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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

#551

Post by whoknew1122 »

htnsao wrote: post #522
dillondoyle wrote: post #256

There are a couple mentions but no top comments: Amazon has installed a mailbox at their facility, this mail piece specifically says to use it. AND this mail piece says 'BE DONE by 3/1' when workers have until the end of the month to vote (context: amazon must stop anti-union mandatory meetings etc during voting). This could be a legal violation & is a big deal. I think at a minimum breaks the spirit of the NLRB mail…

Having actually worked a union job once, I'll say this: Unions suck. Bezos should fire them all and hire people that want to work harder to make more money. And try to replace each whiner with a robot.

I work at Amazon. My father-in-law is a union pipefitter. We both make 100k a year. Except he has a pension and I have to pay into a 401k.

Further, the culture at Amazon is such working harder would require sacrificing physical and mental health. Especially on the retail and warehouse side.

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

#552

Post by rStar »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #531
chokeartist wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an American living in America, I love GDPR. Where I work [big-co], it is mandated that all of our services are GDPR-compliant, regardless of worldwide location. The only people who hate GDPR are ad-industry parasites. To that I say: good riddance, and don't let starvation hurt too much on the way down.

> The only people who hate GDPR are ad-industry parasites. To that I say: good riddance, and don't let starvation hurt too much on the way down. Broad generalizations are nice, but my experience on HN shows that it’s also people who don’t understand the law. Complaints about cookie banners and popups that you’re powerless to stop as an American do exist.

powerless unless you get an extension for you browser and then never be pestered again.

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

#553

Post by pseudalopex »

filoleg wrote: post #538
pseudalopex wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can never be forced to join a union. Federal law forces unions to represent non members. "Right to work" means non members can force them to do it for free. Other states let unions force non members to pay for what the union is forced to provide them.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this law simply prevent a situation where a non-union employee would be forced to pay the union fees even if he doesn't want to be a part of the union in a unionized workplace? If yes, how is it a bad thing for employees? Genuine question, because I don't understand the issue. If they want to join a union and pay the associated fees, they are welcome to. If they just wanna…

It isn't simple because federal law forces the union to represent non members still. Free riding is good for free riders. It's bad for people who pay for it.

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

#554

Post by cmrdporcupine »

sudosysgen wrote: post #384
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There were and are workers’ unions in communist countries." Most independent unions in those countries were/are destroyed. The "unions" in China, etc. or the former USSR were/are essentially arms of the Stalinist Communist Parties, and rarely if ever have any political independence or ability to oppose the employer (the state, or a company that the state has given privileges to).

I completely agree with you, but I think you might have replied to the wrong post.

I replied to yours because HN wouldn't let me reply to the child comment. Not sure why. Figured my leaf node would show up next to the sibling :-)

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

#555

Post by jackson1442 »

soperj wrote: post #345
vertex-four wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have multiple jobs and must take every hour they ask of you, you clearly do not have time to find another job; you are very likely working more than a full-time job without adequate protections. Look, here’s how it goes: 1) you have no job 2) you take the first job that comes your way, even if it doesn’t actually pay enough to survive - a little money is better than no money 3) you take the second job that com…

if you have multiple jobs, you already have another job, so it was clearly possible.

The difference here is that the second job you have is likely going to be just as terrible as your first, where the improvement comes not from having a better job but simply having access to more hours and therefore more hourly pay.

Searching for a job that is _mechanically better_ (think office job versus min-wage retail) is significantly more challenging than finding a min-wage job. For example, most salaried or otherwise higher paying jobs require multiple rounds of interviews while many min-wage jobs will hire you on the spot to fill a staff position.

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

#556

Post by eyelidlessness »

secfirstmd wrote: post #443
staticautomatic wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They hired actual fucking Pinkertons, which says enough about how aggressive they are. The gloves have been off for a while now.

Pinkerton are the corporate security company of choice for a lot of organisations...including Facebook

In case you’re not aware, Pinkerton was a prominent security company which gained a reputation for literally murdering labor organizers. For context.

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

#557

Post by htnsao »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #551
htnsao wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having actually worked a union job once, I'll say this: Unions suck. Bezos should fire them all and hire people that want to work harder to make more money. And try to replace each whiner with a robot.

I work at Amazon. My father-in-law is a union pipefitter. We both make 100k a year. Except he has a pension and I have to pay into a 401k. Further, the culture at Amazon is such working harder would require sacrificing physical and mental health. Especially on the retail and warehouse side.

Bueno. Thanks for sharing your perspective. You seem to be making relatively decent money there. If you want more, make some moves.

I should have been more clear in that while I'm against unions I'm all for paying workers twice the going rate. And firing them if they don't perform.

And my comments about working harder for more money was about pay based on performance. ie produce more, make more. Go hard or go home. Not sure how that can fit into retail and warehouse there exactly but it probably could be done.

Pensions, 401K. Not my cup of tea. I prefer to watch trees grow. And have you seen how easy it is to launch a product these days? Well, actually nothing's easy.

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

#558

Post by throwaway894345 »

bitdizzy wrote: post #545
throwaway894345 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the media landscape of the 90s and 00s was just as partisan and sensationalist as today? Can you imagine the media reporting outright, easily verifiable falsehoods on their front page? Where were the 90s reporters standing in front of a burning building talking about “mostly peaceful protests”? Or the Damore memo being called “an anti-diversity screed” or the whole Covington Catholic affair? That was onc…

The media helped the Bush administration manufacture consent for the second gulf war. The infamous lies peddled on every major news channel and newspaper are recorded for all time. Parenti wrote Inventing Reality and Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent in the 80's. Your examples of lies that that you believe demonstrate how especially bad media is today just reveal that you only notice certain exaggerations or interp…

My politics are left wing. I could no doubt pick some fox news examples if I watched/read that outlet. The media may have helped Bush’s war, but they weren’t uniformly conservative and they also didn’t tell overt, easily verifiable lies. It’s one thing to report that the intelligence community says there are WMDs, and quite another thing to outright lie about the contents of a memo or a video which are publicly available.

> I presume you think yourself unbiased too.

0/2 on your assumptions about me. Of course I’m biased; everyone is biased. The difference is that I don’t double down on my biases, but rather challenge and evolve them by reading and debating other points of view. Note that the stark contrast between that and the folks (esp in the media) who persecute others for ideological transgressions.

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

#559

Post by hakfoo »

dheera wrote: post #209
fireball_blaze wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also reference Amazon's "Do it without dues" site: https://www.doitwithoutdues.com/

Maybe someone should start a second union without dues? That would leave Amazon with no way to argue.

At this point, there are probably at least some firms that fear Amazon more than unions. They could financially bootstrap a union for a few years as a destabilization effort.

I'm thinking of the line "the capitalists will sell you the rope you use to hang them."

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

#560

Post by CydeWeys »

Retric wrote: post #467
notriddle wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Go by market cap (for public companies). The markets are pretty effective at valuing companies.
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