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Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

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Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#131

Post by GavinMcG »

judge2020 wrote: post #118
rmah wrote: post #92

Am I the only one who thinks $500/mo seems excessive for union dues? That's $60k/yr in dues for every 10 workers. Does a union really need a full time rep for every 10 or 20 members? If, perhaps, half of that goes to "strike insurance", that would mean $15k/member over 5 years. Which would be enough replace wages(at $15/hr) for six months. Do they really anticipate a six month strike every 5 years?

Holy, that is probably the sole reason for a majority of the 'no' votes. You're talking a job that pays as little as $15 an hour, so 500/mo is nearly a week's pay (~33 hours).

Which is a good reason to be a little skeptical. The amount is off by an order of magnitude.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#132

Post by Someone1234 »

HN is very consistently anti-union.

My question is this: Where did you get information about unions? Because people keep mentioning their "bad reputation" and then start listing off a bunch of "facts" that read like they're bullets straight out of one of those anti-union videos during onboard at several major employers (Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc).

So anti-union people exactly where does your information come from? If it is grapevine, what was the original source?

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#133

Post by freewilly1040 »

tyingq wrote: post #8
LatteLazy wrote: post #2

That's pretty overwhelming too, 71% No. It would be interesting to hear from them why. I think we all have opinions (I certainly do). But I've never worked at amazon so my opinion is low value...

My guess is the messaging about dues. Lots of people focused on the short term hit to their paychecks. Most of the stories reference $500/month. That does seem high. Data I can find for other unions shows somewhere between 1 to 4 percent of gross pay as typical for union dues. Assuming $15/hour, 4 percent of gross pay would be $144/month. But, if $500/month is accurate, it's 13.8% of gross pay for $15/hour workers, a…

It was $500/year, not per month

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/early-vote-counts-sho...

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#134

Post by oramit »

LatteLazy wrote: post #2

That's pretty overwhelming too, 71% No. It would be interesting to hear from them why. I think we all have opinions (I certainly do). But I've never worked at amazon so my opinion is low value...

Yeah I can think of lots of reasons for this loss.

1. It's always harder to get people to vote to change the status quo. Even if people think the change is going to be good, people are usually risk averse so you need to work harder to change things vs stay the same.

2. Their general opinion about unions is poor.

3. Their specific opinion about this union and the unionization effort is poor.

4. Dues were too high vs benefits.

5. Worry about retaliation from Amazon.

6. I imagine a lot of people don't really think of their Amazon warehouse job as a career. Most people working there probably only plan to do it for a few years, in which case the value of union membership falls dramatically.

Just some ideas.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#135

Post by freewilly1040 »

tyingq wrote: post #106
mrweasel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the dues be that high? I only pay $50 per month for my union, and that’s in Denmark with much higher costs.

No idea, but the figure is in many news stories, and I don't see the union disputing it. The $500 figure seems to have come from the now defunct "doitwithoutdues.com" website that Amazon made. Strangely, it just says $500[1], and not "$500/month". But, "$500/month" is indeed in a lot of news stories[2]. Pretty sad for the union if the true figure is lower, and they failed to get that message out. Edit: Apparently it…

The second link is just a Google search. Here’s a link to an actual story that reports it as 500/year

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/early-vote-counts-sho...

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#136

Post by [deleted] »

Someone1234 wrote: post #132

HN is very consistently anti-union. My question is this: Where did you get information about unions? Because people keep mentioning their "bad reputation" and then start listing off a bunch of "facts" that read like they're bullets straight out of one of those anti-union videos during onboard at several major employers (Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc). So anti-union people exactly where does your information come from?…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#137

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

rmah wrote: post #92

Am I the only one who thinks $500/mo seems excessive for union dues? That's $60k/yr in dues for every 10 workers. Does a union really need a full time rep for every 10 or 20 members? If, perhaps, half of that goes to "strike insurance", that would mean $15k/member over 5 years. Which would be enough replace wages(at $15/hr) for six months. Do they really anticipate a six month strike every 5 years?

> $500/mo

Is that actually accurate? Last I read, that number came from an Amazon propaganda website created to persuade voters away from unionizing.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#138

Post by antattack »

tyingq wrote: post #106
mrweasel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the dues be that high? I only pay $50 per month for my union, and that’s in Denmark with much higher costs.

No idea, but the figure is in many news stories, and I don't see the union disputing it. The $500 figure seems to have come from the now defunct "doitwithoutdues.com" website that Amazon made. Strangely, it just says $500[1], and not "$500/month". But, "$500/month" is indeed in a lot of news stories[2]. Pretty sad for the union if the true figure is lower, and they failed to get that message out. Edit: Apparently it…

I also found 500/month articles when searching for dues that workers would have to pay. Seems to me that union had worst PR campaign possible. Maybe it's good that this union is not representing Amazon workers.

For reference, I searched UPS union dues and it comes up right at the top - 2.5x base salary.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#139

Post by syshum »

Loughla wrote: post #9

I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest for a small amount of union dues. That is not snark, it's a real statement. I legitimately do not understand it. Can someone who works/worked one of these jobs please explain it to me? I am so confused by how lopsided this was.

I absolutely do not understand why someone would vote to be collectively represented instead of being able to act as as individual in your own best interest

You claim not voting for the union is against your own interest but that assumes that the union will 100% of the time be looking out for your own individual best interest, this is simply false

The union has supplanted individual choice for collective voting, and if your interests align with 50.1% of your fellow co workers than great but if your needs to not align with the majority of your co-workers then the union will screw you to serve the collective, and that is the best case.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#140

Post by makomk »

tarquinpussy wrote: post #101
didgeoridoo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that meaningfully different from a vote, then? You get the majority, you get the union. If you’re a recognized union, NLRB says the employer must deal with you.

Well it's not meaningfully different from a vote in that it forces the employer to deal. But it does mean that there are no closed shops, so nobody is forced to join a union just to work in a certain place.

Of course, the reason the UK no longer has closed shops is thanks to some aggressive (though probably necessary) union breaking by Thatcher. In fact, there's an argument to be made that the damage done by unions directly lead to Thatcher gaining power... The US seems to be heading in the opposite direction under Biden, with his infrastructure bill attempting to ban right-to-work laws in states and reinstate most of the practices Thatcher's union-breaking eliminated here. Could lead to some interesting times; most American Democrat supporters and HN readers are, like me, probably too young to have seen first-hand why those restrictions existed.
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