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Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

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Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#991

Post by dang »

tw04 wrote: post #793
wutbrodo wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the process I debated reaching out to one of those payday loan places, despite the fact that I knew they were scams. Because they're not, the idea that they are is paternalistic bullshit from the kind of people who get their news from John Oliver. Debt can be dangerous, and payday loans are commensurately more so due to their high rates. But debt is a _tool_, and just like middle- and upper-income folks can use…

Spoken like someone who has never lived paycheck to paycheck and been caught in a debt spiral. You are correct, not having access to credit is a bad thing. But having access to predatory credit is a WORSE thing. There's a reason we outlawed indentured slavery and "company scrip", and payday loans are a half a step up from that situation.

Please don't cross into personal attack. It's against the site guidelines and makes threads worse. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence*.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

* well, the guidelines do also ask not to use allcaps for emphasis, but that's minor

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#992

Post by dang »

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?…

Please don't post spurious generalizations about the community. The community is (pretty straightforwardly) divided on divisive topics, but everyone with a strong opinion thinks that it's "very consistently" against them. This is cognitive bias, not reality.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#993

Post by asdff »

TuringNYC wrote: post #904
akudha wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Walmart do this in a lot of small towns? And sometimes just pack up and leave? What happens when they leave?

>> Didn't Walmart do this in a lot of small towns? And sometimes just pack up and leave? What happens when they leave? I think a good question to ask before is what happens if they dont come in the first place? If I were a resident in a town wanting jobs, i'd probably be more excited about jobs arriving than the possibility they might eventually disappear.

Walmart doesn't go in blind, they are in the business of extraction. Typically they look to setup a regional store in an area where towns already have optometrists, florists, sporting goods stores, grocers, bakers, homegoods, electronics, hardware, autoparts, the entire town basically. What happens if they didn't come in the first place is life continues in a more decentralized and localized manner, and less of the taxable profit is carted out of the county. Presumably these optometrists and sporting goods store owners of the past paid their income and property taxes from their salaries locally in the area.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#994

Post by fredstarr »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #457
fredstarr wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Definitely... and I'm sure that there are many other cities in Alabama just like Bessemer.

My comment isn't about Amazon specifically as much as the fact that there are so many cities all over this country (supposedly the wealthiest in human history) that have fallen into so much disrepair and so much distress that they need companies like Amazon to come "save" them.

We need to ask why is all I'm saying.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#995

Post by disposekinetics »

Loughla wrote: post #9

I 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.

It's a trade off. A union would very likely benefit me financially but every union I've ever had the opportunity to join has had a very progressive bend. Do I gain financially and lose morally or hold morally and miss out financially?

Edit: I would be very enthusiastic about a union that stuck to just labor issues, no unrelated issues.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#996

Post by disposekinetics »

stale2002 wrote: post #600
objclxt wrote: post #274

Earlier 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…

Even the high end unions have pretty big problems. Things like the actors guild are simple rent seeking at the expense of newcomings. They are setup in a way where only insiders are allowed to get jobs at certain places, and there are large barriers to entry to becoming an insider. If we were to apply this to tech, it would be contract provisions that keep out engineers that dont have degree, or discrimination agains…

Why would I ever join a union that didn't protect me from rampant undercutting via importing more workers? That is the whole reason I would join a union.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#997

Post by stale2002 »

disposekinetics wrote: post #996
stale2002 wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the high end unions have pretty big problems. Things like the actors guild are simple rent seeking at the expense of newcomings. They are setup in a way where only insiders are allowed to get jobs at certain places, and there are large barriers to entry to becoming an insider. If we were to apply this to tech, it would be contract provisions that keep out engineers that dont have degree, or discrimination agains…

Why would I ever join a union that didn't protect me from rampant undercutting via importing more workers? That is the whole reason I would join a union.

> Why would I ever join a union that didn't protect me from rampant undercutting via importing more workers?

I understand that you want to retaliate against immigrants and people from other countries.

But if that is your opinion then don't expect anyone who has an H1B visa to ever agree with you.

You should probably expect people who don't hate immigrants to fight against your efforts though, and to take actions to sabotage the union.

Don't expect to ever get those other people on your side, if your argument is that you just don't want foreign workers to be able to get jobs here.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#998

Post by SuoDuanDao »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #531
bradleyjg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side I wonder how many of the pro union voices I see on Facebook or elsewhere, especially millennials & gen z, have ever worked a union job and seen what a seniority system or non-at-will employment actually looks like in practice. Of the people I know that have direct experience with US unions, even those that ultimately come down on the side of supporting them have lots of stories to illustrate the wart…

I've seen what non at-will employment leads to in Europe, and it's pretty good.

I think European unions work a little differently in practise than American ones. American unions seem exclusively a tool for collective bargaining. European unions seem more directly an outgrowth of the guild system, which was also concerned with preserving standards and best practises.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#999

Post by metters »

dominotw wrote: post #548
metters wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe so, but at least Wikipedia says the US are 22nd per capita (which is more relevant than the total spending) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_...

> Wikipedia says the US are 22nd per capita I see USA at 10 in per capita section in your wiki link.

You are right, I have made a mistake there. The USA are 10th in spending per capita and 22nd in spending in percentage of the GDP.

Re: Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama

#1000

Post by thirdsun »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #907
paxys wrote: post #616

"Here's exactly how these people should have voted" – legions of San Francisco software engineers making $550K/yr convinced that they know everything about the lives of warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama making $15/hr.

Yes. Incredible arrogance and clearly insinuates that the people of Bessemer are unable to think for themselves. 71% said no. That is a very clear majority. I think we need to trust the people on the front line with the discernment to make their own decisions. I've been around a lot of people without much formal education who were much wiser than most. And please don't yell about Amazon misrepresenting things. I susp…

> And please don't yell about Amazon misrepresenting things. I suspect these people are quite capable of detecting company BS.

Are they? Not saying that this is the case here but recent elections (Trump) and referendums (Brexit) have shown that you can absolutely manipulate and mislead the masses. Again, not taking any sides here, but assuming that those decisions are well informed or won't be taken against their own interest seems naive to me.

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