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Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

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Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#411

Post by sokoloff »

estaseuropano wrote: post #395
dheera wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay for events What events? If it's to discuss a certain issue, that can be virtual and almost free. If it's a social event, meh, there are enough of those already and people can self-organize them. Hell for $500/month I could organize social events where everyone goes to Michelin 3-star restaurants every month and rants over gourmet dinners about their bosses. > pay for mailers and other communications infrastruct…

Alright, split the fees! Now you need someone to count the days paid out, calculate how much each member has to pay, send payment requests, follow up, manage the account, ... A professional Union needs funds to do its work. Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues. If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking. The imaginar…

> A professional Union needs funds to do its work.

Absolutely true.

> Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues.

That strikes me as an opinion that could use some supporting facts. It might be the case, but union fees are the same order of magnitude as many workers' savings rate. If the prospective member saved those fees over a lifetime, would they be better off?

> If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking.

That means that union members are buying insurance against there being a strike declared. Would they be better off to pay smaller dues and bear the risk themselves? If all possible strikes are union-wide, it seems like this insurance can only be a losing gamble for members, all the while creating a fat piggybank for union leaders to raid/drain.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#412

Post by Dirlewanger »

leesalminen wrote: post #383
JPKab wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do extensive data science work with various retailers, including Target, Walmart, and Amazon. Compared to Walmart, Target is absolutely abysmal on many fronts. The amount of wasted fuel caused by their horrifically inept logistics makes Walmart look like the Sierra Club. And they were the model for substituting low-impact inclusion messaging in place of actually treating workers decently. I live near Boulde…

I also live near Boulder (Lyons what’s up!) and also had a really hard time understanding all the vitriol towards building a Wal-Mart when Target is packed day in, day out.

The media targeting Wal-Mart allowed them to pump themselves up as a viable alternative. Also, people like their cutesy red and white commercials.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#413

Post by ahelwer »

whoisjuan wrote: post #391
ahelwer wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think Amazon, one of the largest companies in the world, will engage in any anti-union campaign without consulting their lawyers on what's right and what's not? This is staggeringly naive about both how large companies & the legal system operate.

Really? So you think corporations don't use their lawyers before they do things? They just go and do whatever without assessing the risks? I think is actually naive to think otherwise. You can still feel something is illegal even though you have the clear of your legal team. I'm not debating that. Also you could take decisions on gray areas against the advice of your lawyers. I'm not debating that either. I would lik…

If you've ever interacted with a lawyer you would know that "right vs not" is not a binary and all advice is tempered with discussion of risk. In this case, the risk is Amazon has action brought against it by the heavily neutered NLRB and possibly faces consequences many years down the road - consequences that clearly, to them, pale in comparison to the cost of having their workforce unionized. What you've said above basically amounts to "if a corporation does something, it must be legal, because corporations employ lawyers to tell them whether something is legal". Which is just straight false on the facts of history, and naive.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#414

Post by beowulfey »

SilasX wrote: post #201
rtpg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't your boss telling you how to do that though. The direct power imbalance is pretty different, I think.

Then I don’t understand the outrage. What’s offensive about instructions on how to fill out a ballot above and beyond the fact of them asking you to vote no? The GGP seemed to think that there was something particularly bad about the detailed six page instructions. But the GP correctly pointed out they do the same thing in regular government elections (to milk as many voters as they can).

The outrage is at the inclusion of “make sure to vote no!” as a part of the seemingly well meaning instructions.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#415

Post by pwinnski »

missedthecue wrote: post #288
andrepd wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But higher wages can buy many dinners." "Explain how!" "Money can be exchanged for goods and services"

Kroger is unionized and they pay 1/2 of what Amazon does in my area. I don't think unionizing low skill work necessarily leads to higher wages

And yet when comparing apples to apples, unionized workers apparently earn an average of 11.2% more[0].

0. https://www.epi.org/publication/why-unions-are-good-for-work...

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#416

Post by jakelazaroff »

leesalminen wrote: post #371
jakelazaroff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear — when people refer to "school choice", they usually mean a system that funnels taxpayer dollars to private schools based on student attendance. Similarly, when people oppose "school choice", they usually oppose that appropriation of public funds specifically, not public school alternatives in general. It's a sneaky name designed to make you conflate the two.

