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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

#581

Post by wizzwizz4 »

SilasX wrote: post #529
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original comment (at least, I think I went far enough up-thread) said that teaching somebody how to vote and to vote in your favour , when you have power over them, is sleazy.

This is the original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26263369 There were others that gave different reasons, but none that made any sense of the "OMG six pages of instructions! Horrible!"

Maybe you didn't understand because you're focusing on a bit that the original comment didn't emphasise. The complaint is not about six pages of instructions. The complaint is about combining education with manipulation.

Imagine a handy guide from your bank that included instructions for how to wire money to its author.

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

#582

Post by aktschually »

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

If you are unhappy with the terms or products of a company, you are free to shop or work elsewhere. That is the difference. "Capture of surplus" is hate speech - without those companies, there would be no surplus to begin with, that anybody could capture.

If you believe those companies will capture so much surplus, you could also buy some of their stock and participate.

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

#583

Post by syshum »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #481
syshum wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People here are already set in their political tribes, if you were already a libertarian (or republican) then you just agreed with my post. If you are an Authoritarian you just down voted it. Nothing I say will change anyone's minds on this topic, it is one of those things where no amount of data or facts will change minds. You either believe in a unionized Public school that only fails because we do not spend enough…

I had heard Libertarians are bull-headed, self-righteous, think only they understand the facts, think everyone who disagrees with them are Authoritarians. I heard wrong.

By definition anyone that disagrees with Libertarianism is an Authoritarian.

While Libertarian and Authoritarian do exist on a spectrum in some ways, you are either on the Libertarian side of that spectrum or the Authoritarian Side.

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

#584

Post by Supermancho »

tharkun__ wrote: post #506
doggodaddo78 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use to read some history books.

I wonder why multiple people read his comment as pro Pinkertons (pro AMZN etc.) I read it as "Yep and Amazon are not the only large company that use them, so watch out! If Facebook employees ever want to unionize, Pinkertons might/will be sent after them too".

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

> I wonder why multiple people read his comment as pro Pinkertons

It was stated as a whataboutism, which is a defensive tactic.

If the point was to indicate that the Pinkertons are not unusual, then that would be the subject. Instead, it reads as "this is not unusual", which is incorrect, regardless of intent.

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

#585

Post by UncleMeat »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #469
UncleMeat wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Consumers, not employees.

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

#586

Post by sodality2 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #338
sodality2 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is strong-arming workers into voting no with propaganda posters, unions typically hurt amazon (else why would they fight so hard against it), and typically help the workers. Do you not see the problem here? I don't mean to say unions are always right. I see anti-union sentiment from the very company that would be hurt by it to be very much allowed. But since I believe in worker's rights and can see firsthand h…

Just to be clear, this is a double standard based on your priors. Vote No propaganda is bad because unions are good. Vote Yes propaganda is good because unions are good. If you are not convinced that unions age good in the first place, then it all falls apart.

>Just to be clear, this is a double standard based on your priors.

>Vote No propaganda is bad because unions are good.

>Vote Yes propaganda is good because unions are good.

Double standard? Not really. Definitely not the peak of critical reasoning, though. But I'm not judging anti-union vs pro-union propaganda by anything but their motives.

>If you are not convinced that unions age good in the first place, then it all falls apart.

Ah, but I do. Not inherently, and not always. But net positive in my opinion. Sure, if I change my beliefs to contradict, it will not make sense. Just as if I believed unions were bad and net negative, union propaganda would be considered scummy but amazon propaganda wouldn't.

I always try to judge critically, and in my personal opinion, pro vs anti has a clear benefit for the worker on one side. This doesn't mean I think the other shouldn't exist. I don't think that means a double standard, since in my eyes they aren't the same. If they were literally the same, say Amazon wanted the Yankees to win and the workers wanted the Red Sox to win, and I insisted on one side over the other, then it would be a double standard (like 1984, they do it = bad, we do the same thing = good).

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

#587

Post by CuriouslyC »

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

There are a lot of security companies that have a less storied past than Pinkerton that they could have chosen, particularly in the area of unions.

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

#588

Post by sodality2 »

simlevesque wrote: post #518
sodality2 wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I don't think so. You probably couldn't pick a random union member but there's gotta be someone smart, driven, and mad enough to do it for free and do a good job at it. Hell, if I had the skills and resources to, I would.

You are advocating for slavery, unpaid work. If you willfuly agree to unpaid work, you will be such a bad union leader, don't bother. You missed the entire point.

Slavery implies force. What I said explicitly required volunteering.

That's like calling volunteering slavery. Am I a slave for working at my hospital in the summer?

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

#589

Post by andrepd »

aktschually wrote: post #582
Bakary wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you are unhappy with the terms or products of a company, you are free to shop or work elsewhere. That is the difference. "Capture of surplus" is hate speech - without those companies, there would be no surplus to begin with, that anybody could capture. If you believe those companies will capture so much surplus, you could also buy some of their stock and participate.

The things you read I swear.

> If you are unhappy with the terms or products of a company, you are free to shop or work elsewhere.

If you don't work you starve, or at the very least lose your house, car, maybe even your kids. There is no "freedom" of choice, and this is painfully obvious to anybody who is not stuck neck-deep in dogmatic ideology.

> If you believe those companies will capture so much surplus, you could also buy some of their stock and participate.

Sure, let me just get a small loan of 300 mil a month to build my competitor to Uber.

If you're not independently wealthy you probably cannot even get 100k of credit to open a restaurant or a similar small business. Again, that access to capital (nevermind to education, connections, etc) is profoundly unequal, and thus that "just start your own business" is am absurd statement, is also obvious to anyone who isn't blinded by ideology.

> "Capture of surplus" is hate speech

Ahahahaha

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

#590

Post by jeanjogr »

rendang wrote: post #337
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…

Not knowing what country you are in, I would bet that the situation of unions there ultimately is a result of the global labor movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, which came to be via strikes and grassroots union organizing activities.

Is that not the case in the US as well?
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