Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#31

Post by swarnie » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

zwirbl wrote: post #22

swarnie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had a similar media blitz in the UK, luckily we dealt with most our unions in the 80s. Despite getting an email from Amazon about twice a week i could never see myself working there.

why luckily?

Because they had an amazing crack at trashing the country and needed to be put down.

3 day work week, rolling black outs, propping up of old dead industries.

Not to mention all the dead companies they striked in to the ground. Bloody criminals the lot of them.

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#32

Post by thiscatis » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

yayoplant wrote: post #26

Surprized to see the Amazon flag fluttering beside the EU and Italy flags in the photo. Many countries require the National Flag to be given special respect, and must be flown above other flags. I'm surprised to see the Amazon flag in the first place. Gives a corporate-state vibe, rather than an "e-commerce warehouse" vibe.

Most people don't care

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#33

Post by switch007 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 10:34 AM UTC

swarnie wrote: post #31

zwirbl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why luckily?

Because they had an amazing crack at trashing the country and needed to be put down. 3 day work week, rolling black outs, propping up of old dead industries. Not to mention all the dead companies they striked in to the ground. Bloody criminals the lot of them.

Put down. Interesting choice of phrase.

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#34

Post by makomk » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 10:34 AM UTC

swarnie wrote: post #31

zwirbl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why luckily?

Because they had an amazing crack at trashing the country and needed to be put down. 3 day work week, rolling black outs, propping up of old dead industries. Not to mention all the dead companies they striked in to the ground. Bloody criminals the lot of them.

Yes, what people need to understand about the history of British unions is that they effectively shut down the entire country repeatedly to try and force the Government to keep coal mining which wasn't viable anymore going. That's basically intolerable in a democracy. Thatcher's breaking of the unions only happened after previous governments who thought the unions could be negotiated with were brought down by their inability to deal with the damage being done. (There's also some impressive double-think on the British left around this and global warming, since of course dealing with that means that coal mining and use has to go away.)

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#35

Post by swarnie » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 10:42 AM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #33

swarnie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they had an amazing crack at trashing the country and needed to be put down. 3 day work week, rolling black outs, propping up of old dead industries. Not to mention all the dead companies they striked in to the ground. Bloody criminals the lot of them.

Put down. Interesting choice of phrase.

Interesting that my phrasing is the only thing you seem to have issue with.

I assume you agree with my general analysis of the unions effect on Britain?

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#36

Post by peoplefromibiza » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 10:56 AM UTC

alberto_ol wrote: post #24

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #14

Italian here. Don't get your hopes up, Italy is a very peculiar place, there are 11.5 million workers that are members of one of the tree major trade unions, not counting smaller ones, it's half of the total work force. Nothing moves in Italy without an agreement with trade unions when a company the size of Amazon starts hiring en masse. That's both good and bad, but generally more good than bad.

11,5 million people are members of the major trade unions, but roughly half of them are not workers anymore, they are retired

That's what the right wants people to believe.

The far right has been very active to support this claim, web sites like primatonazionale keep pushing false information about it, in reality age wise only 46% of the members are 50 or older, age of retirement is at least 62 years in Italy, so statistically a vast majority of the members is still working.

It is true that many retired people keep supporting the trade unions, but trade unions work for retired people too and their rights as former workers. My mom, for example, had free legal assistance by the unions to obtain a compensation for an occupational disease that made her partially disabled. If she had to fight alone she wouldn't have obtained it and it would have costed us a fortune.

Please stop spreading disinformation.

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#37

Post by mastazi » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 11:24 AM UTC

alberto_ol wrote: post #24

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #14

Italian here. Don't get your hopes up, Italy is a very peculiar place, there are 11.5 million workers that are members of one of the tree major trade unions, not counting smaller ones, it's half of the total work force. Nothing moves in Italy without an agreement with trade unions when a company the size of Amazon starts hiring en masse. That's both good and bad, but generally more good than bad.

11,5 million people are members of the major trade unions, but roughly half of them are not workers anymore, they are retired

There is also another problem with Italian trade unions. The workers who are unionised are generally privileged compared to the general population. Meanwhile many disadvantaged workers - who are employed with short-term contracts[1] or very often without contract[2], (which is wide spread even though that is technically illegal) are not unionised.

At the same time you will see categories of privileged workers such as Alitalia pilots or hospital doctors where the vast majority of workers are unionised.

So Italian unions are halfway between what unions are really supposed to be, and a nation-wide country club.

At least, this was the situation 10 years ago when I left the country. From what I hear, it doesn't seem this has changed.

[1] these are known in Italy as "precari" i.e. people who are in a precarious position.

[2] illegal labour is very common especially in central and southern regions, it is known in Italy as "lavoro nero" - nero is the colour black in Italian but in this case it actually means "submerged".

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#38

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 11:27 AM UTC

yayoplant wrote: post #26

Surprized to see the Amazon flag fluttering beside the EU and Italy flags in the photo. Many countries require the National Flag to be given special respect, and must be flown above other flags. I'm surprised to see the Amazon flag in the first place. Gives a corporate-state vibe, rather than an "e-commerce warehouse" vibe.

Various countries left this kind of nationalism behind after WW2.

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#39

Post by peoplefromibiza » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 11:34 AM UTC

mastazi wrote: post #37

alberto_ol wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

11,5 million people are members of the major trade unions, but roughly half of them are not workers anymore, they are retired

There is also another problem with Italian trade unions. The workers who are unionised are generally privileged compared to the general population. Meanwhile many disadvantaged workers - who are employed with short-term contracts[1] or very often without contract[2], (which is wide spread even though that is technically illegal) are not unionised. At the same time you will see categories of privileged workers such as…

> Meanwhile many disadvantaged workers - who are employed with short-term contracts[1] (or very often without contract[2], which is wide spread even though that is technically illegal) are not unionised.

Not to defend Italian unions, that have their fault, but:

Of course workers working illegally are not unionized, that doesn't mean they have no protection at all.

Italy is well known for having a subsidy for everything, including unoccupied people, who earn money from the State and from their illegal job.

Anyway, short-term workers are protected by unions, I know for sure at least CGIL has a department devolved to temporary workers or people working part time or on a short-term contract.

In Italy even cab drivers have their own unions! (plural!)

Re: Amazon reaches agreement with trade unions in Italy

#40

Post by blackpowder12 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 11:41 AM UTC

zwirbl wrote: post #22

swarnie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had a similar media blitz in the UK, luckily we dealt with most our unions in the 80s. Despite getting an email from Amazon about twice a week i could never see myself working there.

why luckily?

Unfortunately even left wing folks in the UK remember that the coal unions shut down the country regularly in the 70s. I’m not from here, but I know a very left wing crowd and the older ones remember how they would dine in candlelight during the big coal strikes. Tatcher was a reaction to this.