Incognito tab didn't work, googling it didnt work, and outline.com didn't work. Anyone have any other tips or tricks for finding the article to read it?
You can subscribe to WSJ digital for $467.88/year.
Let’s buy each of the workers a sub
Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
311–320 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#312I 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.
[deleted]
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#313Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people need to take care of themselves first, then their family, then their immediate surrounding, then their region and their country. Reversing the dependency on a large scale is not sustainable. Someone's right is someone else responsibility, for someone to receive money, someone else has to provide it. The government is a middleman in this transaction that wastes a substantial share of the value in the proces…
The problem with the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” thinking is that it ignores being born into the problem. Sure, some people can work their way out of a rut that their parents were in, but the majority can’t.
Sure, there are limits to the extend in which people can take care of themselves. For example if they are born with a low IQ they may never be able to do provide a net benefit to any job or almost any job. So that they are effectively unemployable. But if you are able to do anything of benefit to the society then you should do it. And having a job is the way to do it and be sustainable.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#315Speaking as someone who lives adjacent to Bessemer but who does not work at Amazon, you need to understand that Bessemer is a dying city, a slum. These were the best paying jobs that many of these workers had had in their entire lives, it is no wonder that a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them.
Amazon moving into these impovershed areas, becoming the majority employer, and having absolute influence over the local governance and electorate they themselves employ makes these places de facto a company town. Brilliant move, totally evil genius move, but brilliant.
That's what they did in Seattle.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#316Thank god and whoever else for this. This is amazing. I realize and understand a segment of HN readers are sympathetic to unions(the American version too), and some are vocal advocates as well, but I am absolutely elated at this outcome. Edit: Question: Can this vote also be taken as a proxy indicator of the working conditions not being anywhere close to what the sensational and click-bait media pieces point out to b…
The piss bottles and bags to poop in weren't click-bait. This is based on leaked documents. https://theintercept.com/2021/03/25/amazon-drivers-pee-bottl...
Sure. But this is not specific to Amazon. Most media pieces around this made it sound like Amazon drivers' are exclusive to this experience.
A lot of people working in the transportation industry do this and it is not very hard to imagine why they would do this.
Just one example: https://www.quora.com/Do-truck-drivers-ever-actually-use-pis... You can find several other articles, and also speak to actual drivers and they will also explain why do they do this.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you comparing absolute dollar amounts? Is the cost of living the same every where?
Cost of living in the middle of nowhere in the US is almost certainly less than nearly anywhere in Western Europe. The media home value in Bessemer is like $90,000.
Go on...
Food? Health care? Transportation?
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yang had a nice plan for that :(
And no sustainable way to fund it.
I don't get how people keep saying this. A UBI is effectively a tax credit. You fund it with higher nominal rates. These mostly cancel out for working people, netting to zero in the middle. People at the top pay on net so that people at the bottom receive on net.
It's completely sustainable and is effectively just a simplification and improvement of the status quo of having unemployment insurance and a bunch of means-tested benefits for low income people, but without the poverty traps, perverse incentives and excessive bureaucracy.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#319Speaking as someone who lives adjacent to Bessemer but who does not work at Amazon, you need to understand that Bessemer is a dying city, a slum. These were the best paying jobs that many of these workers had had in their entire lives, it is no wonder that a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them.
This may be a bit of an ignorant question, but... Are "dying cities/slums" a purely American phenomenon, in terms of rich first-world countries? Is there similarly a "rust belt" in Germany, of cities that had an economic collapse after manufacturing died out? Are there rich European countries with flailing cities that devolve into crime and poverty? Does Europe have its own Bessemers, Detroits? (though I do hear Detr…
>Are "dying cities/slums" a purely American phenomenon, in terms of rich first-world countries?
The UK definitely has declining factory towns (often called mill towns there) similar to the US. Northern England is like that for the most part. Less of a rust belt and more of a rust hat.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#320Speaking as someone who lives adjacent to Bessemer but who does not work at Amazon, you need to understand that Bessemer is a dying city, a slum. These were the best paying jobs that many of these workers had had in their entire lives, it is no wonder that a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them.
This may be a bit of an ignorant question, but... Are "dying cities/slums" a purely American phenomenon, in terms of rich first-world countries? Is there similarly a "rust belt" in Germany, of cities that had an economic collapse after manufacturing died out? Are there rich European countries with flailing cities that devolve into crime and poverty? Does Europe have its own Bessemers, Detroits? (though I do hear Detr…
I believe the Ruhr valley experienced some rust belt like phenomena. Abandoned factories and such, but not like NAm. Germany’s economic might rests on their mittelstand midsized businesses (KMU) typically family owned or run and which are to some extent protected by the gov.