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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

#321

Post by hh3k0 »

slibhb wrote: post #31
tyingq wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 2 quotes from an Amazon spokesperson there: “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against our internal policies, all of which are lawful,” said Jaci Anderson, an Amazon spokeswoman. “We terminated these employees not for talking publicly about working conditions, safety or sustainability but, rather, for repeatedly vio…

Right. But it would interesting to hear how Amazon claims these employees violated internal policies. That seems newsworthy.

They violated their internal policy of not talking publicly about working conditions.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#322

Post by kelnos »

carbonguy wrote: post #281
Judgmentality wrote: post #154

Earlier 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.

> JFC talk about a "you're with us or against us" mentality... your rhetoric has pushed me further towards unions being bad. It's a remarkably odd choice to refer to OP's comment as "rhetoric" in this case given that the remark "it's not physically possible to be neutral on this issue" is a literal statement of truth. Generally, neutrality implicitly supports the status quo; it's a choice like any other, whether you…

I think it's entirely reasonable for someone to believe that the net result of a union in a particular place would be a negative for employees. They may be wrong, but holding that view doesn't automatically make them a bad person.

Maybe that does mean "you're with us or against us", but I'm pretty sure that kind of rhetoric only works to persuade people on the middle school playground, not in real life. At best, it will serve to convince weak-minded people who make decisions based on fear of being called names.

If you're going to try to convince me of something by telling me I'm an asshole if I don't agree with you, that's only going to push me away. That's just a fact, and if you want to convince me your opinion is the correct one, you need to focus on finding the argument that will give you the outcome you want, not the argument that lets you vent your frustration, even if "you're either with us or against us" is technically true. Because I don't care; if you're going to present your argument in that way, I'm very much fine being against you, even if I'd otherwise be sympathetic to your cause.

For the record, I'm fairly pro-union, though I do believe they can cause more problems than they solve in some situations. I'm commenting here because I'm really tired of people snatching defeat from the jaws of victory through self-destructive argumentation.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#323

Post by MyKneeGrows »

nerdponx wrote: post #139
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.

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…

Disclaimer: I've made a career side stepping unions in various industries (public unions for hospitals, transportation/trucking unions, medium-sized online retailers on the cusp of unionization).

Unions have given corporate a new legitimacy.

The 'human abuse' component in unions is quite substantial. Internal groups tend to formulate inside unions capable of influencing decisions, leaving a minority without real representation (primarily new union members who don't get grandfather clauses, this minority becomes the majority with no power due to legacy senior union members; seniority is measured by hours worked, not expertise or merit keep this in mind).

Many times this abuse is for personal gain like getting the easier jobs or influencing the hiring process to get their friends/family jobs for example.

I make it my job to get chummy with senior union reps. By using my leverage to help a union rep get his cousin hired (through influencing HR or interviewing managers), I have shielded myself/the company from potential genuine grievances (forging allies). The cousin/whatever is probably aware of the game as well and knows not to rock the boat too, double-plus-good. This is more common than most would want to admit.

Another neat trick to controlling unions: once enough of the legacy employees, who can sway the unions decisions with their SENIORITY (the golden word), fall to your side all one has to do is hire lots of people who don't speak English. The legalese in most union handbooks is worded for lawyers really.

Older union guys don't care about the new blood to inform them what is and isn't okay. Being human they also appreciate that someone else is doing the hard jobs they don't have to.

Ever wonder why unions don't fight to make union handbooks easy to read? Because that would REALLY hurt corporate. Doctors and engineers are forbidden to unionize because they can read. Straight up.

Regardless unions are damaging to labour forces. They reduce efficiency, competence, shatter budgets, destroy the ability to become an entrepreneur (because money isn't tight enough gotta also pay union dues on top right?) and ruin any form of scheduling/time management arrangements. Once a bad culture sets in it is near impossible to root out (its easy for bad culture to set in when alcoholics can't be fired and must be given multiple chances; morale drops for the rest of the employees when they witness such things).

It's one thing to petition for humane working conditions, it's another to get paid for not working and boy did I see lots of the latter.

Don't listen to me, take a part-time summer (or night) job for the public sector with a union. Witness the absurdity yourself.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#324

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

IMO, settlements are a win for Amazon because no precedent gets set with a ruling.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#325

Post by kelnos »

DickingAround wrote: post #293
patrickthebold wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon needs a lot of software engineers, but they don't need any single engineer. Which is the whole point of unionizing.

The software engineers have plenty of leverage over every company without unions. A proof of that is high wages across the industry. And for Amazon in particular, where is that extra money coming from? It's not like they have a dividend to shareholders they could stop paying out. They're not some law firm where the partners are profit sharing. It's a publicly traded company that just constantly reinvests in growth. T…

> A proof of that is high wages across the industry.

That's true if you only consider a few carefully-chosen tech corridors like SV and sorta-Seattle. Software developer wages in much of the US, Europe, and most of the rest of the world, are not that great. Usually enough to live off of, yes, but no where near what we in the bay area and a few other select locations are used to.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#326

Post by Barrin92 »

arduinomancer wrote: post #221

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...

hats off to him for putting his money where his mouth is. Wish more tech workers who appear to be outspoken on labour rights would stop enabling companies that actively fight them.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#327

Post by kelnos »

UncleMeat wrote: post #251
sokoloff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup, agreed. My experience is that even the "rockstars" get fired or managed out when they become "difficult". The only places where these types of people are tolerated -- but still, not forever -- is very small shops where bus factors are low and firing a key software developer would wipe out a company-killing amount of institutional knowledge. Even then, those people are still replaced, eventually.

It's the height of hubris to believe that an individual software engineer has the power to effect much in the way of change when it comes to wages and working conditions. Sure, we have orders of magnitude more power than someone working for pennies in a sweatshop, but we're nowhere near the point of calling the shots, or even bringing a significant amount of leverage to the negotiating table.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#328

Post by heavyset_go »

fmajid wrote: post #254
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?

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

Unions still help movie stars negotiate deals.

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#329

Post by avs733 »

SonOfKyuss wrote: post #305
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people think the promotion of diversity is part of some nefarious global plot?

Because of the well funded propaganda networks in the US that push that notion.

That people should be given equal opportunity and not just the opportunity they were born with because their parents where lynched for voting?

Re: Amazon illegally fired activist workers, Labor Board finds

#330

Post by kelnos »

dan-robertson wrote: post #237
ineedasername wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've not only rid themselves of the activists, they've made it clear that you lose your job if you publicly disagree with them. You'll lose your job and if you try to fight it you'll spend years just to get a settlement. From here on out everyone will be thinking "is this worth losing my job over, especially when I may have similarly serious concers about any employer I work for?"

You lose your job but then win a big settlement and likely get money out of your role as someone trying to organise labour and getting fired by Amazon. It’s not clear that it’s a bad deal for those who were fired either

That's by no means certain, and getting that settlement will likely cost you a year or two of salary in legal fees (while you're unemployed) before you get it. Amazon's legal team can remain solvent longer than you can. Maybe your lawyer will take the case on contingency, maybe not.

Meanwhile, you have a reputation for bringing litigation against your employer; good luck finding a new job under those circumstances. Not impossible, sure, but many employers will no longer talk to you, and that decreases your negotiating power with companies that will talk to you. I hope the uncertain legal settlement is enough to make up the difference.

This is just another fine example of how employers hold even more power in the relationship than people seem to understand. If you need to sue your (now-former) employer, you've probably already lost the war, even if you do end up winning that suit.

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