Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#371

Post by slantedview » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

parliament32 wrote: post #199

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?…

Personally, it came from working for a massive union (government, not US) for many years. The downsides are real: hard to fire bad performers, your merits don't matter at all (the guy doing the bare minimum job description gets the same raises as you), wayyy too much focus on seniority (for promotions, vacation selection, etc), and overall just too many rules (for example, "unlimited vacation" works great with my cur…

That unions can be bad is not news to anyone. But what's clear is not having unions is much, much worse. A simple comparison of wealth vs union membership tells it all:

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1369433256907710470/photo...

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#372

Post by hintymad » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #254

parliament32 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, it came from working for a massive union (government, not US) for many years. The downsides are real: hard to fire bad performers, your merits don't matter at all (the guy doing the bare minimum job description gets the same raises as you), wayyy too much focus on seniority (for promotions, vacation selection, etc), and overall just too many rules (for example, "unlimited vacation" works great with my cur…

> hard to fire bad performers In the jobs that I do, "bad performance" is super subjective and very hard to measure. It's also the common canard to use from the managerial class to get rid of someone they don't like. > your merits don't matter at all They don't either in the non-union corporate world either. They pay as little as they can get away with. They'll assign as much work as you can possibly do, and then pil…

> In the jobs that I do, "bad performance" is super subjective and very hard to measure. It's also the common canard to use from the managerial class to get rid of someone they don't like.

Are you serious? This line of thinking is exactly why I'm against union. It is really not that hard to tell who are the bad performers. There will be false judgement, but the rate is low. If you want to avoid any false results, well, I don't know what world you live in. And look at teacher's unions across the US. What kind of damage did they do to our kids? The infamous Principal's Ball as described in Waiting For Superman should make any sane person's blood boil.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#373

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

regextegrity wrote: post #236

JCM9 wrote: post #176

It was clear getting these workers to unionize was good for the union... it was much less clear why it would be good for the workers. People can say what they want about Amazon but the reality is they provide a far better job, wage, and benefits than most. Apart from the broad sweeping messaging around corporations = bad, unions = the answer, it wasn’t really clear at all why a union would benefit workers here. As su…

Come on.. the workers don't even get bathroom breaks.

But I think this is a clear example of an issue where pro-union rhetoric has diverged from the reality of the situation. Are there any workers who actually prefer formal, timed bathroom breaks over the "go whenever you want as long as you're meeting your productivity goals" model?

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#374

Post by brianwawok » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #274

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?…

From what I can tell, a lot of people in tech are anti blue collar union, but mistakenly assume that blue-collar unions are all unions. For example, just in the replies to your comment people are saying they dislike unions because they protect the incompetent, stifle progression, give preferential treatment purely on seniority, etc. But then go look at Hollywood, with the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, the P…

So, do you know anyone say 20 something and trying to get into the SAG? Dealing with the drama of union vs off union jobs in NYC? It's usually something like:

Work the union job for $10 an hour, earn credit towards joining the SAG. In 10 years I can actually join the SAG and make actual decent paying jobs, and actually get health insurance.

vs

Work a non-union job for $20.

It feels very much like a way to exploit people to let them someday get the magic card. The numbers are very approximate, but the sentiment I have gotten from people actually with boots on the ground. Do I want this as a developer? No way!

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#375

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #280

aarongray wrote: post #127

Speaking 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…

You mean something like this? https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/italy-one-euro-homes-cast...

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#376

Post by toby » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #274

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?…

From what I can tell, a lot of people in tech are anti blue collar union, but mistakenly assume that blue-collar unions are all unions. For example, just in the replies to your comment people are saying they dislike unions because they protect the incompetent, stifle progression, give preferential treatment purely on seniority, etc. But then go look at Hollywood, with the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, the P…

Guilds are a little different from unions in practice. They set minimum standards but there's no group negotiation based on seniority or anything like that. Studios are free to pay some hot rising star 100x as much as the guy who has been a character actor for 30 years as long as he's making the minimum and getting his breaks and meals and stuff.

