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

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

#171

Post by friend_and_foe »

starbugs wrote: post #8

So I did my first part in trying to support everyone who dislikes this as much as I do. I cancelled my Prime and I will try to not purchase anything from Amazon for a year. It's not much, but it's something. I invite everyone to do the same.

I won't be.

Out of all the big tech companies out there, Amazon is the one that delivers the most value to me. I have my gripes with them, but overall I pay them and they send a product I want to my house and that's it.

I am also not fond of unions and understand their position. Them trying to prevent unions from forming in their company isn't something I'm up in arms about, I'd do the same thing if I ran a big company.

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

#172

Post by friend_and_foe »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #163
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teacher's unions becoming so strong that schools cannot fire bad teachers, and in the end it's the students who pay for it.

Sometimes unions make bad calls in individual situations, sure. But for all of the myriad of big issues that exist in public school systems, I don't see unions as being the fundamental source for system-wide issues. Here are some issues I identify: - Money. Schools just often lack the financial resources they need to provide a robust and well-rounded education. - Bureaucracy. Public schools are heavily regulated in c…

No no, it's not about and calls, unions always do what's in the interest of their members. If that means it's bad for non members, tough. Non members can form their own interest groups.

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

#173

Post by Maschinesky »

sinman wrote: post #139
Maschinesky wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of the following? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei?wprov=sfla1 In my opinion this it's very well.

I think the gp is kind to even call this "hyperbolic". There is no comparison between Amazon and a concentration camp, just because people are worked hard at amazon. The reason Auschwitz was bad was not because people worked hard there. It was because people were enslaved and murdered there. It would be like comparing a camp site to a concentration camp, because both are "camps". The comparison yields no useful insig…

It's about the sentiment of work and working people to death for nothing.

Unions make workconditions better

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

#174

Post by blagie »

RugnirViking wrote: post #59
blagie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've felt the same way about several employers, actually. I'm not anti-union in principle, but I was anti-union at specific jobs and pro-union in others. The line is about whether management treats employees fairly. If an employer has reasonable policies, feedback channels, wages, benefits, etc. and employees have reasonable bargaining power, then unions are usually counterproductive. If an employer abuses employees…

for myself, the line is usually drawn right around how a boss would respond to you stepping out for an hour to deal with something at a normal non-critical time (or leaving early, or arriving late). If they're prying trying to figure out what could possibly be so important that I dare disrespect them like that, its usually indicative of a severe culture problem between management and workers. If they trust me as a pr…

When I was starting out my career, I felt similar. However, today, I have a rather higher bar. The older I've grown, the more I've come to believe employers should treat employees humanely.

I'm not quite sure how, if old me met young me, I could communicate the bug in my thinking back then.

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

#175

Post by tetris11 »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #171
starbugs wrote: post #8

So I did my first part in trying to support everyone who dislikes this as much as I do. I cancelled my Prime and I will try to not purchase anything from Amazon for a year. It's not much, but it's something. I invite everyone to do the same.

I won't be. Out of all the big tech companies out there, Amazon is the one that delivers the most value to me. I have my gripes with them, but overall I pay them and they send a product I want to my house and that's it. I am also not fond of unions and understand their position. Them trying to prevent unions from forming in their company isn't something I'm up in arms about, I'd do the same thing if I ran a big compa…

> I am also not fond of unions

I can understand this stance from the POV of a strong armed union monopolizing an industry and preventing small struggling businesses from making ends meet.

These are but lowly workers being exploited by a large corporation that makes hand-on-fist even in hard times. The power imbalance is huge and the cost of a wage increase so small respectively, I can't quite grok why you'd not be for it.

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

#176

Post by friend_and_foe »

tetris11 wrote: post #175
friend_and_foe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't be. Out of all the big tech companies out there, Amazon is the one that delivers the most value to me. I have my gripes with them, but overall I pay them and they send a product I want to my house and that's it. I am also not fond of unions and understand their position. Them trying to prevent unions from forming in their company isn't something I'm up in arms about, I'd do the same thing if I ran a big compa…

> I am also not fond of unions I can understand this stance from the POV of a strong armed union monopolizing an industry and preventing small struggling businesses from making ends meet. These are but lowly workers being exploited by a large corporation that makes hand-on-fist even in hard times. The power imbalance is huge and the cost of a wage increase so small respectively, I can't quite grok why you'd not be fo…

Are they being exploited? Do you mean paid for their voluntary labor, which is ethical exploitation, or something else?

