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Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
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Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
The private sector unionization rate in 2021 was 6.1%. 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.…
Cartel is a pretty strong word for what happened and the fact that wages remained high is likely not an anomaly. E.g. Hedge funds which make similarly large amounts of money have paid their employees just as well for many years.
A recruiter at Google was fired simply for reaching out to an employee at Apple. Cartel feels like an appropriate word.
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
As a developer myself, I'd rather be in a union before companies start collectively fucking developers over. And I think it makes more sense to join a union preemptively, while things are in our favor, than to join a union in the future, possibly from a position of weakness. The problem is, of course, every developer thinks they're a 10x rockstar who doesn't need a union.
> The problem is, of course, every developer thinks they're a 10x rockstar who doesn't need a union.
Apple is a 10x rockstar company ...
Maybe 100x.
The days of the lone 10x programmer with a strategy that leads to guaranteed success are over.
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Normally this kind of movement would be a strength of the left. But lately the right has become quite populist, so maybe this plays in their direction. I saw an op-ed from a conservative magazine on this exact theme: [1]. The author basically says, "if we're claiming to be the party of the working class, shouldn't we be in favor of this?" 1: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/republicans...
I think that question pretty much answers itself, especially if one looks at voting demographics by income. The idea of the republican working class party has always been more of a clever rhetorical strategy than a reality. (perhaps, on a more speculative note, also a reflection of the seemingly general conservative pattern of wanting to see oneself as "normal", to the point of sometimes fabricating "silent majoritie…
"The idea of the republican working class party has always been more of a clever rhetorical strategy than a reality."
Always? No. But certainly since the 1970s.
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea of the republican working class party has always been more of a clever rhetorical strategy than a reality. I tend to agree, but then again I really don't grok the Trump thing, and I can't claim that I saw it coming or sticking around as long as it has. At this point I would not be terribly shocked to see a bit of role reversal between the two major parties.
I've been a conservative since I had a minimum wage job, for one reason: I want the government out of my life as much as possible. I firmly believe nobody will care about my family as much as I do and I don't want the government's golden handcuffs. Leave me alone, let me work, and I'll happily live with whatever happens. I think this is the fundamental disconnect in left-right (economic) politics. The left, as I see…
In a idealogical vacuum, totally fair. But in a (spiritually) capitalist economy, the federated nature of government is an effective instrument when applied properly. It’s not either the left or right’s fault that government is dysfunctional, it’s that greed is the root of all evil and subversion necessitates complex regulation over time.. it’s a double edged sword. Hands off and risk irreversible damage to millions, hands on and risk irreversible damage to millions. I do not envy the job of governing (justly).
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#416Freakonomics 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…
If an inverted yield curve means that investors are spooked about the current economy, and thus they favor longer term bonds, does that mean then that the market is not expecting inflation? Who wants to own a 10 or 30yr bond if they expect inflation to soar?
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the trend continues as you posit, I would expect private-sector unions to become a non-partisan alignment, similar to how social security is sacrosanct in US politics. Most unions form at places that are genuinely terrible workspaces where workers have legitimate reasons to hate the boss. As unions become mainstream at places like Starbucks I would expect folks agitating for worker power to less radical.
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
What choice do they have? At any rate, SS benefits kicked in at 65 originally because that was the lifespan of a worker, more or less. Raising the age is a perfectly reasonable ask if we can get people better affordable ealthcare. Truly disabled people at 65 can of course get SSDI.
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
You shouldn't be forced to join a union but joining a union should not be an issue for any company. In practice, creating unions is heavily frowned upon and discouraged through various underhanded means. That should tell you that companies view unions as enemies, and collective bargaining in general. And companies for sure don't have your interests in mind. Also for sure you don't have the negotiating power they have…
Not arguing against all unions here, but I think saying all companies don't have our interests in mind is a bit hyperbolic. Many software engineers and product managers at places like Alphabet and Meta are treated extremely well, make great salaries in the bay area, and (at least pre pandemic) were catered to with many great benefits (including catering). There are some jobs/places where this isn't the case, but many…
> Alphabet
The Company Formerly Known As Google, that literally had to settle (i.e. paid money to not lose the trial) for collusion to depress employee wages?
That company? Yeah, employee interests at heart > Meta
For employees I hear The Company Formerly Knows as Facebook is actually quite good. But they're not a charity.
> were catered to with many great benefits (including catering)
Those benefits are cheap when bought in bulk, like corporations do. They also encouraged employees to stay more at work. Yes, they're nice, but let's not pretend that those benefits were not chosen very strategically.
Both Google and Facebook are making a ton of money and still growing like gangbusters (Facebook somewhat less so). Once their growth plateaus, if they need to fire 10k employees each to increase profits and share values, they will do so without remorse. Probably on a Zoom call with all 10k employees at once.
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea of the republican working class party has always been more of a clever rhetorical strategy than a reality. I tend to agree, but then again I really don't grok the Trump thing, and I can't claim that I saw it coming or sticking around as long as it has. At this point I would not be terribly shocked to see a bit of role reversal between the two major parties.
I've been a conservative since I had a minimum wage job, for one reason: I want the government out of my life as much as possible. I firmly believe nobody will care about my family as much as I do and I don't want the government's golden handcuffs. Leave me alone, let me work, and I'll happily live with whatever happens. I think this is the fundamental disconnect in left-right (economic) politics. The left, as I see…
I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the topic at hand but statistics show the far majority of minimim wage workers, for many of whom it is not just a short phase, will disagree with you on this.
Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize
#420> Employees cast 2,654 votes to be represented by Amazon Labor Union and 2,131 against, giving the union a win by more than 10 percentage points, according to the National Labor Relations Board. More than 8,300 workers at the building This is just sad. Just a hair over 50% of the eligible voters voted; weirdly, approximately the same voter turnout for US elections historically. Does half of any given population just…
Short answer? Yes.
Long answer probably involves value systems and what individuals are actually doing on that day…