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How Amazon Crushes Unions

nytimes.com

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Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#211

Post by cestith »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #91
cestith wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A secondary strike is only one kind of action, and "march on" does not clearly indicate a secondary strike although it may include that. Bannering or leafletting and other types of protest could fall under "march on", could they not?

It's legal right now, even as clarified in the link you provided, to encourage a boycott of a struck product at a retailer. What's not legal is organizing a boycott of a whole store because they are stocking one or a few products from a supplier whose products are struck. That is, unless it's a company store that is the same employer as the producer of the products for which production is under a strike.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#212

Post by gamblor956 »

andrew_ wrote: post #204
cratermoon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simply relocate all manual labor to states with right-to-work as law You can't really relocate warehouses and shipping centers without throwing a wrench in the logistics of the supply chain, especially if you are in the next-day delivery business.

I've worked several years in the logistics sector and watched as that happened several times during inclement weather cycles. The logistics supply chain is much more nimble than you might think.

That works for emergency/temporary logistics where you can temporarily absorb the increased costs as part of doing business.

For national logistics, limiting your warehouses to right-to-work states will increase costs so dramatically you would save money dealing with unions.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#213

Post by renewiltord »

Chris2048 wrote: post #210
renewiltord wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is exactly what you (likely) suspect: * Most labour isn't high value * Western workers have an expectation of a high standard of living that grew out of post-War economic expansion * Employer/Employee relations are asymmetric: the former has greater market power to influence pricing than the latter * Fairness in human relations is an independent notion from the economic clearing price, cf. The Dictator Gam…

I follow the first 3 points, but not the latter 2. 1) employee / employer relations are not "human relations"; Actual human relationships involve transactions that are more than just monetary. A corporation offering jobs in a location is not otherwise involved in the economics of that place. 2) "The most effective techniques at causing change involve at least some appeals to emotion or outrage" What techniques/change…

Just read the Wikipedia page for the dictator game. It'll fast-forward your understanding. I think this is the extent to which I am willing to tutor. But if you'd like more, I'll do it at $180/hr, email in profile. Should be 10 mins if you don't have further questions, 30 mins if you do.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#214

Post by somethoughts »

Judgmentality wrote: post #109
pc86 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Azure artificially inflates its market share by throwing in MS Office revenue into the mix, which is pretty misleading. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-keeps-hiding-... G Cloud was rumored to have to be #2 by 2023 or they'd shut down, and currently they are trailing quite far behind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21815260

On the flip side, it'd be interesting to know how many AWS instances are primarly VMWare instances hosting Microsoft Server solutions (or just directly hosting Microsoft Windows products)?

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/learn-why-aws-is-the-be...

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#215

Post by pc86 »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #143
klaudius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does someone get into that position? Are public schools so bad that people come out with no marketable unique skills that would give them natural job security?

> Are public schools so bad that people come out with no marketable unique skills that would give them natural job security? Yes, but that's not the only issue. Some people are incapable of managing their own affairs. Showing up to work on time, not drunk is not in their personal capacity. It's not really their fault; we are not the authors of our neurobiology.

There are plenty of alcoholics who can show up to work and wait until afterwards to get drunk. There is a certain level of choice to being so egregious about it that you reek of whisky at a meeting, even if that choice is just saying "f it."

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#216

Post by Chris2048 »

renewiltord wrote: post #213
Chris2048 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow the first 3 points, but not the latter 2. 1) employee / employer relations are not "human relations"; Actual human relationships involve transactions that are more than just monetary. A corporation offering jobs in a location is not otherwise involved in the economics of that place. 2) "The most effective techniques at causing change involve at least some appeals to emotion or outrage" What techniques/change…

Just read the Wikipedia page for the dictator game. It'll fast-forward your understanding. I think this is the extent to which I am willing to tutor. But if you'd like more, I'll do it at $180/hr, email in profile. Should be 10 mins if you don't have further questions, 30 mins if you do.

Not even Wikipedia asserts that the experiment proves anything. And even if it did, the burden is on you to prove that "fairness in human relations" is relevant to this thread.

That's exactly why I said:

  employee / employer relations are not "human relations"
Since that's what we are talking about - I'm asking why this is relevant.

But since you responded with smug condescension, it seems like your more interested in implying that I'm stupid (don't understand) and you're clever (I can tutor) than responding in good faith.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#217

Post by Chris2048 »

JulianTapales wrote: post #177
Chris2048 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of power balance, specifically. If you offer $5/hr where max rate is $5/hr the area isn't any worse off.

If $5/hr is an exploitative rate, then it's exploitation regardless of whether the the area is worse off or not

If the rate $5/hr is inherently exploitative, then how can a person not capable of producing more than $5/hr of value ever be employed?

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#218

Post by Chris2048 »

pietrovismara wrote: post #174
nickpp wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the alternative was better education and more focus during one's formative years. It's not my fault the kids skipping class, having fun and making jokes during teacher's lessons are now paid less than me. Society offers plenty of opportunities but not to people who did noting to prepare themselves to take advantage of them.

If it really is just a matter of the effort one puts into education, then answer this. If everyone studied with the same exact amount of effort, would we have a world without waitresses, warehouse workers, low wage jobs? Obviously not. This society relies entirely on the fact that a good portion of the population can be blackmailed into doing the bad jobs, while the other small portion enjoys the fruits. If nobody co…

> would we have a world without waitresses, warehouse workers, low wage jobs?

The latter is impossible to answer since "low wage" is relative, much like if everyone had millions of $ for every $ they owned, the currency would simply devalue.

That said, in a nation full of skilled, competent workers, the nation would be more productive overall (more "fruits" to go around), and more competitive abroad - so it's not a zero-sum game in that sense.

> waitresses, warehouse workers

I couldn't care less if waitressing disappeared, I prefer self-serve places; what value is lost?

If no-one wanted to be paid low wages to work in warehouses, either a) warehouse worker wages would go up, or b) an alternative solution would be found, or c) the business is no longer viable and collapses.

> can be blackmailed into doing the bad jobs

and even the people with good jobs probably wouldn't work if they weren't paid. In that sense are they blackmailed too?

> If nobody could be forced to take shitty jobs, how would most of the current industries exist?

By paying more for those jobs, or replacing them. Alternatively, by those industries not existing.

Do you think most industry cannot exist but for the subsidy of paying low wage

Can you give me an example of a healthy industry were the most critical workers are low paid?

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#219

Post by Chris2048 »

pietrovismara wrote: post #169
Chris2048 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not that black and white, why not explain how rather than invoking negative programmer stereotypes?

I'm sorry for breaking the rules by being rude, but I find your kind of argument so lazy and malignant to be more offensive than any vulgarity. In short, you just have to get your head out of your ass and see how the majority of people are living today, even in first world countries.

So why not make a substantial post on the topic, rather that name-calling? I consider that pretty lazy.

Re: How Amazon Crushes Unions

#220

Post by bsder »

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…

Um, like, duuuuh. If you're gonna buy cheap Chinese junk, skip the Amazon middleman and go straight to Alibaba.

With so many "Amazon" sellers just rebranding cheap Chinese stuff, it really is better to just go backward in the chain. I suspect that you probably get fewer "counterfeits" since you are looking for "Thing that does " instead of "Brand thingit."

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