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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

#461

Post by jjk166 »

mc32 wrote: post #430
jjk166 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not at all what happened to the steel industry. 50% of all US steel production capacity has been built in the past 30 years and steel production has seen continuous and massive improvements in productivity. In 1920 it took 3 man-hours of labor to produce 1 ton of steel in the US, now 1 man-hour produces 300 tons. The contraction in steel employment during the 70s coincided with a recession and the development…

Old outdated technology (not sure about the stance the unions had back then on productivity improvements that would lower headcount) plus outsized pay demands for the given the productivity.

Old and outdated compared to what? Outsized pay demands compared to whom? Everyone around the world switched to the new technology at the same time. Employment per production fell everywhere simultaneously. This was not a case of labor becoming too expensive, it was a case of labor becoming unnecessary.

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

#462

Post by dghlsakjg »

dheera wrote: post #370
flyt wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions need more than a Discord to organize. They may need to compensate union leadership for time taken to organize away from their work duties, pay for events, pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure, and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers. No union will have much luck performing collective bargaining against Amazon without working alongside experienced lawyers. These costs don't hav…

> 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…

I think the $500 figure is the number that AMZN pulled out of a hat, and I think it is a yearly number, not a monthly one.

That said, it sounds like you haven't dealt with the real world logistics of large groups of people. From both a practical and legal perspective, there is a lot to cover. The finances need to be kept up to date and audited. You mention, in jest, that you could bring all these people together for a dinner at that price. Getting 15 people to agree on a time and place for dinner is close to impossible if you've ever tried it. Nevermind getting a warehouse full of people to show up.

100 hours (2.5 weeks of labor) for lawyers to come to an agreement for the 1mm workers you cited? Not possible, especially with an adversary like amazon.

Email as communication? Maybe, but does it qualify for legal matters? Voting? Have you ever tried to send a million emails? There's a reason that there is an entire industry built around bulk emails.

A union is more like an independent HR office than anything else. Think of how many resources HR uses, and that gives you an idea of what a union needs

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

#463

Post by scollet »

ModernMech wrote: post #332
pydry wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still time to return to the good old days when the boss called in a private air force to drop poison gas and bombs on striking workers.

Yes, this is a good reminder that the first areal attack on US soil was not Pearl Harbor, but was against striking workers in 1921 at the Battle of Blair Mountain. "By August 29 battle was fully joined. Chafin's men, though outnumbered, had the advantage of higher positions and better weaponry. Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over fr…

This is a good reminder that the Tulsa Massacre occurred about 4 months earlier.

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

#464

Post by AlwaysRock »

goostavos wrote: post #361
jokethrowaway wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on where you're from, there have been cases of corruption or incompetence. Unions are not magically good.

Spending some of my early career in Las Vegas and Philadelphia really destroyed by youthful view of unions as a unquestionable force for good. One thing which can said with absolute certainty: they're not a structure which breeds efficiency.

100%. Not all unions are created equally. Most people who have had union employees have stories about employees who knew they were not going to lose their job, easily, so they didn't do a lot.

But if unions were more common place would there be more efficiency or more in the average union? Would it be better for many people to have some job security instead of a company having efficiency?

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

#465

Post by rendall »

noodlesUK wrote: post #437
zapita wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an important point. And sadly it appears that they have been successful. The sentiment on GDPR in SV seems to be overwhelmingly negative, for all the wrong reasons I believe.

What’s funny is that the GDPR is pretty universally well-liked, or at least accepted as a necessary evil in my European tech bubble...

Speaking as an American living in Europe, I love GDPR.

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

#466

Post by pseudalopex »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #367
jeanjogr wrote: post #204

I have never been able to quite grasp what it means to "unionize" in the US. Here in my country, unions work like political parties (which I understand is not exactly enticing right now): - you are free to join or not - there are elected workers' representatives whether there are unions are not - unions serve to organize workers for action and representatives elections, support candidates, and provide additional serv…

In the US, when a company unionizes a job class, all applicable employees must then pay the union for representing them in negotiations. Only one union can represent a class of workers. In 27/50 states workers who opt out of union membership loose the power to vote in union matters, but still are governed by union negotiations and must pay the unions "agency fees" for representing them. They no longer have to pay for…

You're confused. 27 states allow non members to pay nothing. 23 states allow private sector unions to charge agency fees. Charging non members for political activities is illegal federally. And the Supreme Court decided everything public sector unions do is political.

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

#467

Post by Retric »

notriddle wrote: post #327
smnrchrds wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to that, fines can and do bankrupt small businesses. I cannot remember the last time a big company went bankrupt by fines. Breaking the law poses existential threat to small businesses, not large enterprises.

Fines should be proportional to income. They're supposed to be a deterrent, not a revenue source.

Companies play a lot of games to minimize income for tax reasons. Allowing them do do the same with fines is unreasonable.

It’s actually fairly difficult to get an objective measurement of a companies size. Go by total sales and industries with high profit margins look much smaller. Go by number of employees and retail looks vastly larger than tech companies etc.

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

#468

Post by ozborn »

Bakary wrote: post #397
aktschually wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it might end up with you losing your job to a robot.

People will lose their jobs en masse regardless of unions. The concentration of wealth and capture of surplus that we will see in the coming decades will probably make feudalism look like child's play

It's not a foregone conclusion. While I'm sure some in the gilded age or in the 1920s thought that, it didn't last forever.

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

#469

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

UncleMeat wrote: post #149
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #82

It's amazing how little HN readers understand about unions. A company is an organization that has some positive and some negative aspects. And believe it or not, a union is also an organization with some negative and positive aspects. The difference is, once you have a union in an organization its very hard to dislodge it no matter how dysfunctional it gets. I would suggest HN readers read about what UAW did in the a…

> The difference is, once you have a union in an organization its very hard to dislodge it no matter how dysfunctional it gets. In comparison to a business? With a union I have some voting power. With a business I have zero power.

Companies are always rising and falling. Consumers vote with their dollars.

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

#470

Post by pseudalopex »

random5634 wrote: post #307
jeanjogr wrote: post #204

I have never been able to quite grasp what it means to "unionize" in the US. Here in my country, unions work like political parties (which I understand is not exactly enticing right now): - you are free to join or not - there are elected workers' representatives whether there are unions are not - unions serve to organize workers for action and representatives elections, support candidates, and provide additional serv…

The US is a bit different. 1) Many unions are govt unions - think police, prison guard, teachers. 2) For closed shop states, if a union wins election, EVERYONE has to join the union. 3) A history of corruption in unions in some cases. 4) There is a perception in the US that unions and lazy workers overlap. Teachers unions, prison guard unions, police unions - they need to have some real good examples of the successes…

All states are open shop or agency shop. Federal law prohibits closed shop.
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