Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#181

Post by lasagnaphil » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

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.

Game environments usually means there aren't significant real-life consequences, so it's totally plausible that most people would pick the cheating-allowed game for just more fun and entertainment.

When actual jobs and lives are on the line, and the penalty for losing requires most of the participants to give up your basic human needs (such as most of low-income wage workers, they don't have any fallbacks when they get scammed and go under), then things are going to be much different.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#182

Post by rantwasp » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

LordDragonfang wrote: post #157

rantwasp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>a wrongful termination lawsuit is expensive (think 7 figures) When you're a company that makes 11 figures, spending 7 figures for a 1% increase in profits is a hundredfold ROI. They're not expensive, they're a bargain.

if it’s one employee yes. if you’re going to be basically liable every time you fire someone it’s not worth it.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#183

Post by majormajor » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

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.

In business environment terms, I see anyone who takes a "you're either with us or against us" position as promoting a "mostly-cheating-allowed game." You're gonna let things slide for people on "your team" much more than you would if everyone is for themselves. That's one of the more convincing arguments against traditional unions, to me.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#184

Post by Haga » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

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's a nice way for anyone to get fired with cash to go

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#185

Post by logimame » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

SauciestGNU wrote: post #159

thedevelopnik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they’re betting, with a good deal of historical justification, that they can have their cake and eat it too. US has unfortunately been union-unfriendly since Reagan.

The US has been union unfriendly since the 19th century when union leaders were regularly assassinated, and in the 20th century when striking workers were aerially bombarded and killed.

Things had to change after the Great Depression though, the Roosevelt government had to actually make amends with and negotiate with labor unions, since the alternative was widespread economically-induced unrest which might possibly lead to communist or fascist uprisings. I think the parent comment was talking about that particular era, and commenting on how Reagan dismantled that whole deal.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#186

Post by duckfang » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

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.

So, what individual thinks they have more leverage than Amazon?

Amazon has a 1.6 trillion $ market cap.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#187

Post by LordDragonfang » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

rantwasp wrote: post #182

LordDragonfang wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a wrongful termination lawsuit is expensive (think 7 figures) When you're a company that makes 11 figures, spending 7 figures for a 1% increase in profits is a hundredfold ROI. They're not expensive, they're a bargain.

if it’s one employee yes. if you’re going to be basically liable every time you fire someone it’s not worth it.

That's 11 figures annually. Even if you make that settlement nearly 100 times a year, you still come out ahead

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#188

Post by themaninthedark » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

aksss wrote: post #155

themaninthedark wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends, is the policy: a) As an employee, you are not allowed to make statements about internal matters on behalf of the company. b) As an employee, you are not allowed to talk about internal matters outside the company. If A, then I have no problem. Companies have PR teams and random employee #13554 might not have all the information about an issue. If B, I have a huge problem as the first amendment is a thing…

You limited B to internal matters, which generally means company confidential. Unless the matters concern legal violations (a different conversation about whistleblower regulation and protection), why on earth would you have “a huge problem” with confidentiality agreements and NDAs? Especially when you sign those agreements as a condition of employment?

When I said internal matters, I did not have any specific information in mind, just internal company matters.

If engineer #34529, profiled liked to SpaceY says on Twitter that his group has lots of overtime. He could be fired in a case B situation. And yes, information like that could be coupled with other information to figure out what projects the company is working on.

It is my belief that confidentiality agreements and NDAs, along with non-compete clauses are overbroad and expand beyond what companies are allowed to ask of their employees.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#189

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #161

brundolf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

That solves the actual vote but that's not the big issue. At the start you have to get enough people interested and talk to other people to get them interested and the company can use that to do some 'totally not retaliatory firings/performance reviews of key organizers.' If it were as simple as just needing to make an up or down vote there wouldn't be so many issues but there's a lot of anti-union propaganda out there you might need to convince people out of before trying to vote.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#190

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #57

jjj123 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just about the bottom line, it’s also about power. Without unionization, Amazon has complete control over their workers wages, benefits, and work contracts. Unionization shifts some of that control to the workers themselves. Amazon doesn’t want to lose that power.

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?

Because that costs money, why just give workers more when you can use some of the money saved on suppressing organization instead.