It's also a challenge to get into a guild, SAG has minimum requirements for having already performed. A union is generally just something you have to join when you take a job at a unionized company.

This is not a value judgment, just wanted to point out the differences.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#377

Post by DC1350 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #317

rayiner wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Food and housing is extremely cheap in America. Americans have an extremely low cost of living and low taxes compared to every other wealthy country. Also higher wages for similar jobs.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#378

Post by slantedview » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

saas_sam wrote: post #172

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?…

My anti-union sentiment arrived from my experience working with a large established union in an industrial plant. The union protected some of the worst, laziest, most unsafe workers I had ever witnessed in any job before or sense. It blew my mind how difficult it was to remove obvious bad apples, and how the best workers were forced to wait in years-long "seniority" queues before they could get promoted. I would get…

Every non-unionized place I've worked suffers from many of the same problems. These are real problems, but don't outweigh the benefit of unions to people's material well being.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#379

Post by jimbob45 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #256

jimbob45 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but this is the problem with the current debate around unions. Pro-union individuals aren’t willing to say, “Unions have some serious drawbacks“ and anti-union individuals aren’t willing to say, “Unions solve some critical issues for modern employees”. Instead, both sides (rightfully) call each other out on their biases and no voter feels able to trust either side.

I don’t think the debate is over whether there has ever been any benefit or downside from any union, but rather what the expected net benefit or downside is from any given union, and perhaps even more importantly, what rights union organizers, union opponents, and workers ought to have. I think it’s pretty silly to quibble over whether someone will answer gotcha questions like “can you name one good/bad thing that ha…

I’m not talking about whether or not unions are objectively good or bad. I’m talking about perception. If one side is attempting to withhold facts are that obvious and self-evident, then no one is going to trust that side even if they’re objectively right.

Consider Obamacare. Objectively, it was an awesome law that covered millions of previously uninsured Americans. However, it was a PR disaster because people were told they could keep their plans and their premiums wouldn’t increase. Because of how impossible it was to lie about those two things and because the Obama administration lied about them anyway, people greatly distrusted Obamacare, even though most of them actually liked the law and its outcomes.

Similarly, if a worker is told by a pro-union advocate that no one will lose their job with a union but that worker also readily sees that many workers lose their jobs when unions cause companies to collapse, that worker is going to feel lied to despite knowing that union membership is probably in their best interests.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#380

Post by PragmaticPulp » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

8bithero wrote: post #326

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?…

Maybe a controversial or skewed observation - But as a European looking (from outside) into the US, it looks like everyone has the impression that they're all millionaires who just haven't made it yet. They don't seem to want to disrupt the status quo, even if it benefits them, incase they're next inline to make it big :/

> But as a European looking (from outside) into the US, it looks like everyone has the impression that they're all millionaires who just haven't made it yet.

The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" trope gets repeated often online, but it's largely unfounded cynicism. It's true that we need to fix our health care system and bolster our safety nets, but the reality is that average Americans are relatively wealthy and even the median worker has significant career opportunities that are harder to come by in some other countries.

Look toward the professional trades like software engineering and the differences are even more pronounced. I worked at a company with US and European offices for a while, and the European employees were routinely stunned to learn that the US office had to pay employees so much more for the same work.

> They don't seem to want to disrupt the status quo, even if it benefits them,

The situation is more nuanced than what you read online. The reality is that these moves aren't as unilaterally good as presented. It's more honest to approach them as tradeoffs.

In this case, I'm inclined to believe that the workers casting these votes did more research and have a better understanding of the situation than the internet gives them credit for. The idea that they're all voting against their self interest because they're dumb, or that we know what's better for them than they do, is very presumptuous.

Why can't we accept that these people are really voting for what they believe is in their best interests? Why do we have to conclude that they're not smart or that they're voting against helping themselves? The reality isn't so simple, and we're not in a position to judge after reading a few paragraphs on the internet.