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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

#161

Post by brundolf »

brundolf wrote: post #58
curryst wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentive structure is bad. However much money you make for organizing unions, I'm positive the company they're attempting to unionize will pay you several times that to give them the list of workers who want to unionize. It's the same problem review sites have; companies that want to game the reviews will pay more than users who want honest reviews. You'll also have issues with companies paying someone to join t…

Could the first problem be prevented at a legal level? The app company itself files some sort of legal document preventing itself from falling prey to that sort of corruption (although, really, the first time they did that the company would go under because nobody would use it ever again) The second problem is harder... maybe the tech could be designed such that nobody, including the makers of the app, could see the…

Edit: a simpler solution would be to give each person voting a unique, nonpersonal identifier, and then end-to-end encrypt their attached personal details, so after the voting period is done they would have exclusive authority to de-anonymize their information (so it can be verified as part of the final vote tally)

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#162

Post by spamizbad »

nerdponx wrote: post #141
tekromancr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sociop…

I recently saw a post (maybe here on HN?) about a study where participants had the ability to choose between a strict-no-cheating game environment and a mostly-cheating-allowed game environment. Cheaters self-selected into the latter because it allowed them to cheat, even though they knew that others were also trying to cheat. Hopefully I'm paraphrasing/remembering correctly.

This perhaps explains the rationale you sometimes hear that more rules/regs will cause people to not even bother trying to start a business. If you set the business climate up in such a way that only permits fair participation and competition you're probably going to alienate a segment that would favor looser rules.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#163

Post by rideontime »

throwawaysea wrote: post #100
ceejayoz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are specific rights in this regard. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/can-you-terminate-emplo... > In a memo released on April 15, the agency evaluated a case where a company maintained a policy that prohibited employees from speaking to the media at any time. The NLRB found this rule to be unlawful and explained: “Employees have a statutory right to speak publically about their complaints or concerns with t…

But these two were not speaking about the “terms and conditions” of their employment. They were broadly criticizing the company on other matters ranging from climate change to more directly political issues. I feel like the scope of the NLRA is extending to include just about everything.

> I feel like the scope of the NLRA is extending to include just about everything.

You say this like it's a bad thing.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#164

Post by LordDragonfang »

spamizbad wrote: post #162
nerdponx wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently saw a post (maybe here on HN?) about a study where participants had the ability to choose between a strict-no-cheating game environment and a mostly-cheating-allowed game environment. Cheaters self-selected into the latter because it allowed them to cheat, even though they knew that others were also trying to cheat. Hopefully I'm paraphrasing/remembering correctly.

This perhaps explains the rationale you sometimes hear that more rules/regs will cause people to not even bother trying to start a business. If you set the business climate up in such a way that only permits fair participation and competition you're probably going to alienate a segment that would favor looser rules.

I'm having a hard time seeing the justification here. It's not that the cheaters refused to play if they couldn't cheat, it's that when given influence, they prefered to have things be worse for everyone so that they could cheat more freely.

>If you set the business climate up in such a way that only permits fair participation and competition you're probably going to alienate a segment that would favor looser rules.

The converse, that rules which allow profitable unethical behavior (and therefore prefer such unethical behavior, since profit is the measure of success) are going to alienate people who want to play fair, is exactly as well supported by that observation. And all other things being equal, it seems better to alienate the cheaters than the fair players, which in turn argues for stronger regulation.

It just highlights that the people who want to cheat and make such arguments aren't arguing in good faith, they just want to cheat more easily.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#166

Post by lupire »

jjj123 wrote: post #68
pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had provided good benefits and working condition, the workers will not be incentivized to form unions, right? Why are they not doing that?

Well they are doing some of it for just that reason, like they raised the minimum wage to $15 (which is actually pretty good) and wave that around in their anti-union propaganda. I bet they’ve done all kinds of risk calculations around increasing benefits and decided they could stop there. Personally, I hope their calculations are wrong and the workers unionize anyways.

"minimum wage" should be for jobs that are minimum work - jobs were you stand around doing nothing (cashier at a slow store), or are apprenticing a skill.

Amazon warehouse jobs are physically demanding and damaging (which should carry a premium) and extremely optimized to negative downtime (which should carry a premium). (Employees are required to do work while off the clock, walking between work area and break area, and waiting in line for security checks).

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#167

Post by htnsao »

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?

>80% "men".

Whiners gotta whine.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#168

Post by lupire »

minikites wrote: post #66
pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had provided good benefits and working condition, the workers will not be incentivized to form unions, right? Why are they not doing that?

You don't get to be a billionaire by treating your workers well. Pay and benefits will always be worse at a non-union workplace because the workers have no leverage.

Jeff Bezos has plenty of slack for treating workers better while still being a billionaire. To start, he could each of 1 million employees $2000 more every year ($1/hour raise or 30min/day in more breaks) and not break a sweat.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#169

Post by intricatedetail »

Tomorrow in the UK starts employment without rights - that is companies will be legally able to hire de facto employees and those people will not have any employment rights - so no unions, will be able to fire pregnant women or don't observe equal pay. It's a bit more complex paperwork, but once companies get a taste it can be streamlined. All this without Labour party nor unions saying a word... https://norightsemployee.uk/

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#170

Post by lupire »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #45
slibhb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. But it would interesting to hear how Amazon claims these employees violated internal policies. That seems newsworthy.

Their spokesperson did not wish to say what policies they claim were violated. They were presented an opportunity to state their side, and chose not to.

The spokesperson had no choice. Speaking publicly in ways that harm the company's brand is against policy, a fireable offense.
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