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Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#101

Post by TheBobinator »

dan-robertson wrote: post #49
tyingq wrote: post #2

"The agency told Ms. Cunningham and Ms. Costa that it would accuse Amazon of unfair labor practices if the company did not settle the case, according to correspondence that Ms. Cunningham shared with The New York Times." That's a pretty nice piece of leverage to have in hand while negotiating a settlement. Edit: They were both UX/Design folks with Amazon, fired on April 10th, 2020. Costa was Amazon's first ever Princ…

Is settlement actually a bad deal for Amazon or similar companies like Google? Sure they have to spend a bit of money on the settlement but they have still succeeded at their actual objective of getting rid of the activist employees. This cycle (labour organisation attempt -> leaders fired -> settlement for leaders -> leaders go off to some media job/retirement/academia) happens again and again. Presumably the compan…

FAANG hasn't been innovators for a long time now, closing in on almost half a decade. They started out that way but have moved full bore into politics. Politics is what happens when the rest of society tries to figure out what to do with the innovators inventions, an when orgs don't innovate, they die, usually a pretty violent and shitty death over time.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#102

Post by pje »

mycall wrote: post #42

Are there any apps to streamline the unionization of businesses? It would seem quorum discovery is the hardest part of creating a union -- who is ready to join. Being in a union myself, even with some of the political issues that come with it, I very much appreciate what they do for me.

Literally none of the hard problems in forming a union are technical. I can't stress this enough—the hard problems in organizing are much squishier and amorphous.

You're trying to get a majority of people to feel like they have a personal stake in improving the material conditions of others. It's not quorum algorithms, it's not apps, it's not encrypted communication platforms. The hard part is organizing people.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#103

Post by jwineinger »

rantwasp wrote: post #99
ineedasername wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've not only rid themselves of the activists, they've made it clear that you lose your job if you publicly disagree with them. You'll lose your job and if you try to fight it you'll spend years just to get a settlement. From here on out everyone will be thinking "is this worth losing my job over, especially when I may have similarly serious concers about any employer I work for?"

nah. a wrongful termination lawsuit is expensive (think 7 figures). what i think amazon is going to do is put the workers that try this stunt into positions that are so crappy or the demands are so unrealistic that they’re gonna quit.

Wouldn't that be considered constructive dismissal, and still subject to this sort of action?

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#104

Post by CryptoPunk »

lkrubner wrote: post #37
CryptoPunk wrote: post #6

The labor laws in place violate the freedom of association and are terrible for social welfare. There is a reason why unionization is associated with enterprise decline, and why shareholders oppose it. Amazon is doing immense good for US quality of life and raising US export revenue, and there is no benefit in jeopardizing that to give a select group of workers a monopoly over the jobs it offers.

Germany has much stronger labor unions than the USA, a legal requirement we forced on them when they finalized the constitution (Basic Law) of 1949. Since that time, compare the fate of the American auto companies (GM, Ford, Chrysler and American Motors) to German auto companies (Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, BMW). The American companies ruled the world, and then lost market ground, one went bankrupt, another was bought…

It should be noted that Germany's wage/GDP growth has been quite stagnant since the 1970s as well. Its auto industry has been successful, but that can be attributed to numerous other factors, like its effective education system, which puts a much heavier emphasis on vocational training, its engineering culture, and government policy focused on promoting auto manufacturing, all of which can counter-act the negative effects of its unions.

Also, German unions are less antagonistic to management than American unions. The UAW took over the Big Three in the 50s and 60s, and they immediately went from extremely successful, to getting to the brink of bankruptcy.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#106

Post by 8note »

merpnderp wrote: post #5

I'm clicking through all the links in this article and can't find a single bit from Amazon's point of view. But my hazy memory says Amazon's story is they were fired because they were sending mass emails through the internal Amazon email system trying to unionize and wouldn't quit and use some other means of communication even after being counseled. You'd expect the NYT's to give both side's at a minimum, or is Amazo…

Yeah, where's the side that's for dissolving amazon?

And the side that wants to get rid of all labour standards?

Where's the Islamic fundamentalist view that they shouldn't be outside without something covering their hair in that picture?

The NYT is doing a horrible job portaying the relevant sides in this event

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#107

Post by f6v »

quintdamage wrote: post #80

If I'm to be honest, I'm a little surprised at the responses I'm seeing posted. This site is probably >80% men, many of whom are college educated and far more wealthy than most Americans, but are still somewhat anti-Amazon?

> This site is probably >80% men, many of whom are college educated

You forgot to bring up the race.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#108

Post by CryptoPunk »

jcranmer wrote: post #30
CryptoPunk wrote: post #6

The labor laws in place violate the freedom of association and are terrible for social welfare. There is a reason why unionization is associated with enterprise decline, and why shareholders oppose it. Amazon is doing immense good for US quality of life and raising US export revenue, and there is no benefit in jeopardizing that to give a select group of workers a monopoly over the jobs it offers.

I'm hard-pressed to think of any example where a unionized labor force killed a viable industry (or even a single company). Even when I think of the cases where unions hurt the viability of the company, the primary cause of decline was poor strategy and decision-making on the part of the owners. Blaming unions for those cases seems to be a rather sleazy way for the owners to avoid any liability for their faults.

The US auto industry was extremely successful before the UAW took over. It's not a coincidence that all three of the Big Three auto makers got taken over by the UAW in the 1950s and 60s, and saw decline in the 70s.

For another example, Bombardier in Canada was a successful airplane manufacturer, and the demands of its unions gradually sapped its international competitiveness.

For yet another example, all the passenger rail services in the US went bankrupt after they were forced into collective bargaining with unions.

It's common sense that unions, backed by laws that give them an extra-contractual monopoly over who a company can negotiate with, are not good for industry.

If they were, shareholders would push for their companies to have their workforces unionized. The only reason the notion that unions are good for the economy has any traction is that there are millions of parties with a conflict of interest in this debate, who use their time to push these pro-union-monopoly talking points.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#109

Post by lasfter »

f6v wrote: post #105
joana035 wrote: post #13

That's the reason why I don't buy anything from Amazon and prefer to pay a bit more to a local store instead.

Do you do this under the assumption that no local store treats employees unfairly?

Certainly not on the scale of Amazon.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#110

Post by wting »

tracer4201 wrote: post #73

> After Amazon told them that they had violated its external communications policy by speaking publicly about the business, their group organized 400 employees to also speak out, purposely violating the policy to make a point. I get that Amazon and big tech hate posts are a daily thing on HN these days, but this seems simple enough to me. They broke Amazons policies and organized other employees to also break policy.…

Company policy cannot overrule laws, but it is not illegal to put it in a contract. Companies put in things they can't enforce because it has the same effect of discouraging certain behaviors.

A company's policy cannot prohibit employees from talking about the company. Obviously there is more nuance (e.g. leaking internal info) but in this case we're discussing public events.

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