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Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

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Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#161

Post by andrepd »

ETH_start wrote: post #98
andrepd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So your company treats you like shit and you quit. Where do you go now? You need to sell your labour to survive, so you lost all your income. Your employer has other sources of income, has reserve capital, so that even if your job was critical and production is now shut while they look for a replacement (unlikely), they're gonna be fine. But you need to eat tonight . Not next quarter or next month or even next…

The employer owes you nothing. You're citing your difficult circimstances to justify getting the government to seize control of an employer from its shareholders, in dictating its hiring decisions. But as a practical matter, opportunities expand faster when labor markets are free, and capital owners are secure in their rights. Employment growth has been widely observed to be stronger where labor laws are less restric…

>The employer owes you nothing. You're citing your difficult circimstances to justify getting the government to seize control of an employer from its shareholders, in dictating its hiring decisions.

It's not about "difficult circumstances" at all. It's about the fundamental divide between those who need to sell their labour to survive, and those who can extract rent without working due only to having a monopoly on capital. It's a qualitative distinction, of class, not a quantitative matter of being more or less poor.

Also I did not even say anything about "government seizing control". But I will say this: the current economic system based on joint-stock ownership of firms by capital monopolists is an entirely fabricated system, and not a rule of Nature. So don't argue "but you would seize property from their rightful owners" as if the very particular system of property rights currently in force wasn't a social invention enforced with violence by the state.

>Employment growth has been widely observed to be stronger where labor laws are less restrictive.

This is simply not true. Notice how the best countries to live in the world are invariably those with more labour protections and a mixed economy with heavy public participation. Limiting ourselves to the US, compare the standard of living in the gilded age vs the golden age of American labour organisation.

>Detroit

Also, it's very rich trying to link the downfall of American industry to unionisation... I could go on for an hour about this topic.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#163

Post by woodruffw »

JasonFruit wrote: post #46
rob74 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, TIL. However, if you look at the "language versions" of that Wikipedia page, that also explains my confusion: Deutsch: "US-Amerikaner" Español: "Estadounidense" Italiano: "Statunitensi" ... so there are plenty of languages that do make a distinction between "American living on the American continent(s)" and "American from the US". Full disclosure: I'm from Germany...

It's funny: when Americans realize we're saying the name of a foreign city badly, like Peking for Beijing, Canton for Guangzhou, and others, we move to assimilate our naming to that of the natives. Why is it that everyone insists that we refer to ourselves by the wrong name? Is it even possible for us to be wrong about what we call ourselves ?

Just as a note: Peking was a corruption by French missionaries, not Americans.

In general, these kinds of errors come from historical limitations: orthography, linguistics, &c. At minimum, it’s respectful to try to adapt based on our better, contemporary understanding.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#164

Post by lovelymono »

meatsauce wrote: post #71
sAbakumoff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much better question would be – why does the American ruling class deny basic human rights – decent wage, affordable health care, good education, safety?

Amazon starts at $18/hr. You want $100/hour to pack and move boxes? Start a moving company. Healthcare isn't a right. It is a luxury. Self defense, free speech, freedom of movement and association; those are human rights. Healthcare is only expensive because of the multiple layers of government and private corruption, litigation, and pie-halving. At the same time, Healthcare can save your life; what is your life trul…

    Healthcare isn't a right
From UN Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 25:

    1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
       well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing
       and medical care and necessary social servicess, and the right to security
       in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or
       other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#165

Post by lou1306 »

j-bos wrote: post #35
rob74 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, TIL. However, if you look at the "language versions" of that Wikipedia page, that also explains my confusion: Deutsch: "US-Amerikaner" Español: "Estadounidense" Italiano: "Statunitensi" ... so there are plenty of languages that do make a distinction between "American living on the American continent(s)" and "American from the US". Full disclosure: I'm from Germany...

Minor quible, but most spanish speakers I know refer to people from the USA as Americanos. Estadounidenses gets used as part of legalese and in the context of non US nationalism.

