Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#401

Post by mixedCase » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #318

mixedCase wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

a) Crunch the numbers, find out how much you need. If you don't have exact, precise numbers and a precise plan on how to get to that number, the idea is worth nothing since you don't even have a starting point to analyze viability. People who have run the numbers tend to realize how inviable it is. Those who don't, also think you can just endlessly print money or just tax people more until you get to the happy number. Which leads to b)

b) Observe the real world, see what happens when you "just increase tax rate". You'll find that very often when you increase taxes you actually end up collecting less, as more people decide to illegally dodge taxes or simply close up shop.

Given a country's economic output, laws, culture and a thousand other factors, there's a hidden function that determines the maximum tax rate you can employ where anything more than that is counter-productive with both short-term and long-term results, the latter often including reputational damage that can be nigh impossible to repair, soft-capping your economy far below what it could've been. See: Laffer Curve, and the shining example that is Argentina.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#402

Post by jhbadger » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #287

jhbadger wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one you can vote for leadership. Unions are imperfect, but they are democracies. Corporations on the other hand are feudal. You don't get to vote Bezos into power as a worker -- he's just the lord of the manor. Some nobles are good and some nobles are bad, but the serfs have no say.

I hate how the term privilege is thrown around these days, but man, this bizarre narrative reeks of privilege and some marxist fantasy. Bezos is in his position because of his competency. He built the thing. Democracy is not a virtue in a workplace.

When people say a CEO "built" their company, I'm reminded of when people say the Pharoh Kufu "built" the Great Pyramid. It kind of ignores the people who did the actual work.

He's the CEO because he had a lot of money from Wall Street and could hire his staff. He was never tested on his competency. The real world is not a meritocracy.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#403

Post by jacksnipe » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

vlozko wrote: post #386

duckfang wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

On the flip side, I've been a student in a school with a teacher's union (NYS public middle school) and a school without (South Carolina public high school) and there was an absolute world of difference between the two. My NYS teachers were almost universally better, whereas in South Carolina good teachers seemed to be the exception. My good SC teachers made 20k/year less than my worst NYS teachers, iirc

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#404

Post by notabee » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:26 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…

I guarantee you that the people at the top of companies understand well that good paying positions are popularity contests. It's the people who just have a strong need to feel that merit matters that they can typically gull into working like dogs for table scraps.

Granted, I have seen the other side of things, and free riders are a problem. It sucks when you care about doing things right and don't get anything better than the people who just dial it in. But there are always going to be free riders: either people who figure out how to game the system because they're just there for a paycheck, or people who run the system and soak up all the value while delivering little, because their family knows the right people at the country club.

Now, when a company is new, small, and nimble like a startup, you can control the nepotism and free riding somewhat, but any bigger shop it's just going to get baked into the system either way. Try to really solve this problem, and you'll threaten those with real power and get shut down.

Sometimes you get leapfrog moments from companies like SpaceX that demonstrate just how much drag the corruption has caused on progress, but they're more the exception that proves the rule. And, any comments about Elon as an individual aside, the powers that be have not been shy about using a bunch of media mouthpieces to spread FUD about disruptors like SpaceX and Tesla. (Again, not going to even touch on whether those are good or bad companies, or whether Elon is a good or bad person. But they are causing a ruckus in their respective industries.)

So again, you may be doing a lot better than some people at your job, and that's commendable. But it will be used to manipulate you more often than not, because you care.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#405

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

slantedview wrote: post #371

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…

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...

https://xkcd.com/925/

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#406

Post by bena » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #276

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.

What would Amazon do if they did Unionize? Move the warehouse?

Possible. As others have noted, WalMart has done similar things.

I think a retail/warehouse workers' union only really works if it's a national sort with local chapters so that a company can't hire except through a union.

I'm not saying such a situation isn't rife with its own problems, but as long as these unions are essentially on a per-location basis, a company with the resources can always close one location and open up down the street to avoid the union.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#407

Post by fredstarr » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

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.

Reasonable point of view. However, have you asked why Bessemer is a dying city and/or a slum? Was it always a slum? Were there no businesses there since it was founded and incorporated?

And if it was such a hell hole, why did Amazon choose to open a warehouse there? Out of the goodness of their hearts? We need to ask questions as to why Amazon had to become a "savior" for the City of Bessemer. Not just focusing on effects but looking into causes too!

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#408

Post by musingsole » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #364

slibhb wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the jobs that I do, "bad performance" is super subjective and very hard to measure Are you a poet? In every job I've worked, from manual labor to writing code, it's incredibly easy to figure out who is "performing badly".

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li... And research in logs and events can either be quick or very slow, depending on what you're looking for. And it's also easy to slop out slow bad code, and make it someone else's problem (dev side of things).

That's a story about overzealous productivity metrics coupled with a non-thinking management class. It's hardly an argument for or against being able to identify bad performers.

I know porn when I see it, but I can't (easily) make an automated system to detect it and I'd struggle even more to make that system make intelligent actions on successful detection.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#409

Post by hnburnsy » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

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?…

Saw this at r/Costco from an employee who worked at a unionized store, straight from the source...

"Next, the union dues. I know this isn't a problem at every location but mine is part of the local teamsters union, and having to pay $450 in initiation fees and $40 on the regular adds up, especially for someone who is in real need of the income. I wouldn't be complaining if I saw the tangible benefits the union provides, but after speaking to several coworkers, many of whom have worked at my location for 20+ years, I am of the impression that the union does not actually do anything to improve working conditions at Costco. If anything, it seems to me that the union locations simply serve to protect the wages of those who are not unionized by playing into Costco's desire to prevent the unionization of said locations. Yes, the union makes it harder to arbitrarily fire people, "guarantees" you won't get scheduled for 7 days straight (have seen otherwise at my location), etc. In my view, this only contributes to my previously mentioned point that many long-time employees feel protected from termination regardless of how they perform or act, and as such they bring subpar attitudes, service, and effort into their work."

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#410

Post by saas_sam » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

slantedview wrote: post #378

saas_sam wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you worked in a large unionized organization? I've worked in both. Unions are worse.