381–390 of 785 posts
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> 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.
The other vote in Alabama failed, by more than 10%.
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I don't think that will be the case for social security for much longer. The trust is on the path to running dry over the next 10-15 years and benefits will need to be cut. Romney recently breached the idea of raising retirement age for current workers. Frankly I'm shocked by how few young workers realize how bad of a deal they're getting with the current system
It’s easy enough to simply raise the income cap though to shore it up.
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…
I like the idea of unions more than the reality. My first job was earning minimum wage working full-time at Safeway. After working there for about 9 months I quit because I didn't want to pay union dues to join the union. I was already only making minimum wage, it wasn't like the union was improving my salary. The required hour long lunch breaks might have been thanks to the union, but I hated having to take hour lon…
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.
> It's possible we'll see a generational wave of unionization. One can only hope. Collective bargaining is the most powerful tool to dismantle income inequality and corporate greed.
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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.
>SC has the lowest union membership in all 50 states - there's a lot of ingrained bias against unions there,
>South Carolina has anti-union laws [...] the least unionized state, works to prevent workers from organizing there,
Anti-union bias does not fully explain the South Carolina Boeing factory rejection vote because the workers did previously have a union.
Fyi... The original South Carolina aircraft factory (formerly Vought doing subcontract work on Boeing fuselages) was unionized in 2007. Then in 2009, they voted to decertify the union as they no longer wanted IAM (International Association of Machinists) to represent them for collective bargaining. (75% voted to get rid of the union.) This happened around the time Boeing acquired the Vought factory. For various reason(s) (see below), the Vought/Boeing workers didn't feel the ~$1000/year union dues were worth the benefits the IAM union negotiated for them.
Since being being voted out, IAM has repeatedly tried to re-establish union membership at SC but multiple elections have voted against it by wide margins. The last 2017 vote was 74% against. In 2018, IAM tried a new approach of establishing a "micro" union of 175 subset of employees instead of the entire ~3000 employees. The IAM won that micro vote but the Labor Board invalidated the micro union as a collective bargaining unit.
Boeing workers' (current) anti-union stance is based on their real-world experience and not ignorance. The SC workers already know what collective bargaining benefits they had with the union. They got rid of the union anyway. Maybe someday, factors will change and Boeing workers will vote for union representation again.
> Do you have evidence to support that the strong union in Seattle negatively influenced the SC voters?
>, but in your calculus "The strong union at the Boeing factory in Seattle WA negatively influenced the Boeing workers in South Carolina"
No, not my calculus. The SC workers reported it. One example: The workers in South Carolina didn't like the IAM directed union strike in Washington. Excerpt from https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...:
>Another sore point that affected Thursday’s vote was that many in the Charleston [South Carolina] work force were laid off last fall during the two-month IAM strike in the Puget Sound region due to the lack of production in Everett.
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Outside of Bernie and a few others, the days of Democrats having many nationally significant politicians that are truly pro-union are pretty much gone. I don't think most people, including those that vote Democratic, have much of an illusion of the Democratic party as a friend of labor anymore. Sure the Republicans actively try to dismantle all worker protections, but the Democrats mostly stand by and say well what c…
What do you expect Dems to do at the federal level if they do not have the votes in the Senate? The Democrats in democrat states have enacted paid parental leave, paid sick leave, higher minimum wages, banned non compete, and many other pro labor laws. At the federal level, the Dems got ACA pushed through also, even though they barely had the numbers and still had to compromise a lot due to just having 50 or 51 Senat…
And it's not just because they suck at winning elections, but also because they actively welcome anti-labor candidates into their ranks and crush the more progressive primary challengers even in safe blue districts.
Not to mention that the executive branch has the power to go after labor law violators and for the most part just doesn't.
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I assume you're writing this from the viewpoint that I consider unions to be ineffective or evil, even. I am not. I share your concerns regarding the owners whose powers often go unchecked in corporate America, and I completely agree that we're reaching dangerous levels. But I'm not speaking in hypotheticals. No, the anecdote I brought up is, in fact, the least hypothetical thing in this conversation thread. My wife…
No, I wasn't quite assuming you are anti-union, but that is one of the most common bits of anti-union propaganda. There's a true issue there but I don't think it's proportional to the amount of time this specific problem gets in these discussions. I think it comes down to what you expect from people who are being treated poorly. Do you only accept "pure" moral acts as valid? Is small unfairness to a few justified to…
Thanks for engaging, and have a good one.
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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…
>Extremely powerful (at least Oregon where I know about them) So, they don't get their employees good pay, they don't get a say in their working conditions. In what sense are they powerful, as you claim?
They end up being another source of control.
That’s likely why there were a slew of wildcat teacher strikes.
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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…
>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…
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What do you expect Dems to do at the federal level if they do not have the votes in the Senate? The Democrats in democrat states have enacted paid parental leave, paid sick leave, higher minimum wages, banned non compete, and many other pro labor laws. At the federal level, the Dems got ACA pushed through also, even though they barely had the numbers and still had to compromise a lot due to just having 50 or 51 Senat…
I mean you're basically echoing my point - the Democratic party at the national level doesn't have the willpower to get pro-worker legislation through. And it's not just because they suck at winning elections, but also because they actively welcome anti-labor candidates into their ranks and crush the more progressive primary challengers even in safe blue districts. Not to mention that the executive branch has the pow…