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Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

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Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#381

Post by bena »

sitkack wrote: post #58
bena wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That short term hit can have long term consequences. If I'm scraping by already, I'm not looking forward to taking another hit to an already stretched paycheck.

If that is indeed the primary motivator, that folks are literally getting paid so little that they can't afford the union dues then two things should happen The union should wave union dues until wages rise and ??? This seems not unlike Walmart informing employees that it is paying them so little that they qualify for Food Stamps. Looking forward to the Amazon paper, "Pareto Optimal Employee Compensation for Maintain…

I'm trying to look at it from the workers' perspective.

I can't trust the Union to waive dues. Especially if they haven't said they would. Even if this would benefit me in the long run, I kind of need a place to stay, food to eat, and transportation to work in the interim and if I'm already one bad day away from being destitute, It seems like throwing that extra $5 - $10 a check is only going to exacerbate that issue.

I've been in tight situations. Where I've had to juggle 0% financing and dick around with minimum payments just to keep myself at level. Charges I had to incur due to various emergencies at the time. I wouldn't have been able to afford to unionize in those days.

Now I have a much better job. I just moved into a pretty nice house and my biggest concerns are whether my curtain rods are going to arrive before my curtains and if a larger TV wouldn't be more optimal for the living room. So I try and be cautious about not going too "Lucille Bluth" when I hear that what I would now consider a small expense be a major factor in someone's decision. I realize my situation has changed a lot compared to where I started.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#382

Post by musingsole »

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?

If you have a counterpoint, make it.

I'll try for you: the cohesive view of cost of living would show these rubes to be peasants to the unskilled European's millionaire.

Interesting point, where's your data?

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#383

Post by advisedwang »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #186
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?…

Me personally is anti-monopoly. If a union can only operate by forming a workforce monopoly - something is wrong with the model itself.

"only one union representing a group of employees at a time" is a rule enforced by government, not a natural property of unions. The NLRA process [1] is predicated on a single, exclusive representative organization for any given unit of workers. It didn't always used to be this way, before such rules, there were times where multiple competing unions historically had ground industry to a halt because it was impossible for a company to make a contract that would apply to everyone and get the business back running. I find the NLRA's solution very elegant because it both improves the democratic nature of unions and helps get industry moving.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/159

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#384

Post by cwwc »

fearling wrote: post #302
quijoteuniv wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that might be right,You are not taking into account that in Europe you get free healthcare & education.

Education is free up til college in the US and the healthcare for Amazon warehouse workers is the same as for their engineers and Jeff Bezos.

And education is free at almost all Ivy’s if you’re below a 100K or so salary family.

That said: prereq is you’re bonkers smart.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#385

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

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…

I worked WITH UAW for years, I too personally saw pretty much every Union complaint out there. So, IDK, I’m never surprised how many people there are to tell me my experiences are wrong.

I’m not qualified to say if they have a place still, but I know anyone pretending it’s all rainbows hasn’t actually suffered like I have.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#386

Post by vlozko »

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.

Have you not heard of The Rubber Room? Or the dance of the lemons? At least with respect to teachers unions, the problem is real and in a very detrimental way. Even when a schools district wants to fire a bad teacher, the process can take years and be costly enough to deter districts from even bothering.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#388

Post by INTPenis »

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…

Lots of dead industry in Sweden too because there was a major shift during the 90s and 2000s that remotely located industry in the Swedish forest could not keep up with.

I don't know more details, I am only speaking observationally. Someone else might tell you why this happened.

I would assume it has to do with globalization and other nations being more competitive than local business.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#389

Post by gruez »

psychometry wrote: post #337
ActorNightly wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA needs better education so that people understand economics and labor markets, so they wont calling paid positions indentured servitude.

We need better education so that people stop voting against their own self-interest, in union elections and generally.

...or maybe they just have differences in opinion to you?

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#390

Post by bhupy »

cwwc wrote: post #384
fearling wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is free up til college in the US and the healthcare for Amazon warehouse workers is the same as for their engineers and Jeff Bezos.

And education is free at almost all Ivy’s if you’re below a 100K or so salary family. That said: prereq is you’re bonkers smart.

The same is true at the in-state universities. At that salary, your kid can study at University of Alabama (a perfectly fine institution with great campus life) basically for free.
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