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Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

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Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#61

Post by ghaff »

ambicapter wrote: post #56
i_am_jl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chain is a little longer, and a little less intentional, IME. CRE firm lobbies local politicians that remote work is killing Main Street. Local politicians attach tax breaks/incentives for companies with office workers. Companies mandate RTO to save some tax money while unwittingly being a toadie for commercial real estate. The key difference being that the people mandating RTO aren't biased because of their own…

> Local politicians attach tax breaks/incentives for companies with office workers. Has that actually happened?

Certainly tax breaks related to local employment have been a common thing in the past. Whether this is related to any current RTO activity I have no idea.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#62

Post by Mountain_Skies »

tech_ken wrote: post #41
flerchin wrote: post #13

RTO seems to have nothing to do with the warehouse workers asking for a piddly $25/hour and health and safety guarantees. It's flabberghasting that the union votes keep failing.

Union-busting campaigns are extremely effective, and honestly labor unions have gotten very lazy about building new units. "Hot shop" focused organizing plus a "we'll fire you if you sign the card (not really :) ) (yes really >:) )" poster in every breakroom and it's a big uphill battle for the workers.

Just one person's experience but when I was younger, I worked for several years at both a non-union grocery store and a unionized store in different cities. Working union was much better but part of that was the quality of co-workers was better. At the non-union store, I can see why unionization on the surface would be unappealing since there were lots of low quality employees. If you're someone who does their assigned work and see other slacking off constantly and constantly screwing things up, hearing the typical union messages of solidarity isn't going to be appealing. You have to be able to view things in the context of unionization of the company also making the jobs more appealing to a better quality worker. In my n=1 opinion, the non-union chain lost lots of money through poor quality labor and might have been better off with high labor costs that would be offset by higher quality labor but I have no way of actually being able to quantify that to determine if it would be true.

At both the union and non-union stores there was a perception that union dues were used by union officials more for their own enrichment than for the benefit of members. Having worked at the non-unionized store first, the better wages and benefits easily outweighed the cost of union dues, but some of that could also have been due to the location in a more affluent area.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#63

Post by [deleted] »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #20
cut3 wrote: post #17

Amazon tech workers should unionize.

It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions. I see it as an extension of a distaste for bureaucracy or perhaps, social structures in general, but I'm open to other perspectives.

[deleted]

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#65

Post by meowfly »

dingnuts wrote: post #6
golemiprague wrote: post #2

The advantage of working from home was that you could take care of kids and do all the housework, this worth thousands of dollars per months. For years companies didn't adjust salaries in accordance to inflation and the cost of outsourcing kids care and house care, all that while keeping interest rate low and bailing rich bankers with printing of money. This caused funneling of wealth from the workers to asset holder…

where did this meme come from that you can do house work and child care while working remote? It's not remotely true. Child care is a full time job. You might be able to move laundry around while tests run but that's about it. If people are neglecting their jobs enough to take care of kids then they're giving ammo to the management class to argue that they can't trust us.

I haven't figured this out.

Ideally we should should hold employees to the work they produce but I still cringe a little when someone calls into a meeting because they had to run an errand. I want management to believe wfh isn't being abused. It's exclusively about the optics. The lack of interruptions is a net positive.

If we miss a deadline, it makes it easy for management to start blaming people not being at their desk. We shouldn't be giving them ammo

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#66

Post by crazyeights »

varispeed wrote: post #11
nicpottier wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about Amazon engineers here. They are in the top 3% of earners, I don't think we need to cry too many tears about them going back to the office.

Wage earners are working class. You are using "top 3%" as an excuse to c*p on them. This is the crabs in the bucket mentality that the rich want to cultivate amongst working class, so they pull each other down and help maximise profits.

[dead]

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#67

Post by VirusNewbie »

keerthiko wrote: post #38
kasey_junk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Amazon prefer that to layoffs or more aggressive performance standards?

Amazon not being on the hook for severance for a large percentage of high salary workers, plus not having them on payroll/benefits for the weeks/months it would take to transition them out via PIP (including the management overhead involved per staffer) usually adds up to just about enough in savings to go out and recruit fresh, RTO-willing, naive talent much sooner.

Amazon doesn't really pay severance for PIP, nor are they required to pay severance for layoff. They would be required to do a WARN notice, but how would that be worse than giving people 4 months of notice about the RTO policy?

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#68

Post by ryandrake »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #20
cut3 wrote: post #17

Amazon tech workers should unionize.

It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions. I see it as an extension of a distaste for bureaucracy or perhaps, social structures in general, but I'm open to other perspectives.

I think a lot of people (especially tech employees and HN commenters) have this idea from the 80s and 90s of what a union must be, like they are all necessarily just like a Teachers' Union. Usually bad stereotypes like "Unions rank members by tenure and reward only the old timers!" and "Unions make it so only union members can plug a cord into an electrical outlet!" and "Unions only negotiate for salary, never things like equity, 401K features, IP assignment / moonlighting policy, implementing an ESPP, Remote Work, better development workstations, and so on." Like, who made these rules up? Why can't a new union negotiate to allow Remote Work? Why can't a new union rank its members by something other than tenure? Is there some "union police" that makes sure every union is exactly like the Teamsters and United Auto Workers?

A tech worker union could fight for non-salary things, things that tech workers care about. There's no law saying it can't.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#69

Post by Apocryphon »

neilv wrote: post #45
cut3 wrote: post #17

Amazon tech workers should unionize.

If employees at a company that I started wanted to unionize, I'd be wracking my brain to figure out why, since I'd make sure everyone is treated better than they could get with unions. But if employees at Amazon wanted to unionize, I think the company could make several good guesses why, all of them true.

> since I'd make sure everyone is treated better than they could get with unions.

You're not always going to be in charge.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#70

Post by kelseyfrog »

naming_the_user wrote: post #48
jmward01 wrote: post #10

I wonder what drives these decisions? Is there that much solid evidence that they get more value out of people in the office rather than home? Or are there other reasons like tax incentives that encourage in-person work over remote? Is this just a control thing or or there a compelling argument that I am missing?

The management want return to office and that's it. Why does there need to be something "driving the decision"? You may as well ask why I want my cleaner to descale the bottom of my taps. There may well be no reason beyond aesthetic preference. Maybe it's not more profitable or less profitable. Maybe it's within margin of error, and maybe the people running Amazon for the most part prefer working in an office.

Usually peoples' wants are explainable. It's certainly not uncommon to be able to explain one's wants when their implementation affects others, especially in a negative way.

"I want you to return to the office."

"Why?"

"Just do."

Is so unfulfilling a response that it's stupid on the part of management to not have even a noble lie explaining why it's so.

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