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The National Labor Relations Act prohibits employers from firing employees for participating in union activities.
Is it really illegal to fire managers who failed to prevent unionization of the employees? Because that is what seems to have happened here.
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I added an edit explaining my own misunderstanding. I'm pretty sure I added it before you posted this, so I'm not sure how you missed it, but it's there.
I did miss the edit. I guess I assumed for something that bad, you'd just delete that part of the comment. The point stands, that you would never have made such an unforced error if you didn't have such a laser focus on a comically uncharitable interpretation of the original parent's remark. As if the existence of manager-banned unions could ever be relevant to a comment specifically suggesting what a manager should…
I feel like you're kinda throwing stones in a glass house here by imparting a whole bunch of really bizarre motives to me (I certainly didn't call -- nor did I think anyone was -- an idiot), apparently not reading my entire post, and then accusing me of not reading things charitably. I can assure you I am a fallible human being capable of misunderstanding things people say without malice.
Many people just plain don't know that unions (at least in north american blue collar work) are often not open to even middle management being members. I was simply trying to add information to the thread.
Anyways, deleting the part of the post that made a mistake would have made all the replies awfully confusing.
> Several were veterans of the company, with more than six years of experience I think it's sad that we have an industry, where someone with six years' experience, is considered a "veteran." But it sounds like Amazon is sending a message to managers of other warehouses, to go as low as possible, to fight unionization. Expect things to get ugly.
You know those help wanted commercials Amazon floods media with, "We pay $15 to start, blah, blah. Start a new career." I just assumed they were always hiring because of consistent growth. According to the guy (forget his name. Wears a gold chain.) representing the union; Amazon fires a lot of employees. Many for no reason. (I once read a restaurant success book. Everything he recommended made sence, except one, and…
Just to give an estimate. Covid might have contributed to that though, probaly more temp workers than usual.
> The managers were told they were being fired as part of an “organizational change,” Nit: That language implies that they were laid off, not fired. The timing is a stupid move from Amazon, and these employees will likely be able to make a good case in court. Being from Europe I have mixed feelings about unions here in the US... On the one hand I think they are essential to tilt the uneven power dynamic between emplo…
In my opinion workers in America (my self included) desperately need to re-unionize. While I do admit that my working conditions are personally no worse then back home (I certainly get paid a lot more here; though I wouldn’t mind some health care) that is not the case most for American workers, including close friends and family.
Most Americans are lacking basic labor rights that we in Europe take for granted, such as paid sick leave, parental leave, paid holidays, higher overtime pay, guaranteed rest period, heck they don’t even get mandatory breaks and refreshments doing hard manual labor. This is something that collective bargaining, cross industry worker’s solidarity, picket lines, and strategic voting got them in the early last century but they have since lost.
In Europe we don’t need it as much because we have maintained our unions (and most—but not all—of these rights). In Europe the unions don’t need to be as political because the political victories from the prior years still stand. In America, not so much.
With that said, this doesn’t mean America should just take any union. If the union isn’t working—or worse it is actively harmful—it’s leadership needs to be replaced. If you don’t have a union you should try to get one, and you should try as you can to elect a good and competent leadership that will work improve labor conditions for all workers.
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I see your point except a "truthful and inclusive environment" would be positive (or at least neutral) to unionization. So, clearly the latter.
Unions arise for a reason. In an inclusive and trustful environment, those reasons can be addressed without adding another authority into the mix.
> The managers were told they were being fired as part of an “organizational change,” Nit: That language implies that they were laid off, not fired. The timing is a stupid move from Amazon, and these employees will likely be able to make a good case in court. Being from Europe I have mixed feelings about unions here in the US... On the one hand I think they are essential to tilt the uneven power dynamic between emplo…
When I worked at Boeing on the 757 gearbox design, at one point the box was put into a test rig to see how it would behave under load. I went out to the shop to in case any questions needed answering. At one point, a bolt needed turning (don't recall why) and I stepped forward to do it. The shop union steward literally lunged in front of me, arms outstretched, to block me. He informed me that only a union mechanic ca…
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Curious: Where do you feel the SWE people they churn through generally end up? I'm a bit concerned about this one guy on one of my previous teams who moved from Europe to US to work on AWS. I don't think he was aware of the company culture.
If one starts in Seattle, I'd expect them to end up at Microsoft, Expedia, other FANGs maybe, among other co's. Assuming they're not burned out.
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> which have ALOT of downside for even the workers in them. Do you have examples? As someone in the UK I don't see anything different between the Amazon workers Union and the unions here except for age and experience. They all just want to not be treated like dirt.
The big difference (and please correct me if I get UK info wrong, I am not an expert in UK Labor, I am versed in US Labor) that in the UK you have sector unions, not enterprise unions. A company may have employee's working under several unions, and I believe there are even competiting Sector unions that an employee can choose to join finding the union that best suites them In the US, typically, the is a 1:1 union, en…
This is not correct, we have both much like the US.
We have unions for a particular company for example, here is the Wikipedia link for the Nationwide Union, a building society. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_Group_Staff_Union
Certainly over time they will consolidate, but that goes back to my point about age. If other warehouses unionise, at some point they will group together to prevent the closure of warehouses just because Amazon doesn't like the people working there.
I understood the US has the same situation, with groups like United Farm Workers or the Federation of Teachers.
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closed shops have been illegal since Taft-Hartley in 1947.
That is a technically in terms only. So apologies for using "closed" [1] instead of "union"[1] shop which are functionally the same thing, and Union Shops still very much exist which is clear from my description of what I was talking about in my comment, (i.e I clearly stated employees were required to join the union post hire) Right to Work states are a counter to Union Shops, which there is active efforts to do awa…
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When I left Amazon (as an SWE), with about 11mo of tenure, I was apparently at about median longevity. Yes, some of it is their growth, but a significant reason is also that they churn through people unnecessary. It's ridiculous to me that a big tech company treats people so terribly and continues to get away with it.
I endured 13 months. In my mind, very little skill development happened during those 13 months. But here I am, years later, and that line item in my history still carries some sense of market validation - that, because I successfully navigated the recruitment funnel and was at one time an Amazonian, that I must have useful skills.
Out of all of the positions/firms on my CV, that one seems to carry the most weight to recruiters and other companies, despite it being the time where I did the least productive work in my life (So much so that when I was asked why I was leaving during my exit interview I straight up said “I’ve gotten dumber since working here.”)