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Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#31

Post by oblio »

kmonsen wrote: post #17
Spivak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't open-shop effectively "no union" in practice? What threat does a union have when the company can just hire non-union workers?

I was a union rep when working in Norway, I guess it was open-shop since we had two different unions. In practice we cooperated a lot, and the largest benefit was the it gave us access to lawyers that could answer questions quickly so the members were more willing to push back on unreasonable requests. We were never close to going to a lawsuit against the company, it was more "hey this is breaking the law, how do we…

> We were never close to going to a lawsuit against the company, it was more "hey this is breaking the law, how do we work together to fix it".

Yeah, but the article is about the US, were they invented the Pinkertons instead of addressing employee grievances :-)

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#32

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

gotostatement wrote: post #6

okay this is amazing. but wtf is this sentence? "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them."

Elements of Style says to place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#33

Post by htrp »

gotostatement wrote: post #6

okay this is amazing. but wtf is this sentence? "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them."

copy editor fell asleep

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#35

Post by brimble »

gotostatement wrote: post #6

okay this is amazing. but wtf is this sentence? "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them."

David Foster Wallace loved to repeat the object (edit: or subject, depending on usage) after "which" practically every time he employed that word, which technique is usually overkill, but in this case writing it "[...] which company many union leaders regard [...]" would have helped a lot.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#36

Post by leetcrew »

Spivak wrote: post #12
hedora wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should have the right to collective bargaining. The US is a closed shop country, which means that, once a union is in place, it has an effective monopoly for the workers that work for one of its companies. If we switched to open shop, then unions would have to compete for membership. Of course, the existing unions are strongly against this. As an end result, everyone I know that's been a union member in the…

Isn't open-shop effectively "no union" in practice? What threat does a union have when the company can just hire non-union workers?

maybe this is a naive perspective, but it seems to me that the union should have more to offer labor than simply middlemanning access to an employer. if people genuinely want to be in the union, it should be hard to find non-union workers.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#37

Post by dylan604 »

jjulius wrote: post #18
hedora wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should have the right to collective bargaining. The US is a closed shop country, which means that, once a union is in place, it has an effective monopoly for the workers that work for one of its companies. If we switched to open shop, then unions would have to compete for membership. Of course, the existing unions are strongly against this. As an end result, everyone I know that's been a union member in the…

>As an end result, everyone I know that's been a union member in the last twenty years strongly dislikes unions. Hi! Union member from ~2005-2011. Appreciated being in mine and strongly support a more unionized workforce.

Why the end date to your membership? No longer in that field of work?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#38

Post by mywittyname »

hedora wrote: post #5
BuckRogers wrote: post #3

I have some family members that work at Amazon, my understanding is that the conditions at Amazon are hard to pin down because some warehouses are run just fine and others are abusive. That said, everyone working a job has a right to a union. Whether there's workplace abuse going on or not. All human endeavors are corrupt, including gov't, business, and occasionally unions. Collective bargaining is something I wish I…

Everyone should have the right to collective bargaining. The US is a closed shop country, which means that, once a union is in place, it has an effective monopoly for the workers that work for one of its companies. If we switched to open shop, then unions would have to compete for membership. Of course, the existing unions are strongly against this. As an end result, everyone I know that's been a union member in the…

This is a text-book example of being a victim of your own success. People have had the perks of union membership for so long, that they no long attribute them to the union. All they see are the costs of the union.

Also, I feel like it's safe to assume that you don't know any teachers or police officers? Both those groups seem to very much support their unions.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#39

Post by k1t »

scoot wrote: post #30
gotostatement wrote: post #6

okay this is amazing. but wtf is this sentence? "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them."

What seems to be the problem?

I assume it's because you could read it as: the union leaders view this big union victory as an existential threat to labor standards.

(When instead they view Amazon as the existential threat)

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#40

Post by lalaland1125 »

londons_explore wrote: post #34

Can Amazon now just shut down that warehouse and fire all the workers? It would seem like a sensible business move, even if it involves a little bit of service disruption for users in New York.

Yes, Amazon is allowed to do that. The main caveat is that they have to argue in court that the warehouse would be unprofitable given the union's demands.
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