Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 785 posts

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#141

Post by legitster »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #132
legitster wrote: post #108

I had a boss who was an expensive consultant for unions. He explained the reason unions in the US were shrinking is that they are too powerful. They control huge pension and healthcare portfolios and can completely control the relationship with employers, especially in closed shop situations. Comparatively, European unions are much "weaker" - or maybe more accurately their purview is much smaller. They control smalle…

>He explained the reason unions in the US were shrinking is that they are too powerful. They control huge pension and healthcare portfolios and can completely control the relationship with employers, especially in closed shop situations. This is interesting. I'm a government employee with a union, a pension, health insurance, the whole deal. The union does not control the pension or healthcare in any way whatsoever.…

I believe Teamsters is the biggest. But there are enough that taxpayers ended up bailing out a ton this year: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/business/dealbook/bailout...

But even if your union doesn't directly control your healthcare plan, I would still assume it was part of the collective bargaining?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#142

Post by striking »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #126
1270018080 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their software engineers should, too. You don't actually have to get pipped, get pinged 24/7, and be ground to dust and thrown away to be a successful software engineer.

I will fight tooth and nail to keep our industry from unionizing. One can simply look at the public school system and how well it performs with one of the strongest unions in the country. You don't have well paid teachers (except those who have been teaching for a long time, at the detriment to new teachers),you don't serve the children well and you now have to navigate both a career and politics of a union. Unions b…

Have you worked somewhere (big enough to no longer support a flat hierarchy) where there were no office politics or social games? I don't think unions are the cause of that.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#143

Post by rat87 »

legitster wrote: post #108

I had a boss who was an expensive consultant for unions. He explained the reason unions in the US were shrinking is that they are too powerful. They control huge pension and healthcare portfolios and can completely control the relationship with employers, especially in closed shop situations. Comparatively, European unions are much "weaker" - or maybe more accurately their purview is much smaller. They control smalle…

Seems like someone really bad at his job. Unions in the US are much much weaker making it easier for companies to undermine them. Also there is more of an anti union attitude among US empoyers and sometimes illegal union busting techniques/consultants are much more developed. And to top it off the laws and politics are much worse for unions, some conservative Governors have said that they would rather not have good autoworker jobs if they are unionized

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#144

Post by slg »

dymk wrote: post #74
equality wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much agree. Every worker should unionize, for the good of us all. Far too much power has been ceded to companies pushing for abusive working practices, that are now largely culturally normalized.

Well, no, I can bargain individually better than a group could try to on my behalf.

Unions of professional athletes are some of the most successful unions in the US. These are people that are highly paid and have very specific skills that can't easily be replaced. These are people who already spend as much as 15% or 20% of their salary paying others to negotiate on their personal behalf. Yet these athletes still want a union to represent them as a collective class.

I don't know if the general software developer really needs a union. Some niches certainly do. Game developers are the obvious example of a group of workers who are treated worse than people with comparable skills who do comparable work in other industries. But the idea that we don't need a union because we are already paid well, we are skilled, or we can negotiate for ourselves is naive. Anytime an industry is as wildly profitable as the tech industry is, workers can benefit from a union.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#145

Post by jasode »

cs702 wrote: post #103

A single successful effort of unionization at an Amazon facility is more than symbolic: It will encourage -- and serve as a blueprint for -- employees at other Amazon facilities to do the same. Moreover, it will motivate employees at other large companies to try. This has been brewing for a while. It's possible we'll see a generational wave of unionization.

>unionization at an Amazon facility is more than symbolic: It will encourage -- and serve as a blueprint for -- employees at other Amazon facilities to do the same.

It really depends on how things play out. E.g. what the extra union dues' payments will be in relation to the extra benefits received from union representation. Or maybe Amazon responds with a "business decision" to close JFK8 fulfillment center.

So it can have the opposite effect. The strong union at the Boeing factory in Seattle WA negatively influenced the Boeing workers in South Carolina. The SC workers voted in 3 different elections to reject the union. The last voting count was 74% against the union.

We have to wait and see what the union can "win" from Amazon.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#147

Post by sam0x17 »

Animats wrote: post #77

What's sad is that this is a "stunning win". It should be a routine event. Now, McDonalds and WalMart.

Yes, and this is after Amazon personally contested a large percentage of the ballots, and after past events like them making fake drop boxes that allegedly led to failed votes in previous amazon unionization situations.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#148

Post by rat87 »

legitster wrote: post #134
whimsicalism wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i feel like I'm missing the causal link in your comment between controlling healthcare portfolios -> shrinking.

On a macro level, a US union is much more expensive per member than a EU union because members/companies have to front the cost of healthcare (as opposed to countries with universal healthcare). On a micro level, traditional US unions have huge pension funds that they have won from employers and promised to existing members, and so they can be very restrictive on membership qualifications.

I think a more accurate point would be that employers force new employees to get worse benifits to undermine the union

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#149

Post by sam0x17 »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #57
bawolff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its a run-on at all, let alone a text book one.

It should be broken into two sentences Original: "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." Sentence 1: No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon. Sentence 2: Many union leaders regard…

Pretty sure OP is confused by the concept of "first win" being the object of the first clause. It feels clunky if you don't read your English like you would read algebra.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#150

Post by rat87 »

jasode wrote: post #145
cs702 wrote: post #103

A single successful effort of unionization at an Amazon facility is more than symbolic: It will encourage -- and serve as a blueprint for -- employees at other Amazon facilities to do the same. Moreover, it will motivate employees at other large companies to try. This has been brewing for a while. It's possible we'll see a generational wave of unionization.

>unionization at an Amazon facility is more than symbolic: It will encourage -- and serve as a blueprint for -- employees at other Amazon facilities to do the same. It really depends on how things play out. E.g. what the extra union dues' payments will be in relation to the extra benefits received from union representation. Or maybe Amazon responds with a "business decision" to close JFK8 fulfillment center. So it ca…

I think it has more to do with politics. Conservative SC politicians have made it clear that they would rather not have good jobs if they are unionized, they don't wont workers getting ideas
Post reply on HN