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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

#241

Post by troebr »

circumvent123 wrote: post #97
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?

It's possible and healthy to empathize with people not in your own demographic. Some people also have principles that are not based purely in self-interest.

"But I don't want to pay taxes because they don't benefit me directly. And why would I pay for schools with my property taxes, I don't have kids". I've been surprised at how much prevalent this line of thinking is in the US as opposed to my home country.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#242

Post by uoaei »

acuozzo wrote: post #194
tracer4201 wrote: post #73

> 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.…

> They broke Amazons policies and organized other employees to also break policy. How's Kohlberg Stage 4 working out for you?

Maybe a little trite, but this is the correct framing IMO.

Blindly accepting rules, just because they're noted down in some policy by a perceived authority, is the very definition of bootlicking.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#243

Post by _2d30 »

pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #46

Wouldn't it be better for Amazon, in the long term to let workers get the best salary/benefits in the industry and even cooperate in their unionization efforts (if the workers want to)? Would it such a big hit to their bottom line? Or am I just being to too naive? [Edit: Grammar]

> Wouldn't it be better for Amazon, in the long term to let workers get the best salary/benefits in the industry

The dirty secret is that Amazon basically already has the best salary/benefits for the job types that are looking to unionize. This isn't entirely true, but very close. Warehouse work is not well compensated anywhere and Amazon's $15/hr min wage plus really solid benefits is pretty much comparatively incomparable.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#244

Post by uoaei »

htnsao wrote: post #167
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.

Right, forgot -- men eat shit whenever they're asked and never fight for their or others' rights.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#245

Post by uoaei »

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…

You are comfortable with giving up your own inalienable human rights upon starting a shift, that's fine. But it seems a little absurd to demand that others do the same.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#246

Post by objclxt »

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.

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

If this was true, why are the highest paid and in-demand stars and directors in Hollywood all still dues paying members of their unions?

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#247

Post by licnep »

mullingitover wrote: post #123

Is there as much of an effort to unionize in other countries where tech salaries are markedly lower? I only seem to hear about efforts to organize in the US, but Europe's tech salaries are far lower across the board. You'd think that efforts to organize there would be more fruitful.

Most workers in europe are unionized, but at least here in Italy, there is no union specific to tech workers. Tech workers fall either under the unions for factory workers or commerce workers, which have lower standards for salaries. So one reason salaries stay low is not so much that workers aren't unionized, but that a computer engineer is lumped together with an assembly line worker. As the european tech sector grows it would make sense for tech-specific unions to emerge.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#248

Post by sokoloff »

amyjess wrote: post #227
nerdponx wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don’t imagine that “unions are good because of X, Y, and Z facts” is a more compelling argument to anyone anywhere in the middle spectrum than “if you don’t like unions, you’re a selfish asshole” or “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” and that difference in compelling nature would influence someone’s support of unions?

It’s not like any of us emerged from the womb with a strongly decided opinion on unions, but rather we developed one over time by deciding on the arguments advanced and whereby bullying arguments and behavior of intimidation often push people away from support.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#249

Post by [deleted] »

jjk166 wrote: post #207
lupire wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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,…

This isn't the government's minimum wage, this is amazon's minimum wage, ie the lowest wage that amazon pays to its employees, which is more than double US federal minimum wage. There is a push to raise federal minimum wage to match Amazon's minimum wage, but for now they are paying a hefty premium everywhere in the US except Washington D.C., the only US state-like entity to yet match it. Sometimes we forget that all…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#250

Post by ironmagma »

peytn wrote: post #53
pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #46

Wouldn't it be better for Amazon, in the long term to let workers get the best salary/benefits in the industry and even cooperate in their unionization efforts (if the workers want to)? Would it such a big hit to their bottom line? Or am I just being to too naive? [Edit: Grammar]

They’re doing well now, so from their point of view why take on the risk? Service disruptions caused by strikes would hurt Amazon’s product offerings. Competitors may draw away their hardest workers, leaving Amazon with an uncompetitive, unfireable labor pool.

Why shouldn’t a grown adult stick their hand near a jet engine to warm it up, when they’ve never had any bad experiences with that maneuver? Corporations are full of brains; even if they aren’t directly sensing the downsides to some crappy position they hold, it’s often fairly trivial to discern the logical outcome in advance.
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