291–300 of 416 posts
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Right, forgot -- men eat shit whenever they're asked and never fight for their or others' rights.
No, more like, instead of whining, men just quit jobs that suck aka "take this job and shove it". And/or fire problem workers..
That's the reason why I don't buy anything from Amazon and prefer to pay a bit more to a local store instead.
Do you do this under the assumption that no local store treats employees unfairly?
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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.
As an aside, I sometimes wonder if they could literally have qualified as a not for profit whose sole goal is to grow into new market segments and employ more people. Because if you take a wide angle view of it, that's pretty much all they ever do.
This case is something to keep in mind anytime Amazon comments on any labor matter, be it minimum wage, visas, diversity, work conditions, contractors, anything at all. Amazon is not commenting on those issues with anything in mind other than its own interests.
Isn't that what any company should do?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, more like, instead of whining, men just quit jobs that suck aka "take this job and shove it". And/or fire problem workers..
You have a warped view of masculinity. Some may call it toxic, even.
Quiting a shitty job is pretty satisfying and it provides direct feedback that things need to be improved in order to retain talent. Or not, as it could just be good riddance.
Tomorrow in the UK starts employment without rights - that is companies will be legally able to hire de facto employees and those people will not have any employment rights - so no unions, will be able to fire pregnant women or don't observe equal pay. It's a bit more complex paperwork, but once companies get a taste it can be streamlined. All this without Labour party nor unions saying a word... https://norightsempl…
The most surprising thing about this is that they chose the name "No Rights Employee" In America a similar concept is called "Right to Work" Where are your corporate PR people?
The US not only needs more people in unions but it also needs better unions. I can't believe how bad they mostly are. It's more about power and money than empowerment of the workers/members. I have never seen a union as bad as the better ones in the US. Here's hoping it will be better soon..
> He said in messages to Insider that he used to be "a huge pro-union person," but that his time working for unions made him believe that his work ethic didn't matter and that unions would value seniority over everything.
I wish it were FUD, but I can't people like this that their own lived experience wrong.
However what I can say is that an Amazon union would be much better positioned than coal, steal, or autoworker one. Those industries can go away --- either move somewhere else or dispensary altogether. But until dollar looses it's primacy in international trade and the US becomes a lot poorer, there will be cheap shit to ship to Americans everywhere (https://phenomenalworld.org/interviews/trade-wars-are-class-...), and those warehouses have to be near them.
Put simply, production can move, distribution can't, and the American market for selling goods isn't going anywhere.
Back to unions, I think the combination of a shrinking pie (deindustrialization) and the post war depolitization of unions (a very fascinating and tragic history) made it quite likely that unions would start shafting some members vs everyone going down with the ship. Take away those conditions (Amazon isn't going to become unprofitable over this...) and the fact that I think that these new unions will have a cultural break from the old, and I think we'll get better outcomes.
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For those of you worried about an automated warehouse --- that's good. Job flight to evade humane working conditions sucks. Actual automation of the work in place is amazing and should be considered a labor movement win. Because only big visible automation that's designed to intimidate will lead to a UBI, even though we've been hurting for 50 years of underemployment and overcapacity.
This case is something to keep in mind anytime Amazon comments on any labor matter, be it minimum wage, visas, diversity, work conditions, contractors, anything at all. Amazon is not commenting on those issues with anything in mind other than its own interests.
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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.
Yeah that's not what happened. The commenter in question clearly said "your rhetoric has pushed me further towards unions being bad" from the original position of ambivalence. If I'm being honest, I'm similarly ambivalent about unions and the rhetoric has pushed me in the same direction as well. It's not just this one comment that pushed me on its own, it's a small trend I've noticed in pro-union advocacy that I've noticed.
And frankly, whether someone's political beliefs have truly changed from such rhetoric is not very important, this kind of rhetoric poisons friendship. Political beliefs and movements need friends that actively support it, not people who quietly agree that something is probably technically true. Ever heard of "you're not wrong, you're just an arsehole"? Keep this up and you'll have a fantastic non-coalition of people who may quietly admit that you're right on some things but will never associate/support you or your movement. How you say something matters a lot, this is just the basics of diplomacy.