271–280 of 785 posts
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 kee…
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>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…
Given SC rejected the union is interesting, given the quality issues that resulted in Boeing's plant in SC. The reports of managers putting defective parts back into service was horrifying (this was reported by a whistleblower).
I don’t have a dog in the fight, but it certainly seemed like the situation with our PNW union sites did not boost support down here.
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>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…
Do you have evidence to support that the strong union in Seattle negatively influenced the SC voters? SC has the lowest union membership in all 50 states - there's a lot of ingrained bias against unions there, and I'm not sure I see the connection to the Seattle, WA plant or workforce.
Just trying to provide some detail.
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>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…
> Or maybe Amazon responds with a "business decision" to close JFK8 fulfillment center. It's quite possible. They'll need to unionize several more Amazon facilities in that region to prevent that outcome. Not sure how many more are in process.
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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…
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 kee…
While productivity increased over the past half century, inflation-adjusted hourly wages are about what they were 50 years ago (it goes up and down - they were slightly lower in 2018 than 1972, a few cents higher in 2019). All productivity gains have been hovered up by the heirs and aristocracy.
As it was in the Silicon Valley wage cartel which collapsed in 2014. So FAANG wages have been high for 8 years, which is a historic anomaly.
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> "[...] 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 over…
That's obviously what you wrote, so I don't know why I replaced "company" with "Amazon" in my head. That's definitely better. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for not biting my head off where I deserved it.
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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…
> Also, when COVID occurred there was little room for teachers to get a say This may have been a positive. The teachers and their unions are only motivated for them to stay home and "safe", forever. It's the customers (parents) who need the leverage to get the teachers to actually deliver the service they're getting paid for, rather than trying to hide from their job indefinitely as many would be happy to do. Unions…
There’s lots of “well then maybe that should be their mission” but no one wants to put up the capital for public daycare.
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.
They would? Why? How does the existence of a union prevent a company from firing everyone if it wants to? My understanding is that the only power of a union is that all of its members use collective leverage to get better deals. There is no collective leverage action if everyone is fired.
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> Also, when COVID occurred there was little room for teachers to get a say This may have been a positive. The teachers and their unions are only motivated for them to stay home and "safe", forever. It's the customers (parents) who need the leverage to get the teachers to actually deliver the service they're getting paid for, rather than trying to hide from their job indefinitely as many would be happy to do. Unions…
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