Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 244 posts

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#71

Post by dragonwriter »

tyingq wrote: post #35
mola wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe as an example for other managers? Basically it's "no union" or your head... Disgusting anyway.

I'm skeptical, because it seems like most of the anti-union activities are either dictated or run from HDQ. It doesn't feel like something where the local leadership was free to make their own plays.

> It doesn't feel like something where the local leadership was free to make their own plays.

Firing managers where unionization happens encourages managers where unionization efforts are under way to make their own plays, whether this is formally allowed or not, whether by company policy or the law.

Obviously, getting caught on independent, policy/law-forbidden, efforts would also have adverse consequences, so the incentive also is to not get caught.

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#72

Post by GeorgeTirebiter »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #62
GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #58

The correct answer to the Amazon Problem is to create an alternate organization that starts as a unionized workplace, and goes from there. E.g. Spain's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation These problems mentioned in this thread are due to the greed of Capitalists. Period. Once the 'age of the Capitalist' is put behind us, and we move towards post-capitalism, then bs like OP mentions will be history.

What system follows capitalism?

That's why I provided the Wikipedia URL. Here's a useful quote: "In 2012 Richard D. Wolff, an American professor of economics, hailed the Mondragon set of enterprises, including the good wages it provides for employees, the empowerment of ordinary workers in decision making, and the measure of equality for female workers, as a major success and cited it as a working model of an alternative to the capitalist mode of production."

The other standard source for a critique of Capitalism is in the early works of Marx, especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital . In Marx' later works, he gets a little cranky for my taste.

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#73

Post by sieabahlpark »

dragonwriter wrote: post #64
joshe wrote: post #39

To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. This could have been that the rsi injury complaints were true and unaddressed promptly. Or that the managers came off as cold in communications. Or 5 other things they could have done better.

> To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. You’d think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the actual labor conditions driving…

Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie?

They're not omniscient.

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#74

Post by dragonwriter »

avgcorrection wrote: post #53
Sevii wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people blame unions for killing the American dominance of car manufacturing worldwide. And the general de-industrialization of the US. It was a big hit to peoples conceptualization of the country.

“Amazon reportedly left police in Spain 'dumbfounded' by asking them to intervene in a mass warehouse strike and patrol worker productivity”[1] I wonder what will take for anti-union companies-can-do-nothing-wrong people to consider that maybe companies can be authoritarian and bad. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-asked-police-in-spain...

> I wonder what will take for anti-union companies-can-do-nothing-wrong people to consider that maybe companies can be authoritarian and bad.

It will take an ideological inversion. Those people already recognize that companies can be authoritarian, but they see this as a positive thing (and often have a strong financial interest in it.)

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#75

Post by [deleted] »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #58

The correct answer to the Amazon Problem is to create an alternate organization that starts as a unionized workplace, and goes from there. E.g. Spain's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation These problems mentioned in this thread are due to the greed of Capitalists. Period. Once the 'age of the Capitalist' is put behind us, and we move towards post-capitalism, then bs like OP mentions will be history.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#76

Post by tokai »

stormbrew wrote: post #49
rolandog wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be ironic that this makes Senior Managers realize it's in their best interest to join a union?

Most unions don’t allow managers to join, as they’re generally considered to be part of capital’s collective bargaining side, if not part of capital themselves. I think most modern labor theory includes a “professional-managerial class” to account for this. There’s an argument to be had about where this line makes sense in modern megacorps but local managers in blue collar work tend to hold a lot of power over their…

Every group can organize. There's no magical barrier. Dunno about the US but unions for management does exist in other countries.

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#77

Post by dragonwriter »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #73
dragonwriter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. You’d think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the actual labor conditions driving…

Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie? They're not omniscient.

> Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie?

So, you think that they managed to systemically cover up their misdeeds from higher management before the election, but conveniently failed to continue that coverup after the union election.

I mean, sure, you concoct a strained narrative which makes this a noble move by Amazon’s higher management, but...why strain to do that?

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#78

Post by zoover2020 »

k__ wrote: post #33
whycombagator wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been around since what, 94? So 6 years is over 20% of the time Amazon has existed.

So, if a company exist 1 year and someone worked there for 6 months, they're a veteran?

Relative to the company, yes

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#79

Post by MobiusHorizons »

k__ wrote: post #33
whycombagator wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been around since what, 94? So 6 years is over 20% of the time Amazon has existed.

So, if a company exist 1 year and someone worked there for 6 months, they're a veteran?

It’s not a technical term, so it’s always going to be somewhat of a matter of opinion. If I had to guess, you could only really be described as a veteran at some company if you had been there longer than most other employees. It seems like at least 60 or 70% of the employees should be newer.

Re: Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse

#80

Post by adra »

Sevii wrote: post #29
idiotsecant wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles the mind how many people are opposed to collective bargaining, of all things. Give the least powerful in society a fraction of an ounce of power and it makes some people completely irrational.

A lot of people blame unions for killing the American dominance of car manufacturing worldwide. And the general de-industrialization of the US. It was a big hit to peoples conceptualization of the country.

And yet countries the world over turfed the one protection against the race to the bottom, which are tariffs. The auto industry still exists in North America because tariffs are still in place. Any time there's a significant economic imbalance of incentives, only tariffs will 'level' out the desire to offshore.

Unions may have been presented as the scapegoat and clearly they made raw profitability worse (by what margin is certainly open for debate), the large reason that blue collar wages have been deteriorating in real dollars since the 80s can largely be attributed to globalization and the elimination of tariffs. Argue about the net benefits to the world, maybe. But your loss of dollars probably wasn't the union bugaboo but globalization.

Post reply on HN