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Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

reuters.com

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Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#71

Post by geofft »

apples_oranges wrote: post #48

I just finished Sam Walton's Book "Made in America". It's about Walmart, but I heard somewhere it's required reading for all Amazon managers. Anyway, it's a fantastic book, and there's something about their Anti-Union stance in it: "I have always believed strongly that we don’t need unions at Wal-Mart. Theoretically, I understand the argument that unions try to make, that the associates need someone to represent them…

It's always struck me as weird that unions in the US exclude management, even when "management" is defined as "someone getting paid $2 more per hour to train and schedule workers." The interests of a Wal-Mart bakery manager and other bakery workers are generally closely aligned, so Mr. Walton has something of a point there. And frankly the same is true of knowledge work - the interests of someone like me who's a senior engineer on the IC track are generally closely aligned with someone who took the manager track, which starts out at the same level, and has three or four junior engineers as direct reports.

Now, the interests of the entire staff at any given Wal-Mart store are generally not aligned with those of Mr. Walton, nor are the interests of engineering staff and line managers aligned with the interests of the C-suite. Simply having supervisory authority doesn't really change the pressures on you, especially when there's an IC track (whether baker or engineer) very close to your role. Nor are the interests of the staff of any Starbucks store aligned with those of Starbucks corporate, nor those of almost everyone involved with physically shipping Amazon packages with those of Amazon corporate, nor those of the people racking Google datacenters and those of SVPs at Google, etc.

So there is an entirely natural division that already exists. Our present form of union forces everyone with supervisory authority to take the side of the big bosses. I think if we had unions that could genuinely represent all laborers, they'd work a lot better.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#72

Post by TheNorthman »

apples_oranges wrote: post #48

I just finished Sam Walton's Book "Made in America". It's about Walmart, but I heard somewhere it's required reading for all Amazon managers. Anyway, it's a fantastic book, and there's something about their Anti-Union stance in it: "I have always believed strongly that we don’t need unions at Wal-Mart. Theoretically, I understand the argument that unions try to make, that the associates need someone to represent them…

Built into the very fabric of unionism is the acknowledgement that capital and labor have fundamentally different goals, i.e. class struggle. An acknowledgment for which the only logical conclusion is an independent workers movement.

There is a term for unions that don't acknowledge this divide and favor a "collaboration" between capital and labor: Yellow unions. It is not an endearing term and they are (rightfully) outlawed in the US.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#73

Post by refurb »

claudiawerner wrote: post #58
bko wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union is free to pay Amazon employees $15 an hour to watch their propaganda videos. This paternalism of low wage employees needs to stop. They can make up their own mind and actually have skin in the game as opposed to some tech worker making 10x as much telling them they're being brainwashed

Of course they can make up their own mind - but simply pointing out the existence of propaganda and other factors at play, and the fact that ideology plays a large role in our lives, does not imply 'brainwashing' as much as ideological forces. The tug-of-war between labour and capital has been raging for centuries, and at no time hitherto is it more visible that it has graduated to the ideological battlefield when Am…

”simply pointing out the existence of propaganda”

Why do you assume only you can see that’s it’s propaganda and they can’t?

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#74

Post by Kneecaps07 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #22
Dobbs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article it is made very clear that what is being alleged is that it wasn't a democratic vote. What is being alleged is that Amazon threatened to close the warehouse, and/or fire people based upon how they vote. Something that if I understand correctly is illegal, and even if not illegal is definitely not a democratic vote.

> If you read the article It's against the site rules here to suggest people haven't read the article - please don't do this. I was replying to a parent comment which said 'how can anyone oppose a union'. Some people legitimately don't want to have to deal with a union, for any of many reasons. For example because the union supports political goals they don't agree with, or because the union favours other employees o…

In my state, you can no longer be forced to join a union. At my employer, there are something like 1000 people eligible to join the union. 99% of them are in the union. They often find the people that aren't in the union didn't join simply because they didn't know they could join.

Yes, that's anecdotal, but I've been in two unions at two separate jobs and have literally never met anyone who wishes they weren't in it.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#75

Post by ceejayoz »

rovr138 wrote: post #38
bongobingo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re not American, it’s difficult to understand. However, insurance is an absolute scam in the US. You pay hundreds of dollars per month for the privilege of having to pay thousands of dollars before your insurance will start paying. For many families the monthly premiums could run over a thousand dollars, and the deductible could be $15,000. …or you could get some cheap catastrophic insurance, and pay cash for…

That’s also a VERY high premium AND deductible. Not saying it’s not out there, but they both are high.

Here in upstate New York, my insurer's Bronze plans run about $1100/month for a family (https://myportal.dfs.ny.gov/documents/538523/9578747/Excellu...).

That gets you a $10k family deductible, and a $13,100 max out-of-pocket. https://www.nyhealthinsurer.com/insurance/pdfs/plans/1319

I pay $2,200 a month for a family Platinum plan, in order to get $0 deductible and $4k/year max OOP.

