Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#481

Post by heavyset_go » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 12:55 AM UTC

alexk307 wrote: post #305

> 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…

Getting involved puts them at risk of retaliation. I wouldn't be surprised if that causes chilling effects on voter turnout or involvement in organizing.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#482

Post by Manuel_D » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 12:56 AM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #462

Manuel_D wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other vote in Alabama failed, by more than 10%.

https://www.reuters.com/business/amazons-union-vote-counts-s... It’s currently… 47% pro-union to 53% no-union in Alabama, with over 15% (400+ ballots) challenged by both sides. It could go either way, but “more than 10%” is not backed by any metrics.

From the article I read in the NY Times it was a gap of over 10% https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/technology/amazon-union-e...

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#483

Post by heavyset_go » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:02 AM UTC

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…

> They control huge pension and healthcare portfolios and can completely control the relationship with employers

Employers already do all of this, except you have no say in it. In contrast, you're granted democratic decision making with a union, so you do get a say in those arenas.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#484

Post by krapp » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #398

rootusrootus wrote: post #393

Earlier 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…

>The left, as I see it, wants some guarantee of a good outcome. The right wants liberty, recognizing that comes with risk.

I think it's more that the left believes government has a responsibility to guarantee equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome in what is assumed to be a fundamentally inequitable system. The big philosophical difference to me is in what each side believes the proper role of government should be. The right (tending to be the side that supports the military, police, harsh criminal penalties, etc.) believes government's only legitimate purpose is enforcing the laws and defending the borders, in other words the exercise of violence, whereas the left also believes the government has a duty to provide for the social welfare of its citizens in exchange for the power granted to it by social contract.

And when the right says it wants liberty, what it tends to mean is that it wants liberty from the social obligations that the left tend to want government to support.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#485

Post by marricks » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:04 AM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #480

rootusrootus wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's possible we'll see a generational wave of unionization. I fully expect this to happen. Younger folks today are the unlucky beneficiary of years of wage stagnation and home price inflation. They have every right to be angry, and I think they are collectively starting to realize that they have a lot of power to change the status quo. At the risk of veering into politics, I'm also not sure how this will change th…

High housing prices aren't the result of stagnant wages and rising wages will only cause housing to become more expensive (more money chasing the same housing stock) unless something is done to boost supply. Unions don't fix this, they might make it worse on the margins. Unionization is a mixed bag. The UAW has been in the news recently for a seemingly never ending parade of union leaders being sent to jail for corru…

How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? How many luxury condos are being built and sit unoccupied?

It seems like people always come out of the woodwork to explain how rising wages aren’t helpful and are solution must always seem to involve paying for more things (this cases houses).

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#486

Post by paulcole » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

RavlaAlvar wrote: post #463

A good news for anyone work inAmazon robotics branch, I guess?

I remember all these promises of how quick tech bros would be able to automate minimum wage and so-called “unskilled” jobs. Now for the past 18 months every Subway sandwich shop (and the like) in my area is begging people (not robots) to work.

I wouldn’t be betting on robots just yet.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#487

Post by cscurmudgeon » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:10 AM UTC

marricks wrote: post #485

pmorici wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High housing prices aren't the result of stagnant wages and rising wages will only cause housing to become more expensive (more money chasing the same housing stock) unless something is done to boost supply. Unions don't fix this, they might make it worse on the margins. Unionization is a mixed bag. The UAW has been in the news recently for a seemingly never ending parade of union leaders being sent to jail for corru…

How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? How many luxury condos are being built and sit unoccupied? It seems like people always come out of the woodwork to explain how rising wages aren’t helpful and are solution must always seem to involve paying for more things (this cases houses).

Why deny basic laws of supply and demand? Almost all economists agree low supply of homes is a factor.

https://econofact.org/why-and-where-are-housing-prices-risin...

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/homes-for-sale-hit-...

https://www.barrons.com/articles/may-housing-starts-51623796...

Supplies are hitting record lows.

There will always be millions of temporarily vacant homes in a country the size of the US as people move in and out of homes.

Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#488

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:13 AM UTC

ragona wrote: post #423

ARandomerDude wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is clearly a spectrum. On one hand we have Mad Max-style "might is right" anarchy, which is over-prioritizing freedom. On the other we remove all personal choice in order to "keep people safe." So the question is, "how much risk is acceptable?" Are we okay with the idea that getting sick can ruin your entire financial future? Are we okay with child labor? Personally I lean towards providing a social safety net,…

There's also a question of how personal freedom interacts between people. If one person has a contagious disease, and knows it, do they have a right to put others at risk of infection without those others' consent? If so, that infringes on the personal freedom of the others. If not, then isn't their personal freedom infringed? "Prioritizing freedom" and "keeping people safe" can each claim either position!

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#489

Post by csee » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:13 AM UTC

jackosdev wrote: post #453

wiredone wrote: post #447

I really don’t understand this push tbh. Amazon is already the industry leader in pay and benefits for these roles. Why was this needed? In 2022, the only time I tend to see a union do anything, it’s to disrupt and create mob like holds on things (shipping, trucking etc). There seems to be waaay more corruption in anything union related than without. Can someone seriously explain why this is needed or a good thing? W…

Spent a long time in Australian mines, some are heavily unionised, what you say is right it does attract the most toxic people, but at the same time even the truck drivers earn a fantastic living they can use to support a family. This is only possible because of the decades of strong unions negotiating better pay so the mines had to share the wealth. So to answer your question, the poorest people in the company benef…

> but at the same time even the truck drivers earn a fantastic living they can use to support a family. This is only possible because of the decades of strong unions negotiating better pay so the mines had to share the wealth.

How is this to do with unions and not just lack of labor supply, i.e. lack of people with a right to work in Australia who also want to be a truck driver in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#490

Post by zouhair » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:14 AM UTC

nessguy wrote: post #326

Barrera wrote: post #250

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…

You cannot have optional and union in the same sentence, that defeats the purpose of a union.

What you are saying is I want the union to do all the work without me being hands on on its function. Unions are useless if the workers just sit idle and wait for the representatives to do all the work.

Participation of all workers is what make a union powerful.