Amazon training video on handling unionizing activity (2018) [video]

Slide 2 says it all: business model = speed, innovation, customer obsession.

Worker safety not only isn't priority #1 -- it's completely absent !!!

Let alone the broader concept of employee "well-being."

Think about it: large employers of course optimize employee happiness and turnover ("regrettable losses"). Like Henry Ford reducing parts cost until the car breaks down uniformly [1], companies like Amazon and Walmart reduce pay/benefits and working conditions, until they cannot recruit enough workers.

This is why we have labor laws and why unions exist.

I do wonder how likes of Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy square their claimed left-wing worldview with being anti-union.

> while providing a good alternative to hotels.

This was true for a couple of years before Airbnb renters realized they could bait-and-switch customers with fees at checkout.

I will never forget making it to the checkout for an Airbnb in Memphis, seeing a $200 "service fee" (for one night!), going back, then checking the reviews and seeing that there wasn't a functioning toilet.

> Uber, well, do I even need to discuss that one?

Getting shoehorned into the back of a Kia Rio is NOT "amazing service" relative to a Crown Vic with a privacy divider.

It's a pretty rare company that wants unions. If you are running a business, you don't want to be forced into paying above-market wages, or to have disciplinary measures blocked for certain classes of employees [1], or to effectively pay protection money to a new set of bosses in an outside organization. It's really just losses all the way down. That any company would resist this should not be shocking.

Obviously, a typical guy working in a warehouse would be smart to vote for unionization, because why wouldn't he want more money and a lower probability of being fired? The chance of the place completely shuttering in the future is, for him, the big risk. (This is why public employee unions are the big survivors--the shuttering never happens.)

But I'll tell you, actually working with unions will put a stink on the whole concept. It seems like most people have a "unions=good" presumption and derive all their other views from that.

[1] That is, if an employee would normally be fired for incompetence or misconduct, a strong union would typically prevent it.

They force the "associates" to unpack them and file lots of paper work. 30% suffer paper cuts. 20% are reported to CCP for complaining about "cheap Chinese crap" and of these many end up in Chinese gulags making the amazon Dick sign stickers against their will. And 5% must attend "Jeff and Andy"'s seminar on Capitalism with Amazonian Characteristics sessions. 5 individuals last year were hospitalized with PTSD after these sessions which included self-criticism of the workers and enumerating the exceptional leadership characteristics of Amazon's central committee.