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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

#171

Post by seretogis »

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.

"US citizen" excludes a huge number of people who live in the USA but do so without the benefits of citizenship, so that isn't great either. "American" being synonymous with "people from the USA" may not be completely accurate but it seems the best of available options.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#172

Post by elicash »

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.

No, it's a union; you can find them listed on the DOL website as a union if you look them up.

It's not uncommon for different workers to be represented by different unions in a single workplace. UNITE HERE, among others, represents some stadium workers.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#173

Post by sanp »

newsclues wrote: post #89

It’s not just Amazon it’s big and small businesses that operate this way. I rather focus broader reform than just focusing on Amazon.

I don’t know why you are being downvoted.

In fact, it is your local McD franchisee who is doing the most to ensure that min wage workers do not get organized.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#174

Post by chmod775 »

Meta:

Right now there's thirteen top level comments on this story, and only one of them isn't heavily downvoted, flagged, or dead.

At least some of the comments on this story objectively shouldn't be flagged, because they're made in good faith by reputable accounts, while most comments could be taken straight from Facebook.

On a five hour old submission with 200 votes you'd normally expect some worthwhile discussion, but the few people who try are struggling.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#175

Post by sAbakumoff »

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…

>> Amazon starts at $18/hr

I think it's a lie. AFAIK they pay warehouse workers $15/hour. As you start your message with lying, the rest of is BS.

Safety, by the way, means not being afraid of being shut by a right-wing delusional maniac.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#176

Post by TigeriusKirk »

sAbakumoff wrote: post #175
meatsauce wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> Amazon starts at $18/hr I think it's a lie. AFAIK they pay warehouse workers $15/hour. As you start your message with lying, the rest of is BS. Safety, by the way, means not being afraid of being shut by a right-wing delusional maniac.

"The average starting wage of $18 an hour will be effective in regions where labor markets are tight, while the company will continue to pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour, said Dave Bozeman, vice president of delivery services at Amazon."

So "lie" is a bit strong here.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#177

Post by JasserInicide »

ppod wrote: post #130
zero_shift wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why you skipped over these? > management has worked to isolate pro-union workers and threatened to relocate the warehouses if unionization succeeds. > One worker said his life has become miserable since he uttered the word “union” at work. “Every coworker who talks to me, after a few seconds, they are interrogated by the manager. When they do that, people don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m being i…

Because it's vague and hearsay. The most frustrating thing about these debates is that the pro-union side are so hostile to anyone who questions anything, as though they assume that anyone who doubts the union must be a business owner. I'm a worker, I would like to be part of a union that worked. But I don't see unions that work, I just see unreasonable and propaganda-like articles like these. When there is a dispute…

The most frustrating thing about these debates is that the pro-union side are so hostile to anyone who questions anything, as though they assume that anyone who doubts the union must be a business owner.

The same exact thing happens on the other side; those vehemently against unions assume you want to usher in a new age of communism and start implementing mass killings all in the name of progress and equality.

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#178

Post by mojzu »

jcims wrote: post #125
jmyeet wrote: post #6

It's a testament to how effective propaganda can be when you see how easily you can get people to vote against their own interests. It's crazy to me that anyone who works in these Amazon warehouses votes agains tunionization but they do [1]. Even in the successful vote, there were still a lot of "no" votes. Unionization in the US is the lowest of all OECD nations (~10%) [2]. Is it any wonder US workers don't get paid…

>get people to vote against their own interests. This is one of the most obnoxious terms I see in contemporary political dialogue. It's presumptuous, it's elitist, it's a thinly veiled way to say 'these people are too stupid to know what's good for them'.

I think that's an unfair characterisation, I doubt most people making the statement are arguing that people are stupid, but more often that they have been lied to/duped by people seeking to use their support for policies they might otherwise disagree with or vice versa. E.g. people who rail against Obamacare in one sentence and praise the affordable care act in the next are not inherently stupid, they have more likely just been repeatedly lied to/misled

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#179

Post by golf_mike »

pera wrote: post #140
j-bos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm a native Spanish speaker and most, if not all, people I know use "Estadounidenses" or "yankees" (colloquially). I do see "Americanos" used in translated media though.

Fun fact: an "Americano" also means an espresso with water added

Re: Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal

#180

Post by photochemsyn »

The general issue with the largest employers in the neoliberalized countries (Amazon, Walmart) relative to the outsourced sectors (manufacturing mainly) is that wages are now much lower for the blue-collar worker, who is now doing service/shipping (~$15/hr -> ~$30k/yr) rather than manufacturing (~$30/hr -> ~$60k/yr).

Amazon employs about one million people in the United States, and unionization and collective bargaining could easily result in a doubling of their labor costs. This would certainly benefit the local economies surrounding Amazon warehouse locations, but would mean profits and dividends would fall. This is a significant number, an increase in labor costs by about $30B per year.

Amazon's gross profits vary year-to-year, but are on the order of $150B, so they can clearly afford to pay their workers a wage that would allow them to move up to respectable middle-class status - and this would also likely result in less employee turnover as well. The investors and executives would have to absorb the costs, but isn't that reasonable?

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