle things. Unions should also b…

I worked directly with them, so I have TONS of criticisms of unions. They're far from perfect and frankly weak in the US. There's room for improvement for sure. And there are downsides - you're committing to a permanently adversarial relationship with management. I'd argue that relationship often exists without workers even realizing it, but having now entered the world of highly-compensated professionals (and seeing that their management structures tend to be less authoritarian) I can see why people might shy away from that.

But the difference a union contract made in my day-to-day life when I was a grocery worker was astounding. I didn't have to worry about retaliatory discipline. I had better wages, better healthcare and better vacation. And it built camaraderie among union members even if it damaged relationships with management. I'm proud of what we accomplished there.

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

#329

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

exolymph wrote: post #293
kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've had crappy manual jobs" and "I've been in a situation where crappy manual jobs were my only viable option" are very different situations. But also, why didn't you want more money at the time? Why were you so happy to have a crappy job cleaning out freezers when you could have organized and got a better paying job cleaning out freezers? This future millionaire mindset, where you were "happy to have an income" be…

> "I've had crappy manual jobs" and "I've been in a situation where crappy manual jobs were my only viable option" are very different situations. ?? Why would anyone work a crappy manual job if it weren't their only viable option? Like, I'm sure there are exceptions but it seems unusual, since if you have better options, you'll pursue those instead.

I'm thinking of the student who needs a part time job here.

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

#330

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

edent wrote: post #74
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…

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…

Could you give some examples of the differences between your options? I'd like to better understand what you get to choose between.
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