Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#321

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 1:45 AM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #236

toomuchtodo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die every year in the US. 4 million voters turn 18. We're just arguing time horizon and cohort turn out rates. Bernie was just too early after Reagan, globalization, and deregulation. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generation... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generat... https://archive.is/iRyQE https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/…

Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.

This is a religious belief, not an observation. Discounting all allegations of shenanigans, 45% of the Democratic Party primary voters supported him in 2016, and probably around or not much less than that in 2020. The man consistently polls as extremely popular (although that popularity took a hit after 2020), and is as old as dirt, along with a huge number of his voters.

Your views of the situation disregard your observations about the situation, if you're at any way aware of the data about Sanders' popularity over the last 10 years, the popularity of his policies, the fact that he was nearly President in 2016, and the fact that instead of him, a bunch of over-35s elected a wrestler game show host, it's nuts to still pretend that people generally mature into middle-of-the-road conservatism.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#322

Post by nitwit005 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #319

nitwit005 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix is to stop tying various benefits to employment, so there'd be no need to worry about who is full time or part time, or who they work for. Unfortunately, changing most of those programs is political suicide, particularly anything health care related.

The thing is, I see a huge difference between high-end health plans (for example, at places like Meta, which include IVF coverage) and middle-of-the-road plans (like my employer provides) and bare-minimum plans (like MediCal). Which plan would we be talking about for government coverage? I assume barebones plans. In that case, it still matters who you work for, because some employers still provide much better coverag…

Almost all health insurance you get through an employer is part of a government program to subsidize health care.

About 1.28% of US gross domestic product is spent subsidizing employer health plans: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-06/57962-health-insura...

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#323

Post by lokar » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #219

esalman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's political suicide for Republicans. Left leaning Democrats like Bernie are all for it.

What's to stop your local city government from increasing taxes to hire a doctor and provide them with a building and staff in order to provide medical services to locals residents? It seems to me that the problem is that everyone wants a federal solution to healthcare and the United States is generally structured to limit federal power. Fire departments are funded locally generally speaking, it didn't take a federal…

In the large, the issue is taxes are too low to support current spending. Only the federal government can run a sustained deficit. Republicans aggressively take advantage of this to cut taxes while disingenuously complaining about debt.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#324

Post by bravura » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 1:55 AM UTC

finite_depth wrote: post #249

umeshunni wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.

I'm well into my 30s, in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them. I'm alive today because of their benefits, and I'd be the worst kind of hypocrite to pull the ladder up after me. People's objection to social safety nets mostly isn't their desire to keep their money. It's a perception that the people who need those safety nets are lazy b…

Yeah, the sad fact is that people who received the fewest benefits and outside help are people more likely to reject a social safety network. What's sad is that these are the people who are most likely to benefit from this progressive change.

It's suggested that they fear that a (small) fraction of people are lazy and parasitical and will manipulate and abuse these systems. In some ways, I'm more cynical, and believe the cause is more deeply rooted: Since these people were hazed at some point in their lives (even if they're middle class, e.g. they took a job they hated beacuse gave them decent health insurance), they believe everyone should be hazed.

It's the old chestnut: "Do this shitty pointless thing, it builds character. (subtext: I was forced to do this shitty pointless thing, so why shouldn't you younger folks be too)."

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#325

Post by cmh89 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

bravura wrote: post #320

cmh89 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in public health at a state government, in a western state. The biggest hurdle I see is that America has freedom of movement and residency. If my state creates truly affordable health care, we will of course have refugees from conservative states coming here for medical care. We'll probably end up with a public option of some kind that will somewhat function like health insurance but who knows.

This is an interesting point. And perhaps worse yet, high quality doctors will have the freedom to move out of your state. I'm an American living and Germany and sadly, my GP who is also a personal friend of mine, will be shutting down their practice at the end of the year because their small practice simply isn't financially sustainable. They will instead start treating the prison population, which apparently pays m…

There is no chance that the state would cap rates, I'm not sure they even could. The real pull would be trying to expand Medicaid, which is free,creating a single payer system and raising taxes, or creating public health insurance, or some combination of both.

The public option would be the best in a vacuum, but if its truly affordable, we will still attract uninsured and under-insured people who come here when they get sick.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#326

Post by ewoodrich » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 1:57 AM UTC

Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #319

nitwit005 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix is to stop tying various benefits to employment, so there'd be no need to worry about who is full time or part time, or who they work for. Unfortunately, changing most of those programs is political suicide, particularly anything health care related.

