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Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

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Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#11

Post by geewee »

krige wrote: post #6
arkitaip wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are also a traditional thing (Denmark), in fact so traditional our whole way of working and negotiating salary is based on it - I think strong unions are a wonderful thing that benefits the workers a lot.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#12

Post by hjanssen »

krige wrote: post #6
arkitaip wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

There are several countries with strong unions and a tradition of unions taking part in company matters, a good example would be my place, Germany. I have never seen a union "screwing over" a company, but many times have I seen complains that the unions screwed the company over from people that directly or indirectly profit from weak or no unions.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#13

Post by nosianu »

krige wrote: post #6
arkitaip wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions were strong for many decades, the German economy was doing pretty well all the time and if Germany loses out at some point it is hardly the union's fault (for example, the pressure to remain such a high net exporter seems hard to maintain forever).

What kind of reasoning is it to look for one or a few examples of individuals screwing up and then claiming it as a property of the species? I think we found more than one criminal company or CEO, but you would not use that as an example for how useless or even bad companies and CEOs are.

I would also have preferred that OP instead of pointing to the name of the source (and nothing else!) would at least have added something about the actual content of the linked article. It seems to me to be rarely justified to argue by just pointing at the source of the argument as if that is a counter argument to the actual argument that was made (which at that point remains unexplored and unknown, implying it's not even worth looking at it - but it was still worth formulating a comment?).

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#14

Post by sk4rekr0w »

arkitaip wrote: post #3
nickff wrote: post #2

This seems to be an advertorial for a union; it is based on a report by UNI Global Union, and also authored by someone from there.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

I find that most propaganda comes from unions as they increasingly seek a political relationship with workers rather than the economic relationship that workers want.

On any union site - there are terms like "solidarity" with images of fists raised rather than actual data about improvement of wages or working conditions.

This is why unions get trounced in votes by real workers, things like Prop 22 pass with easy margins, etc.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#15

Post by dgb23 »

krige wrote: post #6
arkitaip wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

Unions have no general and inherent self-defense against corruption, so the larger, more powerful and more hierarchical they become, the more these kinds of problems can (and will) arise. Similar things can happen to worker coops, foundations and other organizations that emerge from the need of having a counterbalance to corrupted institutions and corporations.

The only solution is to maintain and expand democratic decision making from within. An organization that claims to be about the people, its members, absolutely has to be run by those people directly.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#16

Post by arcturus17 »

arkitaip wrote: post #3
nickff wrote: post #2

This seems to be an advertorial for a union; it is based on a report by UNI Global Union, and also authored by someone from there.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

Decades of anti-union propaganda, sure, but also decades of self-serving, power-hungry, and occasionally outright corrupt organizations that do not serve the interests of workers.

Workers are not dumb, do not lack agency nor are as influenceable by propaganda as one might think - this a myth perpetuated by the paternalistic left, which has actually served it terribly - and in many cases have freely chosen to ignore or root out these organizations.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#17

Post by nickik »

hjanssen wrote: post #12
krige wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

There are several countries with strong unions and a tradition of unions taking part in company matters, a good example would be my place, Germany. I have never seen a union "screwing over" a company, but many times have I seen complains that the unions screwed the company over from people that directly or indirectly profit from weak or no unions.

Its amazing how people endlessly talk about Germany but ignore all the other cases where Union are far less positive. How about we talk about how Venezuela Union bosses. How about the US car workers union being an endless pit of corruption.

Switzerland is next to Germany, and has almost no union and there is not so much difference in overall standard of living and how workers are treated.

The idea that Unions are this universal good and talking negative about them is simply being anti-worker pro-capitalist exploitation is a tiered talking point.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#18

Post by krige »

hjanssen wrote: post #12
krige wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

There are several countries with strong unions and a tradition of unions taking part in company matters, a good example would be my place, Germany. I have never seen a union "screwing over" a company, but many times have I seen complains that the unions screwed the company over from people that directly or indirectly profit from weak or no unions.

My current workplace is one such case of union killing a theoretically profitable company so I really am speaking from experience - the only reason the workplace still exists today is because after it went bankrupt it was bought out by an outsider who discarded the union part. Ironically it turned out to be for the best for both the company as a whole and the actual workers.

Just because you don't hear of it - or don't want to hear of it - doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#19

Post by dgb23 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #10
dgb23 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overarching theme goes wider. For one it is about workers having some say in their lives outside of voting with their feet. Collective bargaining is one proven way to achieve that. The other is about the dehumanization of work environments with the help of "AI" AKA software. Similarly there are companies that force you to install spyware on your working device.

> force you to install spyware on your working device. If it’s their device, what’s wrong with that? Use your own device when you want privacy.

There are many problems with that. For one there are security issues. There was an article just recently on HN that reported a large attack, exploiting the invasive nature of these tools. Secondly they are useless. Third, they are inhumane and show that there is a severe lack of human connection trust in these work environments.

Also, it is not strictly "their" device in every case. There are firms that require freelancers/contractors to do the same on their device.

This kind of behavior is a huge red flag, but too many juniors otherwise naive or desperate workers tolerate it.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ Dystopian Legacy Goes Far Beyond Amazon

#20

Post by skohan »

sk4rekr0w wrote: post #14
arkitaip wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that decades of anti-union propaganda is still in effect when individuals are convinced that working together with other individuals and pooling their resources to improve their working conditions is a bad thing. Of course when companies do it - through trade associations or lobbying - it's seen as natural and necessary for their survival.

I find that most propaganda comes from unions as they increasingly seek a political relationship with workers rather than the economic relationship that workers want. On any union site - there are terms like "solidarity" with images of fists raised rather than actual data about improvement of wages or working conditions. This is why unions get trounced in votes by real workers, things like Prop 22 pass with easy marg…

> This is why unions get trounced in votes by real workers, things like Prop 22 pass with easy margins, etc.

I think it also has to do with the massive discrepancy in resources pro and anti-union advocates are able to put towards those races. Uber and Lyft invested massively in defeating prop 22, even advertising in their app directly.

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