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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

#131

Post by frenchy »

sokoloff wrote: post #127
nerdponx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some will balk, but not all. There is probably enough overlap between "talented devs and designers" and "people who think unions are bad and/or don't care" that it won't affect their hiring pipeline. That said, I think highly-paid tech contributors do have the most leverage out of any other labor market participant right now. The more of us that don't want to work for anti-union companies, the better.

The more leverage you have as an individual, the less relevant a union is for you.

And that's how you end up with a company full of assholes.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#132

Post by ic0n0cl4st »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #108
jcranmer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 passenge…

It seems to quire naive to give unions all the credit while failing to America’s declining quality compared to Japan and failure to listen to loud market trends.

GM ignoring Deming’s TQM while Japan wholeheartedly embraced this philosophy should be mentioned.

The rapid increase in oil prices and the big 3 ignoring the data and sticking with the “Americans want big gas guzzling cars” philosophy would also be mentioned.

This last one combined with the oil crisis is how Honda killed Harley Davidson, as well as how Toyota and VW killed the big 3. When the oil crisis hit the 15-mile per gallon american behemoths just became irrelevant.

Containerized shipping and a lack of import taxes also had far more to do with the USA losing its doninance.

We wanted cheaper, smaller, more reliable cars. The big 3 wanted to pretend like it was still 1955.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#133

Post by peytn »

tekromancr wrote: post #129
sokoloff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more leverage you have as an individual, the less relevant a union is for you.

If you do have leverage, and you don't use said leverage to help those that don't; then you are a bastard. And having policies ensures that your company, at high levels is ONLY staffed with bastards because people who are not bastards won't want to work there. Granted, that might be exactly what Amazon et al are selecting for; but at some point, a company being anti-union will be a signal to prospective high-level em…

I like to keep business and charity separated. Mixing the two, in my opinion, simply adds a layer of indirection for the bastards to hide behind.

Besides, if you’re in a working environment where people throw around terms like “total comp” and have mortgages denominated in millions of dollars, the self-interest ship has kinda sailed.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#134

Post by tyingq »

GavinMcG wrote: post #114
tyingq wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a pretty unusual situation in an unlawful termination negotiation, yes. That is: having a piece of paper in hand, from the Federal government, undeniably saying government intervention will happen if a settlement isn't reached. I believe this particular settlement, especially the one for Costa (based on Principal title and 15 years tenure), is going to be a very big number. It's also terrible timing for…

When you file a lawsuit, you get a summons to serve on the other party. That is "a piece of paper, from the government, undeniably saying government intervention will happen if a settlement isn't reached." The government intervention is in the form of a legal proceeding. But the summons certainly doesn't mean the government/judicial system has made up its mind about the substance of the suit! Same here: the governmen…

It's a very specialized venue as opposed to a regular court, and the NLRB is able to take quite a lot of action without a trial or court proceeding, as well as to take a very specific position on the matter. They also very regularly reject claims. It's not the same thing, it isn't an impartial judicial process. It's more similar to, say, the FTC.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#135

Post by numbsafari »

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…

It likely depends on the /terms/ of the settlement more than the /cost/ of the settlement in this case.

As activists, they may be balking at NDA or non-disparagement language, rather than at price.

From Amazon's perspective, the NDA/non-disparagement part is probably incredibly valuable.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#136

Post by tekromancr »

peytn wrote: post #133
tekromancr wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do have leverage, and you don't use said leverage to help those that don't; then you are a bastard. And having policies ensures that your company, at high levels is ONLY staffed with bastards because people who are not bastards won't want to work there. Granted, that might be exactly what Amazon et al are selecting for; but at some point, a company being anti-union will be a signal to prospective high-level em…

I like to keep business and charity separated. Mixing the two, in my opinion, simply adds a layer of indirection for the bastards to hide behind. Besides, if you’re in a working environment where people throw around terms like “total comp” and have mortgages denominated in millions of dollars, the self-interest ship has kinda sailed.

> I like to keep business and charity separated.

I don't know if that really tracks, tho. You still have ethical obligations in your day-to-day business. As an extreme example; if your business is "I sell fentinyl laced heroin to elementary school children" isn't really something you can make up with any amount charitable giving.

But aside from that, I was making the self-interested argument that even complete sociopaths wouldn't necessarily want to work in an environment where "My coworkers can and will try to fuck me at the first opportunity" is a true statement.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#138

Post by [deleted] »

numbsafari wrote: post #135
dan-robertson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It likely depends on the /terms/ of the settlement more than the /cost/ of the settlement in this case. As activists, they may be balking at NDA or non-disparagement language, rather than at price. From Amazon's perspective, the NDA/non-disparagement part is probably incredibly valuable.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#139

Post by nerdponx »

peytn wrote: post #133
tekromancr wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do have leverage, and you don't use said leverage to help those that don't; then you are a bastard. And having policies ensures that your company, at high levels is ONLY staffed with bastards because people who are not bastards won't want to work there. Granted, that might be exactly what Amazon et al are selecting for; but at some point, a company being anti-union will be a signal to prospective high-level em…

I like to keep business and charity separated. Mixing the two, in my opinion, simply adds a layer of indirection for the bastards to hide behind. Besides, if you’re in a working environment where people throw around terms like “total comp” and have mortgages denominated in millions of dollars, the self-interest ship has kinda sailed.

Unfortunately it's not physically possible to be neutral on this issue.

It's not analogous to never giving people change on the street because you donate to soup kitchens and mutual aid orgs (or whatever). If you don't support unionization, you are effectively undermining it. This isn't meant to be some kind of woke purity test. It's just the facts of how a market operates.

Every individual that is willing to work without supporting a union, is an employee that hurts the power of that union, because that's one less unit of labor that the employer has to rely on the union for.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#140

Post by amznthrwaway »

lokar wrote: post #59
dan-robertson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It could make it hard to recruit new Sr people and leaders in their fields. I would never consider working at Amazon.

I interviewed at Amazon largely to see what happened when I challenged them to talk about some negative practices.

Their answers impressed me sufficiently that I work here now.

I believe (hopefully correctly) that Amazon is a very flawed company which is becoming _less_ flawed over time, and that I can help support those improvements.

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