Ditto for Italian: "Americani" is much more common than "Statunitensi".

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#166

Post by vehemenz »

rob74 wrote: post #7
themitigating wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incorrect but widely assumed that if someone says "America" they mean the USA. What's funny about it?

That Canada is also located in America, and if someone from Canada identifies "America" with the US they are belittling their own country? I mean, the sentence wouldn't have been less understandable if they had used "US-style" instead of "American-style"?

You are confusing America, the continent, with America the country.

In conventional English, in most of the world, United States residents are called "Americans."

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#167

Post by BbzzbB »

nicoburns wrote: post #153
BbzzbB wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel your gripe, in Québec we sometimes make a point of saying "états-uniens" (rather than "américains") which rolls of the tongue smoothly, but United Statians doesn't ring as well in English. What good word is there to call Americans other than Americans? I've never heard someone use another term in English. However if it's belittling Canada, it's certainly belittling the other 55 countries of the Americas that s…

"US Citizen" or "from the US" tends to get used if trying to avoid the word American or be more specific. But "American" is definitely much, much more common.

I mean, that works for people of any country/region, but it doesn't really solve the misnomer that is the name designating habitants of the USA. That is, if it even is a misnomer for being "non-inclusive", after all the USA is the only country with America in it's name, while the preceding part of the name is kind of descriptive. We don't use "Democratic Republics", "United" and "Islands" for designating people from countries with those, maybe it's fair to do the same with Americans (tho Americans say the US/United States so it's also fair to use that as a base for the name).

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#168

Post by CoastalCoder »

mabbo wrote: post #147
rob74 wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

Canadians do not refer to themselves as "American" in the same way that the Irish don't refer to themselves as "British" despite living in the "British Isles". If you insist on calling a Canadian "American", you'll quickly find they stop inviting you to social events. Because we're polite, but a bit passive aggressive. Edit: grammar fixes.

I agree with your main point, but I'm not sure the analogy totally works.

People sometimes confuse "British" with meaning from Great Britain or from the U.K. I would guess that plenty of Irishmen would take exception to having their island treated as a de facto part of the U.K.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#169

Post by tclancy »

LanceH wrote: post #150
elicash wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be anti-union, that's fine. It's even legit to be pro-union but to say that for you personally, you're such an amazing performer that employers are fighting over you and so maybe the union is good for most but not you personally. For example, maybe NBA players would make much less without the union but LeBron personally would make more. Maybe you're the LeBron of developers! (There's no debate on whether barg…

The NBA players union is much more of a cartel (maybe trade guild?) than a union. What they definitely aren't is a union representing the employees of the NBA. They are a tiny minority of the employees, who take only for themselves.

Wow, that is quite the reframing. It’s a union of the players, not everyone involved in making an NBA game happen. There’s no arena to employ people if the game doesn’t exist. And the history of professional sports is filled with worker exploitation. I would have thought an industry that is a true meritocracy might be the one place all of the 10x developers here might understand a union’s purpose.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#170

Post by BbzzbB »

bombcar wrote: post #157
BbzzbB wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel your gripe, in Québec we sometimes make a point of saying "états-uniens" (rather than "américains") which rolls of the tongue smoothly, but United Statians doesn't ring as well in English. What good word is there to call Americans other than Americans? I've never heard someone use another term in English. However if it's belittling Canada, it's certainly belittling the other 55 countries of the Americas that s…

Which is amusing because the official name of Mexico is “ Estados Unidos Mexicanos” which is “états-uniens” also.

Which is something I've heard for the first time in this thread. I understand it's true, but isn't it a bit of a legal formality? When you go thru Mexican customs, it says Mexico, not Estados Unidos Mexicanos or United Mexican States (from the North). The passport says Mexico in bold on top and the full formal name on the crest. The U.N. seat's plate says Mexico.

Americans tend to even abbreviate their country to the US or United States, which makes états-uniens fair game in my book. I could be off base, but do Mexicans ever designate their country as Estados Unidos?

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