The thing is, I see a huge difference between high-end health plans (for example, at places like Meta, which include IVF coverage) and middle-of-the-road plans (like my employer provides) and bare-minimum plans (like MediCal). Which plan would we be talking about for government coverage? I assume barebones plans. In that case, it still matters who you work for, because some employers still provide much better coverag…

Agree completely, it's easy to gloss over what that coverage would look like.

But just want to point out that "low end" Medicaid plans are frequently better in many ways in states where the program is well supported as far as coverage vs middle-of-the-road employer plans. Zero out-of-pocket expenses, and in Oregon, Washington and California they cover routine dental care as well, for example.

They typically have very restricted networks however vs employer provided plans.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#327

Post by cabaalis » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #219

esalman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's political suicide for Republicans. Left leaning Democrats like Bernie are all for it.

What's to stop your local city government from increasing taxes to hire a doctor and provide them with a building and staff in order to provide medical services to locals residents? It seems to me that the problem is that everyone wants a federal solution to healthcare and the United States is generally structured to limit federal power. Fire departments are funded locally generally speaking, it didn't take a federal…

I don't know about other states, but my state Tennessee and its counties do just this. I'd be willing to bet it's more common than not across the US. https://www.tn.gov/health/health-program-areas/localdepartme...

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#328

Post by FireBeyond » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #236

toomuchtodo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die every year in the US. 4 million voters turn 18. We're just arguing time horizon and cohort turn out rates. Bernie was just too early after Reagan, globalization, and deregulation. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generation... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generat... https://archive.is/iRyQE https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/…

Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.

My specific objection to raised taxes is the relatively low assurance that that will go to worthwhile causes.

Fix roads, improve access to mental health, etc., etc.? Sure. Raise my taxes (I moved to the US from a country where I was taxed at a higher rate than now.

Make empty promises, divert to pork, enrich the 0.1%, increase military spending? No, don't raise my taxes.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#329

Post by finite_depth » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:09 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #321

umeshunni wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.

This is a religious belief, not an observation. Discounting all allegations of shenanigans, 45% of the Democratic Party primary voters supported him in 2016, and probably around or not much less than that in 2020. The man consistently polls as extremely popular (although that popularity took a hit after 2020), and is as old as dirt, along with a huge number of his voters. Your views of the situation disregard your ob…

I am a very dedicated Sanders supporter, and to say he "was nearly President" in 2016 is just not true. Yes, by the end of the primary he'd gained a lot of steam, but that was the end of the primary. Sanders was in a pretty hopeless situation delegate-wise by Super Tuesday, and only briefly polled within even ten points of Clinton.

He was closer in 2020. But in 2020, Democratic primary voters got a very simple choice: double down on moderate neoliberalism, or try progressivism. Democratic primary voters made a very, very clear choice, and Biden wiped the floor with Sanders from the day it became a two-man race. Biden won nearly two-to-one in vote share and in delegates and won numerous states that were Sanders' base of support in 2016.

Is there a progressive wing in the Democratic Party? Yes. Is it a lot bigger than it was ten years ago? Yes. Is the fact that we've been right all along becoming more obvious by the day? Yes. But are progressives the majority of the party? No. Are we competitive in national primaries right now? No. We have simply not convinced half of the half of the country that votes Democratic that we are in the right.

Part of that is our serious problem with the black vote - it's very hard to win a Democratic primary without it - but it goes well beyond that. Republicans have very successfully painted us as a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth fools who want to waste all your money sending men to leer at your daughters in locker rooms, and we need strategies to convince people otherwise. We need to play politics. What that looks like, we can debate, but we have so far failed to win the game of rhetoric even though we are, objectively, right.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#330

Post by FireBeyond » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #105

qbasic_forever wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need laws to enforce this change or behavior, you just need the Amazon drivers to show solidarity and unionize. They can demand (and get!) far more change than the government will ever legislate. The threat of a strike and labor action is far scarier to Amazon than nosey lawmakers that can just be silenced with enough campaign donations.

> You don't need laws to enforce this change or behavior, you just need the Amazon drivers to show solidarity and unionize. They can demand (and get!) far more change than the government will ever legislate. The problem is, with jobs that do not require more than a driver's license and the ability to read names you are a fungible cog in the giant machinery of Amazon. It's a job that virtually everyone with a half wor…

> The problem is, with jobs that do not require more than a driver's license and the ability to read names you are a fungible cog in the giant machinery of Amazon.

Right. Where I am, Amazon was running ads that literally said: "Need a job? Pass a background check? Apply today, start tomorrow, no interview required."