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Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

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Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#891

Post by abledon »

nimbius wrote: post #543
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.

>a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them. How did we as a nation go from the land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, to "beg for scraps or you will starve."

dude it was only free before the colonialists came over and killed all the indians :laugh: :cry:

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#892

Post by karaterobot »

tittenfick wrote: post #416
flavius29663 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$15 an hour is more than you can get in almost any place in Europe or the world for unskilled labor, what are you talking about?

Nah, most jobs in super markets would net you the same (if you have no experience.) Germany here.

Minimum wage in Germany was €9.35 in 2020, which is about $11 USD.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#893

Post by courtf »

grzm wrote: post #890
_fhnu wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is anti-union because HN is a weird little bubble of people who have bought the idea of meritocracy, mostly by being born wealthy and desperately needing to explain away the growing gap between them and the rest of the world. They have by and large managed to wriggle their way into careers that pay slightly above average (but still well below the actual earners), and need to believe this has some connection to act…

> HN is anti-union because HN is a weird little bubble of people You are a member of HN. Please just elide such generalizations.

I'll say whatever the hell I please, this is well within forum guidelines. Take your busybody nitpicking elsewhere.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#894

Post by sjwright »

Nasrudith wrote: post #745
tombert wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think being really broke greatly hinders your ability to think rationally. I never committed any violent crimes, but I know throughout most of 2016 I was really really broke (about $15,000 credit card debt, 3 months of unpaid rent, a lawsuit from my landlord for the back rent). In the process I debated reaching out to one of those payday loan places, despite the fact that I knew they were scams. My desperate brain…

Sounds like it hints at a nasty feedback loop. "Are they stuck in financial trouble because of poor impulse control or are they stuck with poor impulse control because of financial trouble?" Singular they that is. It is easier to think long term while feeling secure but not thinking long term can lead to becoming insecure. Not trying to make any moral or blame judgements here - just pondering origins of problems and…

There are many nasty feedback loops caused by severe poverty. Even the most basic things like being able to show up for a job interview in an arbitrary location at an arbitrary time wearing presentable clothing and a relaxed demeanour — try doing that when you can barely afford to use public transport and your daily schedule is rigidly monopolised by whatever terrible job/gig you currently rely upon to literally survive.

For all the criticisms of UBI, I think it would be a net win simply because it eliminates the significant time wasted in maintaining welfare entitlement.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#895

Post by astrange »

lmilcin wrote: post #837
lupire wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a complicated way of saying "open shop where labor is cheap". This why we need national and international coordination on minimum wage and minimum work environment laws.

I think Amazon fulfillment centers are a special case. Most people working there either move packages around or drive a truck. At least that is my understanding, somebody with better/first hand knowledge would be welcome to share. Normally having a huge employer would be a boon to the city, but most of these people are going to be working for close to minimum wage and Amazon most likely negotiated with the city so th…

Amazon pays significantly over minimum wage in Alabama, since they don't have one and use the federal $7. This is Amazon's advantage over smaller companies - they're more efficient and so they can afford to pay more.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#896

Post by Ericson2314 »

bit_logic wrote: post #516
mixedCase wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no sustainable way to fund it.

Are you just saying that or did you look at his proposed plan? It included VAT and other ways to make it sustainable.

And hard to evade too!

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#897

Post by akiselev »

astrange wrote: post #877
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. When you're the only game in town you enter an ethical gray area where the community is your hostage. Things seem alright now but what happens when the mines run dry?

Is Amazon a monopsony employer in this town? It sounds like they aren't since their warehouse created 1500 jobs and the population is 27000.

Assuming 60% of the population is employed (roughly more than the US average), that's just under a tenth of the workforce of 16k. Assuming 50% of the workforce is employed by small businesses (slightly more than national average), that makes them a fifth of all people employed by companies large enough to afford to really push local politics around. It's enough numbers to swing most controversial issues

It's not company town level of influence, though. A defining feature of which IIRC is that the company owned most or all other businesses in the town and often extracted most of the workers wage through extortionate pricing of basic goods and services.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#898

Post by astrange »

paxys wrote: post #569
nimbius wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a majority of them decided not to bite the hand that was feeding them. How did we as a nation go from the land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, to "beg for scraps or you will starve."

> land of the free, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage All of this has always been propaganda, nothing more. The average unskilled worker has never had a good life in America.

It was pretty good in the postwar era if they were white, since the average worker came back from the war on the GI Bill and got free education and subsidized suburb buildouts.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#899

Post by prepend »

rightbyte wrote: post #879
prepend wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked for a half dozen software companies and they were all merit based and fired bad performers. They certainly weren’t perfect and mistakes were made, but as staff I perceived that pay was strongly correlated to performance and as management I worked to have pay correspond to performance and had access to data that demonstrated that. I’ve worked for orgs where this wasn’t true and I avoid those orgs and prefe…

> as management I worked to have pay correspond to performance and had access to data that demonstrated that. What type of data? Nothing but qualitative analysis of devs work gives any hint on performance IMHO.

I think it’s hard to objectively rate performance consistently across large orgs, but I was referring to being able to view HR records with performance review history and other records.
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