If (when) we have firing decisions made by AI, and anyone - including senior managers and founders can be fired, I'll be those folk would (will) take a difference stance on unions.
Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
451–460 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#452Conservative Alabamans fleeced into voting against their own self interests time again? I'm shocked. In all serious, the political theater espoused on these people has eroded their critical thinking, and this will come back to haunt us when there comes a time for serious leadership in the face of a changing climate, and all we have at the helm are grifters protected by their blind sheep majorities.
Internet commenter convinced they know someone's interests better than that person? I'm shocked.
People aren't dumb. Assuming you know better for people is.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#453HN 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…
> I would get threatened with grievances for trivial acts like carrying a single lightbulb myself without a union worker.
That whole thing about requiring union workers to do tasks is stupid. One year I was attending a fan convention and decided to check out the rules for vendors. The convention center used unionized labor so one of the rules was that the vendors were limited to carrying like one case of stuff over to their spot. All other moving and setting up had to be done by the union workers. I get what the protection here is, it prevents loopholes for getting around using union workers at all (which, if it was possible to do, would make a union ineffective). But hell, why can't they pay the union workers as if they would have to do all the work but then let people decide if they want the union workers to actually do something or not?
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Why are you making his argument for him?
He pointed out that not all unions are the doom and gloom version where you can't carry lightbulbs (seriously people, don't ever use that example, it's right out of the anti-union video, obvious tell) and good people can't get promotions because of blah blah blah.
You then responded by saying it doesn't count because it's different.
Yeah, that's the point. A "union" isn't a thing like gravity. It doesn't only work one way. It a collection of workers who want to collectively bargain with an employer to bring some balance to the power dynamic between huge companies and individual workers. Whatever rules the union wants to set out are up to them.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
making $15/hour doesn't mean you suddenly have lots of money to make it rain. $15/hour means that a lot of people are just now at the point of barely making it vs the completely snowed under they were in at minimum wage
I think it depends on your circumstances but I don’t think $15/hour is a ton of money. Warehouses are frequently in rural settings and $15 isn’t so bad. I have friends who are doing ok on $12/hour but they only have $300 rent and really low expenses. Rural America doesn’t have many upsides, but being cheap is one. And my point wasn’t that Amazon was wonderful, just that it pays more than the alternative since the ave…
But there's a massive difference in working conditions. There is no warehouse floor worker that will be making $15 an hour indefinitely. Eventually, their bodies will succumb to injuries while trying to keep up with the brutal pace of work mandated by Amazon.
So then what's worse: $11 an hour at a job you can work indefinitely, or $15 an hour at a job where your body will eventually fail and you may be left with a permanent injury which Amazon will not help you with?
https://coloradosun.com/2020/09/29/amazon-safety-crisis-thor...
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#456I 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.
My theory is that rich people and well-educated people vote according to self-interest, but poor and non-educated people according to identity. Billionaires votes for whoever lowers their taxes, academics for whoever secures them, often tax-funded, jobs, but poor people for whoever they like personally. I'm positive that education was strongly correlated with voting in favor of unionization. This is something the lef…
Poor people vote in their own interest just like anyone else but their options are limited and often the opportunity to consider all their options is truncated by the vagaries of life on the edge of dissolution.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#457Speaking 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 ef…
Bessemer appears to be in the outskirts of Birmingham. Seems like a reasonable place to put a fulfillment center: land is cheaper than somewhere more central (but a warehouse doesn't need to be located on expensive, high demand, centrally located land). It's also probably a reasonable commute distance for many in the Birmingham metro area.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#458Earlier 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.
*and do not have significant assets or college savings
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, you're not kidding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer,_Alabama#Economy "Crime increased following the rise in unemployment and social disruption from the decline of manufacturing industries in the area. As of 2019 Bessemer ranks first in terms of violent crimes for US cities with 25,000 or more people." Population has fallen from its peak in 1970 of 33k to 26k today. Thanks for the reference. EDIT: Also hom…
thx for the chicken edit
A surprisingly detailed Wikipedia article.
Random internet serendipity, shift in topic and mood. We live in such an interesting and strange universe.
Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of unions ended up being just another means for the mafia to steal from the poor, skimming off the top of pensions funds and the like. Similar corruption exists today. It is inevitable.
> Similar corruption exists today. It is inevitable. OK, so if it's inevitably why hasn't this happened to the creative unions in Hollywood like SAG, WGA, the DGA, and the PGA?
Are...are you holding up Hollywood as an example of pure, legal employee protections? You know, the industry largely stood up by largescale money laundering schemes?