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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

#211

Post by nerdponx »

rualca wrote: post #173
peytn wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Mixing the two, in my opinion, simply adds a layer of indirection for the bastards to hide behind. That's an awful lot of words to say "screw you, I got mine". Exploiters have it easy when the exploited see basic workers rights as "charity".

Some HN users are apparently very touchy about this, so maybe a gentler way to state it would be:

> It is only possible to see labor solidarity as "charity" if you are privileged enough to not depend on that solidarity.

Of course, accusations of privilege themselves are subject to pants-twisting and fits of downvoting moderation-flagging rage.

"Please don't remind me that I'm privileged because it makes me feel icky feelings so I will get ANGRY instead" seems to be a natural human reaction.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#212

Post by erwald »

jjk166 wrote: post #197
pje wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

Are you saying that technology can't be used to more effectively organize and influence people?

No, I think pje is saying that existing tools are just fine & new tools are unlikely to improve things on the margin.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#213

Post by N00bN00b »

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…

Wouldn't that go both ways and encourage more activism?

I wouldn't mind being an activist employee if I know that not only do I stand up for what I believe in, but there's a reasonable chance it will result in enough compensation for an early retirement. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I wouldn't do it without caution and it does require funds on my end, but I'd still do it. That said, Amazon will likely engage in prolonged litigation, to minimize the benefits.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#214

Post by thomastjeffery »

mixedCase wrote: post #152
nerdponx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

Absolutely not. Not increasing its power is not undermining it. It's neutrality. Stop changing definitions to suit your political goals. We have enough "with us or against us" going on driving violence to let more slide.

Parent's point was that by working for a company without supporting a union, you are giving that company leverage against the union.

That is where the neutrality is lost.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#215

Post by nerdponx »

lasagnaphil wrote: post #181
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.

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 g…

Very good point. I wish I knew the details of the study.

I do wonder if, at a certain extreme level of cheaterness/selfishness, there is a minimum level of self-confidence that causes a cheater to self-select into a cheating-OK environment.

It's an extension of the "survival of the fittest" mentality. If you believe you are one of the fittest, you might be willing to enter the survival scenario because you are confident that you will survive.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#216

Post by dumbfoundded »

iamleppert wrote: post #204

Activist employees are the worst. Instead of focusing on their job duties, these workers clearly were focused on their campaign to make Amazon, their employer, look bad publicly. When one tactic (climate justice) wasn't getting them enough attention, they switched their tactics to pandemic safety. It's the switch of agendas here that is telling as to their true motives. They both got what they deserved, and Amazon's…

Maybe at very small companies this opinion makes sense but at 4th largest company in the world, we absolutely need these people. We only have some semblance of workers' rights due to activists and conditions will only improve because of them.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#217

Post by Pfhreak »

great_reversal wrote: post #201

Sure Amazon might not like them for their advocacy, but if they really did unapologetically break internal policies then I think Amazon's firing them is valid. Assuming they did leak private company information or try to organize a massive social gathering during the pandemic, the response was valid. They were probably targets, but as a target you shouldn't be breaking rules at work.

> unapologetically break internal policies

I mean, Amazon has an internal policy that you are not allowed to collaborate on any games related projects with anyone who is not also an Amazon employee. Did you go to a game jam? You've just unapologetically broken internal policies.

It's absolutely the case that Amazon can construct policies that are never enforced and easy to break so they have something they can fall back on to say, "Well, they broke our policies, sooo...."

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#218

Post by mrguyorama »

nerdponx wrote: post #82
lkrubner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In my understanding, the United Auto Workers union were one big reason why the US automakers were bailed out in 2008. So if anything, they're (partly) responsible for keeping a dead/dying industry on life support. Can't blame them for not wanting thousands of people to lose their jobs, but market forces were definitely not favorable to American automakers at the time. Then again, American automakers seem to be figuri…

Ah yes, the companies failing were because of overpaid employees, and not because of incompetent management and an unwillingness to produce competitive products.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#219

Post by krsdcbl »

blinding-streak wrote: post #3

The original site seems to be offline now, but for reference, Amazon's anti-union propaganda website: https://web.archive.org/web/20210301090641/https://www.doitw...

> So be a DOER, stay friendly and get things done [...]

I'm getting heavy 1984 vibes from this campaign.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#220

Post by crooked-v »

dawnerd wrote: post #64
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.

Been using Target Staples, and Bestbuy more and while they don’t always have the same items, brand names end up being roughly the same price due to auto price matching and contractual minimum prices. Only times I’m using amazon is for cheap items no one else will ship. They’ve really just turned into AliExpress.

> They’ve really just turned into AliExpress.

For a quick and concrete example of this, do a search on Amazon for "dent puller". You'll get pages and pages of obviously identical suction cups and dent removal kits with obviously randomly generated brand names like "LTGABA" and "QGMZZMF".

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