Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 1001 posts

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#421

Post by slantedview »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #264
kethinov wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false dichotomy. The solution to a badly run union is to run it better, not dissolve it and surrender all your power to your boss, just as the solution to a badly run republic is to elect better leaders, not abandon democracy and go back to the bad old days of monarchy. Unions are workplace democracy. Opposing them is by definition supporting workplace monarchy.

This is extremely ideological to the point of simply being untrue. The best outcome for everyone is no union and a supportive employer that gives you a fair deal so you don’t want one. Unions are a huge tradeoff and better as a last resort.

> The best outcome for everyone is no union and a supportive employer that gives you a fair deal so you don’t want one

This is extreme wishful thinking. The very nature of corporations like Amazon is in conflict with giving workers a "fair deal". Thus, exploitative labor practices exist.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#422

Post by diag »

ActorNightly wrote: post #283
fartcannon wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a tragic way to frame it. The USA (and all the world governments) need to take care of it's poor people better so they don't have to choose indentured servitude over poverty. Edit: Added the bit about all the world governments

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

How long do you think people will survive if they aren't working? Not calling employment servitude is dishonest.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#423

Post by lotsofpulp »

nathanappere wrote: post #330
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.

You mean costs the same and as a result is entirely a function of how well you're paid in order to be able to afford better coverage?

It means the employer has to offer a sufficiently generous benefit so that enough of the company’s lower income employees sign up for it, such that it passes non discrimination testing rules. Which means the health insurance benefit must be good enough that even the lower paid employees find it makes sense to sign up for it.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#424

Post by legohead »

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?…

I was part of a small union. I joined the bargaining committee, and ever since I have hated unions. It was incredibly stressful, and made me hate my job. Fighting for better wages/vacation with upper management, who showed how much they don't care about you, is very disheartening.

And in the end, all the bargaining didn't really get us any better than what we would have gotten without a union. So now I got a little raise and I hate my company and I'm telling everyone else how shitty the company is.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#425

Post by brippalcharrid »

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…

Are you sure this is realistic, or would it end up being a net negative for people earning above $20k-$25k? There are a lot of people who are opting out of paid employment, one way or another, under the current model.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#426

Post by anchpop »

stefan_ wrote: post #239
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.

All the while, the hand was spending many multiples of their yearly income on telling them all the things they would have to go without when paying $500 in dues yearly. America is utterly rotten.

Are you saying the campaign cost multiples of their yearly labor expenditure, or the whole plan multiples of the yearly pay for one employee? If it’s the latter I don’t see how it makes them rotten. That’s an incredibly small expenditure, much less than would be paid in dues for instance

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#427

Post by PragmaticPulp »

tarquinpussy wrote: post #43
chrisseaton wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vote was to unionise the workplace, not to form a union. You can form a union whenever you want, like you can form any other group of people a club. You just can't unilaterally force an employer to deal with you.

I hate to say it but I think the UK system is better. No closed shops, but if enough of the workplace (50%?) join the union, the employer has to deal with them.

> but if enough of the workplace (50%?) join the union, the employer has to deal with them.

Fewer than 50% of employees voted to form a union, so the result isn't really any different.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#428

Post by Lammy »

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…

America's "Rust Belt" cities all tend to have one thing in common: a large black population that originally migrated there in the 20th century for industrial jobs that largely no longer exist. Think Detroit with the auto industry. Camden NJ with New York Ship, Victor, and Campbell's Soup. Gary Indiana with US Steel, etc etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Works

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_Ameri...

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#429

Post by busterarm »

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...

I wouldn't exactly take Robert Reich's word for it...It's not so clear at all.

There's plenty of other variables to consider here and he just graphed two of them. Corporate taxes were much higher. Also it looks like share of income going to the top 10% hasn't really changed much at all in the last 100 years. 40% +/- 10%. That needle hasn't moved very far.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#430

Post by slantedview »

Kylekramer wrote: post #120
judge2020 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fair to ask for the ref to review the play.

Technically "fair", yes. When you lost by over 40 points, it is also pointless.

Either the vote is tainted or it's not. This one was.
Post reply on HN