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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

#711

Post by parineum »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #660
parineum wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if it was designed to do that. A loophole is using a thing (a loophole) for something it is not supposed to be used for but is advantageous (entry).

This is like saying a 'backdoor' isn't a backdoor because the hacker who put it there intended it to be used for nefarious purposes.

Backdoors are, by definition, intentionally put in place surreptitiously.

In fact, you could better call this exact tax policy being discussed as a backdoor for rich people in the tax code.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#712

Post by educaysean »

djrobstep wrote: post #549
educaysean wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it bad? It's bad because it takes away freedom and agency from the working class, and workers rights is something I care about.

Why does being forced to deal with management and contribute to shareholder profits not take away freedom and agency from the working class?

When did I make this claim? I hate seeing these snarky takes on HN. Lots of things take away agency from the working class: like employer-centric insurance system, complex and regressive taxes, etc.

But you already knew these things and you also knew that the topic on hand was about unions. God forbid anyone say anything critical about THAT. If you have a point to make, get right to it instead of hiding behind snark.

Edit: nevermind guy. I can see others have already tried. Cheers.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#713

Post by cscurmudgeon »

Epa095 wrote: post #622
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

>Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from? He did not say that though... He commented that many got built, but withouth any indication of why. You read it as him claiming that 'someone is asking them'. I read it as a reflection on the uneven distribution of wealth (which unions can help with).

Not directly, but look at the last sentence.

> are solution must always seem to involve paying for more things (this cases houses)

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#714

Post by alexk307 »

nxm wrote: post #384
alexk307 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Or persistent labor strikes and disruptions. See France

I'd gladly give up convenience and the need to have everything available to me at all times, for more collective bargaining and better treatment of human beings. If a labor force goes on strike, you should probably ask yourself why, and if you would do the same, rather than just taking it as a disruption to your life. Would you rather get your crap from Amazon in one day, or would you rather support better treatment and benefits for 10s of thousands of human beings?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#715

Post by [deleted] »

heavyset_go wrote: post #617
stale2002 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that denies bargaining rights to members-only unions Then you don't understand what "bargaining rights" are. It is absolutely fully legal for a members union to negotiation on behalf of its members, if those members consent to it. In the same what that it is fully legal for me to hire a lawyer friend of mine, to bargain on my behalf. What it can't do, is force everyone else, who is not in the members only union, to…

Workers are free to take non-union jobs if they don't want to be in a union.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#716

Post by stale2002 »

hither_shores wrote: post #621
stale2002 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that denies bargaining rights to members-only unions Then you don't understand what "bargaining rights" are. It is absolutely fully legal for a members union to negotiation on behalf of its members, if those members consent to it. In the same what that it is fully legal for me to hire a lawyer friend of mine, to bargain on my behalf. What it can't do, is force everyone else, who is not in the members only union, to…

Employers have a legal obligation to negotiate in good faith with unions which are the exclusive representatives of an entire bargaining unit. They have no such obligation to members-only unions. This is what the "right to collectively bargain" refers to in the context of US labor law. If you don't like the terminology, you can try to take it up with the NLRB, but it doesn't change the facts on the ground.

> If you don't like the terminology, you can try to take it up with the NLRB

Well, I am talking to you here though right? And there is context here, to this subthread that you are ignoring/missing.

If you want to say "Non union members cannot force 3rd parties to work with them, if they don't want to" Then yes I agree.

But the context of this subthread was about the idea of who is or is not forcing people to do things.

So, to get back to the point of all of this, I was initially responding to someone else who tried to claim "That's not exactly liberty".

But it is liberty. Liberty is the idea of consenting parties, not being forced to do things. So yes it is liberty to say that people can join non-members unions, but that those non-members unions cannot force other people to do certain things.

Do you understand the point and context of this all? It was about whether that is "liberty" or not, which just means who is or is not forcing others to be in the group, or forcing people to work with your group.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#717

Post by 0des »

matsemann wrote: post #698
thathndude wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife was in a union and was able to decline membership. She was straight up bullied/harassed by her union-belonging peers when she left (saving some serious cash — relatively speaking — by not having to pay dues anymore). Nothing about her job changed when she left the union. I have no issues with unions, provided the employees have the choice to belong. But there’s the rub many (most?) states require membership (…

If everyone could reape the benefits but don't pay there would be no unions. Did your wife also try to skip paying taxes? Do you have "no problems with taxes as long as they're not mandatory"?

> If everyone could reape the benefits but don't pay there would be no unions.

Right to work states exist for this reason, and they do fine. Unions in a right to work state are not mandatory.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#718

Post by stale2002 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #617
stale2002 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that denies bargaining rights to members-only unions Then you don't understand what "bargaining rights" are. It is absolutely fully legal for a members union to negotiation on behalf of its members, if those members consent to it. In the same what that it is fully legal for me to hire a lawyer friend of mine, to bargain on my behalf. What it can't do, is force everyone else, who is not in the members only union, to…

Workers are free to take non-union jobs if they don't want to be in a union.

Those workers are also free to use right to work laws, to make it so they are allowed to get jobs at whatever company wants to hire them while also not joining the union.

And then workers who prefer the union, can join members only unions that are not forced to represent people not in them.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#719

Post by folkrav »

kuang_eleven wrote: post #641
marricks wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? About 16M units unoccupied [1]. > How many luxury condos are being built Quite a few! New construction is almost always targeted at the high-end, which has been true throughout history. Low-end housing, outside specific government projects, tend to be the high-end housing of the past > and sit unoccupied? Very, very few. The idea of luxury housing being built onl…

So basically, what you're saying is there are millions of unoccupied units, which should be older, now lower-end units, but people still can't afford to buy them.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#720

Post by hotpotamus »

robomartin wrote: post #710
tsimionescu wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in this example, at least half the problem was definitely not high prices on the factory floor, it was bad salespeople, an obsession with extracting profit, corporate bureaucracy, inefficient work practices. Given what you witnessed from the customer facing side, so you think there were no similar delays and inefficiencies in their manufacturing and acquisitions side, and no similar attempts at maximizing profits…

> bad salespeople More like the business culture is in serious need of recalibration. At the same time, some of it is easy to understand. Manufacturing is hard, for most, unimaginably hard. The sad reality in the US is that, because of costs and the layers of bullshit you have to deal with, the easiest way to survive is to focus on high dollar/high margin markets. That means that if you can land jobs in aerospace or…

I would think that the higher oil goes, the more incentive there is for clean energy. Here's a guy who actually formed a company based on that premise.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/terraform-indu...

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