This must be somewhat validating for Tim Bray, the VP/xml guy who quit over their firing
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-A...
Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
221–230 of 416 posts
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the Thatcher government made a point of starting the closures at the worst possible time, "effective immediately", and then made a point of pointedly ignoring the economic collapse of entire towns and districts whose lifeblood had been the coal mines. That is true, but the context at the time was the Winter Of Discontent. The unions had squandered all the goodwill the voters might otherwise have had.
Unions not having an abundance of good will is a pretty sad excuse for bad policy.
Unions not having an abundance of good will is a pretty sad excuse for bad policy
Thatcher was voted in for one reason: that taxpaying voters had just experienced the Winter Of Discontent and wanted something doing about it once and for all. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of perspective but that's the context in which it happened.
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#223> 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.…
It's amazing all the free market zealots here are totally fine with companies completely messing with the fundamentals that make markets work. Companies tell employees not to discuss their salaries, this causes an information asymmetry where employees can't accurately ascertain the free market value of their labor. Workers try to pool their power together to get more of the value that they produce, they are evil. Cor…
"The poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires"
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#224Activist 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…
People aren't tools. Amazon doesn't by virtue of being a business deserve apolitical drones to do its bidding.
That's the entire point of unions. Employers have too much leverage over employees, so employees have to use activism to counterbalance.
> these workers clearly were focused on their campaign to make Amazon, their employer, look bad publicly.
So the question you are begging is, "Is Amazon privately bad?" From what I have heard about the company over the last few months, the answer is likely, "Yes."
So shouldn't the employees who have the most leverage be the most politically active? How else do we reconcile the inherent leverage a "bad" corporation has over its employees?
> Imagine just trying to do your job and having to deal with these two on your team.
Imagine trying to just do your job, but knowing it's all for a corporation that is treating other employees extremely poorly; and fighting to keep its leverage over them. Don't you have a moral imperative to do something about it?
Do you actually instead have a moral imperative to keep your head down and focus on your work? I find that notion outrageous.
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#225Activist 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…
> Activist employees are the worst.
Totally agree. What have all those fuckers achieved? I mean, besides:
- The week-end
- The end of child labor
- Parental leave
- Occupational Hazard Protection:
"Although any group of workers could stage a wildcat strike, strong union organization was necessary to prevent employer retaliation against workers who acted aggressively to preserve their health and safety. Describing the findings of a coroner’s jury on the causes of a 1914 mining accident, the United Mine Workers Journal caustically remarked that the jury’s verdict should havebeen “Death was due to lack of organization” *
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#226Are 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.
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…
> 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.
That's probably solved by having a union or a nonprofit develop and run the app, instead of a for-profit company.
Is seems like the default assumption is for-profit companies are the best vehicle to accomplish any task, but there's a lot they just can't do or can't do well.
> You'll also have issues with companies paying someone to join the unionization effort to spy on it. That's not insurmountable with proper designs, but it makes it a lot harder to assist with organizing when you have to silo users from one another to prevent espionage.
Yeah, that's harder problem, but it's an issue that needs to be solved for any such effort. Maybe you could have some kind of validation/referral type feature, e.g. refer your coworkers anonymously, and part of on-boarding they verify a list of people and their roles, including the initiator. You could probably structure it so every person gets vetted, but it's unclear who started the process [1].
[1] e.g. initiator refers the effort to 10 coworkers. You have a list of 11 potential employees. Send random 3-worker subsets that together cover all 11 to each referral for vetting of employment location and title. At the end of it, you should have some confidence that you can filter out bogus people and management. Though you still have the problem of snitches and spies who actually work the job.
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
JFC talk about a "you're with us or against us" mentality. I tend to be somewhat neutral on unions (depending on the context I think they're sometimes good and sometimes bad), but your rhetoric has pushed me further towards unions being bad.
I already wrote a response to the sibling comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26703472 > your rhetoric has pushed me further towards unions being bad. This sounds vindictive and selfish to me. I wish it wasn't this way. Personally I'd rather just play video games and screw around with Idris than get involved in labor disputes. But to turn against unions because someone who is vaguely pro-union said som…
Usually when someone says something like this, I assume they were never pro-union in the first place.
"So-and-so said something I don't like, so now I've changed all my political beliefs to be the opposite of theirs" is something real people don't actually do. It's more likely that their political beliefs were always the opposite of so-and-so's and they were just looking for an opportunity to admit it.
Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#228Earlier 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.
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Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#229Earlier 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…
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 pro…
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Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds
#230Earlier 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…
Rubbish. Your assumption is that unions are always a benefit to their members.
I have seen enough actions by unions where the outcomes were detrimental to their members for me to believe that some unions are a net negative for their members.
Someone can choose to not belong to a union because they are a good person that just believes that a union is bad for everyone.
Edit: Disclaimer: I am not stating that I think unions are bad. However the few direct experiences I personally have had with unions have not been a clear positive for the members (as an employee or student, never as an employer).
Edit 2: Or you could just believe unions are net neutral, so be against joining. Because who wants to voluntarily submit themselves to an organisation or people they don’t believe in?