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

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#251

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 8:59 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.

Sure. And the aristocracy is good for aristocrats. I suspect that engineers, in general, vastly overestimate the amount of leverage they actually have as an individual when considering the merits of joining a union.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#252

Post by GavinMcG » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

sreque wrote: post #235

GavinMcG wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? On the whole, it saves Amazon the hassle of dealing with "unfair labor" complaints that really aren't. And it's not like the NLRB attorneys give the employee some special advantage. Frankly, there are a lot of cases where the employee would probably be better off working with a private attorney whose incentives are more aligned with the employee's. And either way, Amazon had a piece of paper from a lawyer tha…

The NLRB are appointed by the president and can behave with incredible political bias: https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-re... The reach of the executive branch has extended far beyond what is healthy for the nation of the United States.

Sure, but they're still constrained by the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court. And that bias would show up in the final decision: merely having a letter saying the NLRB will take up the case is multiple steps removed from the political appointment concerns.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#253

Post by rantwasp » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

LordDragonfang wrote: post #187

rantwasp wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

i think that the way a corporation would mitigate this risk is different. if i need to pay you 5million in a wrongful termination scenario vs paying you 250k per year, I could make you work for 20 years doing nothing and make your life miserable.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#254

Post by fmajid » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #246

sokoloff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The union helped them on their way up, and they are grateful, even though strictly speaking they no longer need the union.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#255

Post by patrickthebold » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #240

duckfang wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what individual thinks they have more leverage than Amazon? Amazon has a 1.6 trillion $ market cap.

Amazon needs a lot of software engineers and needs them more than any individual SWE needs Amazon, no matter what their market cap is.

Amazon needs a lot of software engineers, but they don't need any single engineer.

Which is the whole point of unionizing.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#256

Post by fmajid » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

LordDragonfang wrote: post #156

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. That sounds like a fancy way of saying, "I don't have an ethical responsibility to others."

To be fair, a lot of corporate philanthropy is executives using their shareholders' money to buy themselves social capital.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#257

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

ihumanable wrote: post #205

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.…

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 big one to me is that the "free speech absolutists" are consistently nowhere to be found when labor organizing speech is silenced.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#258

Post by fmajid » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:12 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.

That settlement is still coming from one individual's budget within the company. Even though the settlement amount is not material for a company the size of Amazon, it will be material to that one employee, who may even be fired herself (e.g. if she is in HR), so the incentive structure of the individuals within the Amazon hive mind will still be impacted.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#259

Post by tweetle_beetle » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #246

sokoloff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Isn't that slightly different and more because the film industry is unusual in that it has adapted around the unionised environment? Stars would have joined the union early in their career for the protection, but late on its minimal expense for sake of keeping the cogs of production turning. I'm no expert, but I imagine there are various on-set insurances which require actors to be a member of union, etc. It's not quite the same as a VP of a tech company joining a union.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#260

Post by nerdponx » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #259

objclxt wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Isn't that slightly different and more because the film industry is unusual in that it has adapted around the unionised environment? Stars would have joined the union early in their career for the protection, but late on its minimal expense for sake of keeping the cogs of production turning. I'm no expert, but I imagine there are various on-set insurances which require actors to be a member of union, etc. It's not qu…

Seems pretty much the same to me. Junior devs have to work their way up, senior devs already make big bucks and don't really "need" the union anymore.