The true cost of healthcare is masked for most, via their employer coverage - quite a few people seem to genuinely believe theirs costs just $20/month because that's the portion they directly pay. It's quite the scam on the American public.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#76

Post by pjc50 »

bongobingo wrote: post #30
enkid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world where being able to not have access to healthcare is a good thing.

If you’re not American, it’s difficult to understand. However, insurance is an absolute scam in the US. You pay hundreds of dollars per month for the privilege of having to pay thousands of dollars before your insurance will start paying. For many families the monthly premiums could run over a thousand dollars, and the deductible could be $15,000. …or you could get some cheap catastrophic insurance, and pay cash for…

I can understand not wanting to deal with insurers, especially American ones, but I can't understand accepting that that means either no healthcare or potentially catastrophic losses.

You can never know that you're not going to need healthcare.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#77

Post by listless »

heymijo wrote: post #64
bko wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union is free to pay Amazon employees $15 an hour to watch their propaganda videos. This paternalism of low wage employees needs to stop. They can make up their own mind and actually have skin in the game as opposed to some tech worker making 10x as much telling them they're being brainwashed

This is an ahistorical argument that is wildly ignorant of the power dynamics between labor and capital, with a Nassim Taleb-ism shoe-horned in to a place where it doesn't fit.

And isn’t this the core issue behind nearly every political disagreement? Who has power, and how can we take it. I’m not saying that’s always bad, but it is, at the end of the day, about control.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#78

Post by pydry »

heymijo wrote: post #60
dannyw wrote: post #3

Amazon is offering competitive wages (especially for Albama's cost of living), and benefits from day one. Maybe a majority of the workers there prefer the status quo?

> Maybe a majority of the workers there prefer the status quo? Analysis showed this is what happened. Please don't mistake that to mean the status quo is good. There is an enormous power imbalance between Amazon and the laborers in Bessemer, Alabama. This has happened many, many times throughout American history. Coal towns are a canonical example of holding all the cards against labor. The hallmarks of that relation…

IIRC amazon managed to swing it so the cohort voting was dominated by newbies who got hit only by the anti union propaganda, hadn't yet suffered the worst excesses from management and were keen to not rock the boat and lose the job they'd just gotten.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#79

Post by emptysongglass »

apples_oranges wrote: post #48

I just finished Sam Walton's Book "Made in America". It's about Walmart, but I heard somewhere it's required reading for all Amazon managers. Anyway, it's a fantastic book, and there's something about their Anti-Union stance in it: "I have always believed strongly that we don’t need unions at Wal-Mart. Theoretically, I understand the argument that unions try to make, that the associates need someone to represent them…

I want to go after the presumption that representation foments division. It's an American-made idea and it's not a good one. Take it out and throw it in the bin.

Denmark has two thirds of its workforce under a union. I'm not hostile with my employers and I don't need my union representing me 99 percent of the time. If I have a problem I talk directly to my managers like a {woman, man, transperson}. It's only when my workplace is doing something illegal or trying to screw me that I first go to my union for advice and only after, if their advice hasn't worked, would I ever consider letting my union speak for me.

That's how all Danes do it here. And it works out fine for everyone. So please reconsider this no-good, destructive idea that underlies this logical fallacy.

The fact is that leadership by its nature as leadership, wields power. Workers under leaders need help to protect from gross abuses of power that arise from wielding power.

Re: Union's evidence in Amazon vote 'could be grounds for overturning election'

#80

Post by claudiawerner »

refurb wrote: post #73
claudiawerner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they can make up their own mind - but simply pointing out the existence of propaganda and other factors at play, and the fact that ideology plays a large role in our lives, does not imply 'brainwashing' as much as ideological forces. The tug-of-war between labour and capital has been raging for centuries, and at no time hitherto is it more visible that it has graduated to the ideological battlefield when Am…

”simply pointing out the existence of propaganda” Why do you assume only you can see that’s it’s propaganda and they can’t?

I don't assume that. Actually, I assume the opposite - they are more likely to see some propaganda for what it is than I am. But I do think everyone has blind spots, and I do think propaganda is effective, even if you know it's propaganda. Even with a small group of people believing propaganda, peer pressure and the desire for humans to conform with the actions of their in-group can wield significant influence.

In the same way, I have no doubt that many citizens of the USSR or China or Nazi Germany or even the US can see through the propaganda targeted at them. But I don't think anyone would argue with the idea that propaganda was and continues to be effective for a significant (and important) portion of the population.

I would also think that, say, a historian who is an expert on propaganda, or an economist who is an expert on labour relations, a political campaign manager, or a company marketing manager would be able to more accurately and quickly identify propaganda when they see it. Some people can see through certain propaganda. That's not controversial.

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