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Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

seattletimes.com

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Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#301

Post by bg24 »

sleepybrett wrote: post #47
idlewords wrote: post #13

The danger of any walkout is that you won't be allowed to walk back in. The time for useful collective action was back when tech companies couldn't hire fast enough, and tech employees enjoyed unusual leverage. After 27,000 layoffs, a performative walkout without a defined goal is just making it easier for Amazon management as they plan the next round of cuts.

If the number is a large enough percentage they couldn't do a lockout. While it may be an industry-wide supply side problem for employees you can't just fire a huge portion of the staff and hire new people and expect things to just keep on truckin', losing that much institutional knowledge would be suicide.

A large percentage of employees can definitely walk out if they do not need to worry about paying their bills, should things turn south. There will be less demand and more supply of workers in the foreseeable future.

My opinion is generic across all companies. I am not an Amazon employee, nor own any stocks.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#302

Post by zamalek »

RestlessMind wrote: post #293
hackernewds wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is much better to have uniform policies for the entire or Why? There are ample examples than not where this is not applied. Significantly compensation

"uniform policies regarding WFH/RTO ". FTFY. I thought that was obvious from the context but oh well..

Still, why?

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#304

Post by adultSwim »

idlewords wrote: post #13

The danger of any walkout is that you won't be allowed to walk back in. The time for useful collective action was back when tech companies couldn't hire fast enough, and tech employees enjoyed unusual leverage. After 27,000 layoffs, a performative walkout without a defined goal is just making it easier for Amazon management as they plan the next round of cuts.

We still all of the work. They can't do it without us. We have tremendous power that we seldom acknowledge.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#305

Post by adultSwim »

shawndrost wrote: post #181
pretendgeneer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how now is never the right time. It's always just gone or some time soon .

My good man, you are responding to an actual union organizer who actually spent the recent boom years doing "now is the right time" work at software companies, at the actual right time.

It's easier to make a case to workers when things aren't so good.

This is particularly significant in software, where we have little experience with the benefits of organizing. It's an uphill fight to convince fellow workers. There have been decades of, now internalized, anti-union sentiment from owners.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#306

Post by tempfortwitt90 »

hackernewds wrote: post #284
revelio wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given people were originally predicting collapse within days, how long do you need to draw conclusions?

How do you know the business will not collapse? Revenue internally is down 40% and importantly the activity is a cesspool, wouldn't reckon that's the company just chugging along

I made an account just to tell you that after a decade of placeholder Twitter account, I started using it after Elon. When Tucker Carlson posted his videos about being fired, my dad made an account because he thinks it'll be the new YouTube. He doesn't even watch Foxnews.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#307

Post by thisarticle »

hackernewds wrote: post #284
revelio wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given people were originally predicting collapse within days, how long do you need to draw conclusions?

How do you know the business will not collapse? Revenue internally is down 40% and importantly the activity is a cesspool, wouldn't reckon that's the company just chugging along

I was referring to engineering, not the rest of the business.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#308

Post by oregano »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #254
jayd16 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you getting that? Where did they say it wasn't effective project management? They just said it was harder. And it is harder. For example, it's way easier to see when a junior dev is lost when you can see pain in there face from across the office instead of hoping it shows in one of the check-in meetings.

asking simple, low effort questions -- "hey how do I log into [this new system]" -- is as simple as leaning into a room or over a cube, but with remote you have to poke someone. in person you just drag a laptop over but remote you have a call, share a screen, carve out time. not necessarily more disruptive, but sure feels like more effort, and now involves multiple apps sucking up bandwidth and potentially logging ev…

"...but with remote you have to poke someone" This example does not make sense because in both scenarios, in person or remote, you're 'poking' someone (aka disrupting someone) to ask a question.

Also physically schlepping a laptop around to show someone is way more work than a simple screen share....and in either scenario here you're needing to 'carve out time'.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#309

Post by PeterisP »

hackernewds wrote: post #286
RestlessMind wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is possible for everyone to get what they want. At overall software-industry level? Yes. At individual company level? It is much better to have uniform policies for the entire org. Either be completely remote, or completely in-office, or if you want hybrid then mandate the days when everyone must be in office.

> It is much better to have uniform policies for the entire or Why? There are ample examples than not where this is not applied. Significantly compensation

Because organizations rely on internal communication, and remote/on-site/hybrid each require very different processes to manage work and internal communications.

If all your organization processes are set up to work well for on-site, then the effectiveness of the remote people in your organization will hurt; if all your organization processes are set up for remote interactions, then the overheads of that don't make sense for the on-site people sitting next to each other; and if some units are fully on-site and some are fully remote, each with different style of working, then you might as well have two separate organizations with vendor/contractor relationship, that would be more efficient as their collaboration anyway have to be managed that way.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#310

Post by junofan »

lelanthran wrote: post #160
junofan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional licensure would be great. The whole union thing is for people lower in the pay scale.

> Professional licensure would be great. The whole union thing is for people lower in the pay scale. Maybe, but in my view unionising is the first step on the way to establishing something similar to what doctors or lawyers or accountants have. I don't think it is possible to get to "Certified Professional Software Engineer" without first having "Union of Accredited Software Developers". And therein lies the biggest…

That makes zero sense, sorry.
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