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How Amazon Crushes Unions

nytimes.com

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Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#91

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

cestith wrote: post #81
Shivetya wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However the US Congress is pushing the PRO Act which will basically force you to join any union and it actually forbids right to work laws. It will even permit unions marching against related businesses as a means to intimidate others; in others say your supplier has issues well they can then march on you and vica versa. Welcome to the pay off for the election

Picketing has been legal for a long, long time. There's no law now that says I can't go out and picket on the sidewalk outside Whole Foods or Walmart.

The commenter is referring to what's called a "secondary strike". These are heavily regulated under current law (https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/se...) and the PRO act would repeal these rules.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#92

Post by Judgmentality »

franklampard wrote: post #76
peer2pay wrote: post #6

I hate Amazon and stories like this make me hate it even more. I stopped ordering anything from them and, if anything, this has actually improved my consumer experience. Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days. Not shopping at either has definitely raised the average life span and quality of goods in my househ…

> Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days In my experience, I get most stuff for the same price from other retailers on Amazon, but with fast shipping and the peace of mind that I can return them easily.

If you're buying from Amazon, you're almost definitely getting comingled inventory - which means even the official retailer themselves can't guarantee it's a genuine product.

Your point still stands about easy returns, although personally I've noticed Amazon adding a lot more friction when I have a problem in the past year or so.

https://www.redpoints.com/blog/amazon-commingled-inventory-m...

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#93

Post by ncallaway »

tootie wrote: post #5

Not to excuse Amazon or anything, but absolutely every company in America does this. Most of them don't bother with subterfuge though and just go with threats or firings. And one of our main political parties is vehemently anti-union and keeps winning elections.

> but absolutely every company in America does this

This is false.

I own a company, in America, and I'm trying to convince my employees to start a union. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll convince them one day

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#95

Post by AlexandrB »

nickpp wrote: post #59
cratermoon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those same "bad laws" are why you have a 5-day work week, your retirement plan, overtime (if you are hourly), safe working conditions, sick leave. The list goes on. If you think you'd like to go back before the time when unions didn't exist, let me direct you to the work of photographer Lewis Hine

We have those thanks to the increase of productivity and competition between employees, not some unions hundreds of years ago. Maybe that was the reason initially but time has passed and today's situation favours the employee in most fields.

> Maybe that was the reason initially but time has passed and today's situation favours the employee in most fields.

Most fields except: retail, food service, food delivery, warehouse work, customer service/support, auto repair, etc. Basically, half the people in the US if not more.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#96

Post by pc86 »

Judgmentality wrote: post #53
pc86 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I only wish I could find a way to move all our infrastructure off AWS If only there were competing cloud/PaaS services.

If only they were competitive.

Azure is about 2/3 of the size of AWS based on market share. Almost 70% of the market uses something other than AWS.

What is it that you know that all those other well-paid professionals don't?

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#97

Post by BitwiseFool »

busterarm wrote: post #88
BitwiseFool wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge I have with looking at unions in countries that 'do it right', so to speak, is that the union Amazon employees are looking to make will end up being an American-style union.

It's telling that when shown overwhelmingly that private-sector unions in America are hopelessly broken and corrupt that the only solution the pro-union folks have for the problem is "more unionization". I've been in three different unions and would never "join" one again [my participation was mandatory for the job in each case] and would change careers if my field unionized significantly. I remember a local news sto…

There are so many horror stories about union employees who deserve to be fired but are defended vigorously by the union itself. Why does this happen? What do these unions have to gain by defending the actions of their worst members?

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#98

Post by capableweb »

lisper wrote: post #79
peer2pay wrote: post #6

I hate Amazon and stories like this make me hate it even more. I stopped ordering anything from them and, if anything, this has actually improved my consumer experience. Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days. Not shopping at either has definitely raised the average life span and quality of goods in my househ…

> Now I only wish I could find a way to move all our infrastructure off AWS... I've moved to Linode and never looked back. [UPDATE] Wow. Downvotes for a shout-out to Linode. Didn't know there was so much Linode hate out there. What's up with that? What's wrong with Linode?

I'll give you some ideas, but you might already know why as you been around for some time.

- Lack of support for your statement. You simply say that you moved there, not why and what made you move, what's better and so on

- You're complaining about down-votes, leading you into the spiral of downvotes as you'll get more down voted by it

- You're talking bad about AWS and Amazon. HN famously have a ton of AWS/Amazon employees here who are quick to downvote any negative sentiment about AWS/Amazon. No, I don't have any proof, but anything mentioning either in a negative way WILL be downvoted, happened time and time again

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#99

Post by NationalPark »

mintcoffee wrote: post #83
Judgmentality wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only they were competitive.

They're not? I've always seen AWS as the most expensive of the cloud providers. e.g., GPU instances on AWS EC2 vs GCP.

In my experience a lot of senior ops people are still hesitant about Google's cloud services having been burned by them in the past. Google seems to have some reputation problems, however true or untrue they may be.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#100

Post by capableweb »

pc86 wrote: post #32
blinding-streak wrote: post #3

> Amazon managers openly warned recruits that if they liked things comfortable, this would be a difficult, perhaps impossible, job. For customer service representatives, it was difficult to keep up, according to media accounts and labor organizers. Overtime was mandatory. Supervisors sent emails with subject headings like “YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.” Umm, yikes.

Imagine being in a position where you have to choose between putting up with this hostile bullshit or going hungry/evicted. Most of us here could tell our bosses to f off and either have enough savings for months (or even years), or at the very least get another job within weeks or days. Even having grown up lower-middle class with zero, often negative, extra money, going years without vacation, etc., it's hard to wr…

> Imagine being in a position where you have to choose between putting up with this hostile bullshit or going hungry/evicted.

Yes, this is exactly why we got the idea of unions in the first place. Without unions we would still be forced to work at least 6 days a week, and many more drawbacks. The list is huge of what unions have given us (in Europe at least).

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