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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

#241

Post by munk-a »

educaysean wrote: post #208
lamontcg wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its very on brand that the first response to this on HN is more or less: "Okay, hear me out, but what if Unions in America are really _too strong_?". Very counterintuitive thinking.

Counterintuitive to what? Do you have stories or facts you want to share that argue unions in US are actually comparatively weaker than their European counterparts? The only thing you illustrated was that you were personally astonished by OP's comment, but I don't think that carries as much weight as you think it does.

One of my favorite unionization stories comes from Denmark when unions in various industry sectors joined together to force McDonalds to adhere to union rules.[1] The US has so few weak and disparate unions that that story could never play out there - even up here in Canada we're pretty anti-union in general.

1. https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-de...

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#242

Post by hnaccount141 »

dymk wrote: post #100
netizen-936824 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can singlehandedly get a corporation to improve their working conditions? That's incredible

The company caters to _me_, not the other way around. Welcome to being in a high-demand job.

The tech job market is favorable for workers for now. That will most likely not always be the case.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#243

Post by criddell »

strombofulous wrote: post #20
amelius wrote: post #9

It's great that people are standing up against the abusive power of big companies. When will Apple (App Store) developers unionize?

Why should developers unionize? I love not being in a union. If my company starts dicking me around I'll quit and find another job. Besides, if I do something so bad my boss wants to fire me, fine then I'll go work somewhere where people want me. I don't want to have to bring in my union rep to argue about it since going somewhere else means losing my tenure and taking a 30% pay cut. The only time unions make sense i…

> It doesn’t make sense for skilled labor.

I would consider professional athletes skilled and they have powerful unions.

Hollywood writers, actors, and directors are skilled an they all have unions/guilds.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#244

Post by djrobstep »

seibelj wrote: post #28
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…

Should also have the right to work at a company and NOT have to join the union, and negotiate your own conditions / wages independently.

Why should you have the right to work at a company withing joining the union, but not have the right to work at the company without generating money for shareholders?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#245

Post by brimble »

jfjfkfmf wrote: post #189
Spivak wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because not all the benefits of membership are excludable. Unions that hold employers accountable to following labor laws and safety regulations benefit all employees, same with annual raises, removing abusive managers, better benefits, overtime pay [1], etc. etc. Some benefits are excludable for sure, a union isn't going to fight a non-members wrongful firing case. [1] Some unions manage to get payroll benefits for…

"Some benefits are excludable for sure, a union isn't going to fight a non-members wrongful firing case." This is absolutely false. These are just a few anecdotes but there are several "An arbitrator in 2007 found that teacher Alexis Grullon had victimized young girls with repeated hugging, "incidental though not accidental contact with one student's breast" and "sexually suggestive remarks." The teacher had denied a…

Are either of these cases of unions aiding a non-member, which is the topic of the sentence you quoted? I can't read all of the first one—which is an opinion piece anyway, as is the second—but the second doesn't seem to be about that.

At any rate, this, from your second link, is insightful:

> For Medlock and Peterson, it wasn’t necessarily the union that protected them. It was the district, which said they’ve been disciplined enough.

You wouldn't believe what districts cover up or ignore, even if the union's not a factor. It's routine.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#246

Post by iso1631 »

cyberpunk wrote: post #214
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…

The RMT/Unite Union in the UK regularly cripples London by staging tube strikes when they all have well paying secure jobs so not entire sure I buy it.

> staging tube strikes

> all have well paying secure jobs

I wonder if that's linked....

And $70k a year in London is not "well paid", it's 9% of the price of an average property in London.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#247

Post by djrobstep »

seibelj wrote: post #218
cwmma wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a textbook example of loosing at the prisoner's dilemma due to selfishness. The only way you get a better contract then the union is if the company intentionally does it to spite the union.

You are authoritarian - forcing people to do something that should be accomplished voluntarily is antithetical to freedom

Why is it authoritarian and bad to be forced to interact with the union, but fine to be forced to interact with management?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#248

Post by gruez »

marricks wrote: post #231
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…

Cases like this you really need to be extremely specific about what powerful means. I think a lot of left leaning folks could agree with such statements but made too broadly it can be taken a number of different ways. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone pro union who'd say unions have too much influence or sway in the lives of US citizens. Most workers don't have union representation and unions don't have mu…

>Do most people in New York want their police force to have a budget larger than military of a mid sized country? Probably not?

Pareto distribution strikes again! Apparently new york city has a GDP that ranks 15 in the world, above mexico[1][2] and ranks 59 in the world in terms of population[3], so the fact that new york exceeds "a mid sized country" (median?) in some statistic isn't surprising. If you want to make the argument that the US is over-policed, use some statistic like officers per 100,000 people or something.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_New_York_City

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#249

Post by brimble »

dionidium wrote: post #236
brimble wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure I understand. You seem to be suggesting: "No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which Amazon many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them." But that's absolutely terrible, so you must be suggesting something else.

> "[...] which company many union leaders regard [...]"

Ergo:

No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which company many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them

[EDIT] I also intentionally used the construction in my original post: "[...] which technique is usually overkill [...]". The usage there, unlike in the Times sentence, was actually necessary since the antecedent was too far removed. The original Times sentence was correct, but splitting it up or specifying the antecedent would remove the possibility of a reader being confused by thinking the Times writer wasn't, correctly, using "which" to refer to the closest antecedent ("Amazon") but instead to something earlier in the first clause ("first win").

On looking closer, I think it's the construction of that first clause that makes the "which" read like it might have been employed incorrectly, when it was (technically, kind of) not. "first win in the United States at Amazon". The "at" makes "Amazon" seem heavily dependent on "first win in the United States", so it still looks like "which" might point at "first win", not "Amazon".

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#250

Post by Barrera »

Freakonomics ran a recent episode on unions [1]. A pair of interesting stats were presented near the start: the approval rating for unions stands at 70% in the US (even higher among the young) at the same time that union membership stands at 10%. Both numbers are at multi-decade extremes.

I don't think it's any coincidence that this success at Amazon comes right now. After the GFC all regulatory efforts turned to keeping financial markets solvent. That has meant unwavering support for policies that favor those with assets over those who don't.

The pandemic happened in early 2020 just as the wheels were flying off the US economy yet again. So what would have played out got masked by many other factors, including direct government transfers.

Those stimmie checks of yore are long gone, and it will be a very steep uphill battle to bring anything remotely like that back given the rip-roaring yr/yr increase in CPI and PPI now underway. Those checks are being blamed for the ongoing inflation that more than just the lunatic fringe now thinks is the start of Weimar-style hyperinflation.

So with the 2/10 year yield curve now inverted [2], it's just a matter of time before the economic chickens come home to roost once more. Will it be different this time? Will unions step in to fill the gap that government can not?

[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/do-unions-still-work/

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/01/us-bonds-treasury-yields-inv...

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