I always thought that school choice means a system that funnels taxpayer dollars to any school, public or private, based on student attendance. Parents can choose to send their children to public school, if they feel the outcome will be superior to alternatives.

Public schools are by definition taxpayer funded, so I wouldn't describe allocating tax money to them as "funneling". And of course, absent school choice policies, parents are still free to send their children to private school — they just wouldn't receive public funds to do so (which is why the name is sneaky). But yes, you're correct.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#417

Post by ketzo »

abstractbarista wrote: post #372
ketzo wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions don't ask for dues just to grift you. At a minimum, any half-competent union should be able to tell you how they're going to get you more than your dues in value from the union. This could be actual increased pay, benefits, or other value from collective organization. No one is trying to steal anything from you. Unions are for workers . If you think Amazon is in your corner more than a union would be, I would…

Thanks for clearing this up for me. I was under the impression that if a union was started where I work, I could be forced to pay in if I want to remain employed there. Amazon certainly isn't on the side of its workers. No company is. They want maximum work for minimum pay. Workers want maximum pay for minimum work. I've always found the labor market to be an entertaining fight between the two. I think the part hangi…

I'm absolutely not a lawyer or a union expert; I'm just some guy on an orange website, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

But the sentiment you're expressing is one of the #1 tools in the anti-union-propaganda belt, and for good reason: nobody wants to be forced!

Honestly, you're the kind of person who would be really helpful in a union meeting! You bring up great points: some industries really need to be able to pay people to strike, but others don't. Where do we fit in (whoever "we" is)? And knowing where your dues are going is important; anybody trying to hide that kind of information is immediately suspect.

> All my life I've forced myself to spend far less than I make in pursuit of [solvency].

Not to go totally Marxist on you... but some would say that this is because you live in a deeply capitalist, anti-worker society, and that strong unions are just one piece in a potential society-wide safety net that would mean people could just spend the money they make without having to worry about sudden and catastrophic destitution.

In an ideal world, I personally would love if people who found themselves out of work had a third party (potentially comprised of other workers in their field) that could support them while they got back on their feet.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#418

Post by beowulfey »

unanswered wrote: post #274
Someone wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess “right to work” refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law : “In the context of U.S. labor politics, "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions. Under these laws, employees in unionized workplaces are banned from negotiating contracts which force employees who are not union members to contribute to the costs of union repr…

That is an incomplete and misleading definition of "at-will employment". The most important part of at-will employment is that the employee is allowed to leave their employer for any time, for any reason; i.e., they can't be forced to work for their employer even by contract. It is literally just an anti-slavery law, and yet somehow some folks have turned it into a bogeyman. Imagine being against an anti-slavery law…

Lol, an anti-slavery law? Better not tell Montana that, it would become a human rights atrocity overnight. They are not an at-will state.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#419

Post by fallingfrog »

fallingfrog wrote: post #282
Zealotux wrote: post #10

From a non-US point of view, this whole anti-union strategy from Amazon is somehow hilarious to witness on top of being sad. This kind of propaganda feels like its coming from another age, or dimension.

The back of the union movement in the United States was pretty much broken when Ronald Reagan broke an air traffic controllers strike by firing 11,359 of them and replacing them with members of the military. He also imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring any striking worker. Then they decertified the union. Sent a message. Their justification for this was that the strike was illegal, after Reagan himself declared it ille…

Edit: these kinds of strikes were evidently made illegal in 1955, by an act of Congress, it wasn’t that Reagan simply declared it illegal.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#420

Post by fallingfrog »

Google234 wrote: post #318
fallingfrog wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The back of the union movement in the United States was pretty much broken when Ronald Reagan broke an air traffic controllers strike by firing 11,359 of them and replacing them with members of the military. He also imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring any striking worker. Then they decertified the union. Sent a message. Their justification for this was that the strike was illegal, after Reagan himself declared it ille…

You are spreading fake news. From your article: “ In 1955, Congress had made such strikes punishable by fines or a one-year jail term”

Thank you, I missed that. Spreading falsehoods of any kind is not my intention.
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