There's a strong push in the media for this, when that happens I get suspicious.

And again, I'm just generally opposed to unions. I don't like them, I don't think they are usually a positive development.

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

#177

Post by UtopiaPunk »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #172
UtopiaPunk wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes unions make bad calls in individual situations, sure. But for all of the myriad of big issues that exist in public school systems, I don't see unions as being the fundamental source for system-wide issues. Here are some issues I identify: - Money. Schools just often lack the financial resources they need to provide a robust and well-rounded education. - Bureaucracy. Public schools are heavily regulated in c…

No no, it's not about and calls, unions always do what's in the interest of their members. If that means it's bad for non members, tough. Non members can form their own interest groups.

I guess I just think teachers are, on the whole, a pretty great group of people. I feel that way about most working-class people, tbh. I think we'd be a stronger society if more working people were represented by strong unions.

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

#178

Post by friend_and_foe »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #177
friend_and_foe wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, it's not about and calls, unions always do what's in the interest of their members. If that means it's bad for non members, tough. Non members can form their own interest groups.

I guess I just think teachers are, on the whole, a pretty great group of people. I feel that way about most working-class people, tbh. I think we'd be a stronger society if more working people were represented by strong unions.

Well, I feel the opposite about teachers at least, I think they're mostly an awful group of people. Maybe my view is colored by my experience, or maybe by the state of education in the US. I do like most working class people, and I tend to agree with them more often than not politically.

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

#179

Post by bitshiftfaced »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #177
friend_and_foe wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, it's not about and calls, unions always do what's in the interest of their members. If that means it's bad for non members, tough. Non members can form their own interest groups.

I guess I just think teachers are, on the whole, a pretty great group of people. I feel that way about most working-class people, tbh. I think we'd be a stronger society if more working people were represented by strong unions.

I think many teachers are pretty great. Yet some teachers are failing our children, and we need to be able to fire them. For me, the issue is totally about public sector unions. Public schools have a government granted monopoly on education. Who is on the other side of the bargaining table with the union representatives? It's parents, or the representatives that they voted for. Yet unions themselves are political, and they lobby those representatives. Teachers, and their friends and family are voting too. The bargaining power of parents becomes diluted. This is how teacher's unions become so strong that schools can no longer give children the quality of education they otherwise would get. Check out "Waiting for Superman" for a concrete example of how this is playing out in LA and NYC.

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

#180

Post by rexpop »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #126

“Living wage”, “grievance”, and “contract” are so-called “union words” according to this training. My mouth is agape. These are words and phrases I openly use with colleagues in exactly the setting the video implies and I’m an non-unionised office worker. Maybe that means I’m itching for a union? /s

It sounds like you're wielding "job marketplace bargaining power" and/or "structural strategic bargaining power" to pursue the same goals that unionized workers without those assets to leverage pursue via "associational bargaining power."

> Contentions about the state of world labor are based on assumptions about the impact of contemporary globalization on workers' bargaining power. A useful starting point for differentiating types of workers' bargaining power is Erik Olin Wright's (2000: 962) distinction between associational and structural power. Associational power consists of "the various forms of power that result from the formation of collective organization of workers" (most importantly, trade unions and political parties). Structural power, in, con- trast, consists of the power that accrues to workers "simply from their location... in the economic system." Wright further divides "structural" power into two subtypes. T h e first subtype of structural power (which we shall call marketplace bargaining power) is the power that "results directly from labor markets." Thee second subtype of structural power (which we shall call workplace bargaining power) is the power that results "from the strategic location of a particular group of workers within a key industrial sector."

> Marketplace bargaining power can take several forms including (1) the possession of scarce skills that are in demand by employers, (2) low levels of general unemployment, and (3) the ability of workers to pull out of the labor market entirely and survive on nonwage sources of income. Workplace bargaining power, on the other hand, accrues to workers who are enmeshed in tightly integrated production processes, where a localized work stoppage in a key node can cause disruptions on a much wider scale than the stoppage itself. Such bargaining power has been in evidence when entire assembly lines have been shut down by a stoppage in one segment of the line, and when entire corporations relying on the just-in-time delivery of parts have, been brought to a standstill by railway workers' strikes.[0]

0. Beverly J. Silver, "The Forces of Labor"

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