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Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

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Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#121

Post by jariel »

rjstreur wrote: post #101
jariel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Amazon unions represent quite fundamentally different kinds of organizing principles. The Amazon union is of the much more classical form, is well past due, it's not entirely necessary, but it would be beneficial. I don't actually think that regular Google employees should be unionized, rather, it should be the non-technical staff, contractors and so many people not in privileged positions that should be p…

So whether workers should be allowed to unionize should depend on which changes they are fighting for? Where's the line of powerlessness a union's beneficiaries need to be under in order for the union to be valid in your perspective? It seems like the main actions taken by the Google employees' union so far have been to push the company to behave more ethically, not to enhance their already-significant (indeed, outra…

The Google Union is being formed so that specific employees to try to parlay their version of ethics - the assumption being that what they think of as 'ethical' is universally applicable, but this is definitely not the case.

I don't trust Google Employees one bit more than I trust Google Management, as far as certain issues of ethnics, I'd much rather have intelligent and pragmatic regulation.

Also, I didn't really hint at 'what was within their rights' or not.

Finally, and ironically, if we're going to be concerned about 'ethics' it might start with tidying up their own household and using the tools of organizing like Unions for which they were intended, which is to say helping those who have no power i.e. the gazillion of 'secondary' actors at Google.

If Googlers want to have more influence I'm not sure the Union model is it, because far more often than not, it's a system of entrenched power that will use their base to carry out the wishes of the vanguard. Student unions for example, tend to take positions that are wildly inconsistent with what the average student would want, but voter participation is low, the system is opaque, and many students don't pay any attention and are just resigned to the system. I don't know what the answer is, but it's probably not a union.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#122

Post by BitwiseFool »

eplanit wrote: post #17
legitster wrote: post #9

I have to imagine unions have a bit of an uphill battle right now, they took some major black eyes in 2020: - Police unions openly declaring war on their own citizens - Teachers unions causing general chaos in school reopening plans I understand that public sector unions are a different beast, but purely from an optics perspective I have to imagine public sentiment for unions can't be very high right now.

Public sector unions are the worst of the union beasts -- a layer of financially interested and un-elected bureaucrats between taxpayers and the services they are paying for. In California, the teachers union has a grotesque level of influence -- and the quality of the kids' education isn't so special, as a result.

Same story in Hawaii. The unions completely dominate local politics and it's a one party state.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#124

Post by spiznnx »

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #102
pwinnski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many/most supporters of unions argue that police should not be able to form or join unions. "Cops are not workers" is a common phrase I've seen.

Why only cops and not all public sector employees? I don’t see how you can make an argument that police work isn’t work.

The argument that cops are not workers, in a Marxist sense, is because they work to protect the interests of capital, rather than do "productive" work that is useful to the rest of the working class.

It's not a broadly held view, even among communists.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#125

Post by tinyhouse »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #2

I wonder what percentage of otherwise very liberal Amazon devs read sentences like "The company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." and come away thinking "we're definitely the good guys."

It doesn't matter if there's a union or not. It matters what actually is being done. From the news it seems that Amazon has been consistently improving conditions of its warehouse employees. For example, making the minimum wage $15/hour.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#126

Post by maxerickson »

gruez wrote: post #98
maxerickson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795459 links an article about Amazon driving average wages down. Seems likely enough that people working in other warehouses mostly aren't the ones filling Amazon jobs. Do we have some anecdotes about people leaving logistics jobs to go entry level at an Amazon warehouse?

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795459 links an article about Amazon driving average wages down. That doesn't disprove gp's claim that amazon is better than the existing warehouse jobs, because it could be simpson's paradox at work. eg. let's say before amazon moved in your warehouse jobs you had in an area were the following: * 20 forklift drivers @ $20/hr * 100 pickers at @ $10/hr The average warehouse wag…

Yeah, I didn't say it disproved anything.

I wonder what explains A Bloomberg analysis of government labor statistics reveals that in community after community where Amazon sets up shop, warehouse wages tend to fall. In 68 counties where Amazon has opened one of its largest facilities, average industry compensation slips by more than 6% during the facility’s first two years, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In many cases, Amazon quickly becomes the largest logistics player in these counties, so its size and lower pay likely pull down the average. Among economists, there’s a debate about whether the company is creating a kind of monopsony, where there’s only one buyer—or in this case one employer. though.

The 'warehouse wages tend to fall' cuts out a bunch of variables, you end up with 'warehouse worker pay', and it goes down. It could be that warehouse jobs tend to pay for tenure or something, but that goes to the question I asked; are people leaving other warehouse job to go work at Amazon?

After your edit: I guess picking for $11 is worse than driving a fork lift for $20, so they probably aren't improving overall work conditions if they are hiring so much that the structure of the workforce changes.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#127

Post by LatteLazy »

nostromo wrote: post #16
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #2

I wonder what percentage of otherwise very liberal Amazon devs read sentences like "The company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." and come away thinking "we're definitely the good guys."

Honest question: does the Democratic Party care about labor anymore? It feels like anti-Trumpism, identity issues (race, trans issues, etc.), and immigration have sucked all the oxygen out of the room. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Democrat run with supporting labor as their headline issue.

Obamacare got a lot of workers at places like amazon warehouses healthcare.

Cancelling student debt will help a shit tonne more workers.

He has a section on his campaign website addressing Union specifics:

https://joebiden.com/empowerworkers/

Well see what he can actually does, but with the senate in democrat hands, the sky is the limit.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#128

Post by Mountain_Skies »

LatteLazy wrote: post #39

Can anyone outline what unionisation means in this case? If they vote yes, is everyone at this location required to join? Are amazon required to negotiate with the union? Can amazon simply close the plant? Presumably if unionisation works for these workers (better pay etc) then other centres will follow suit...

Alabama is a right-to-work state so I don't think a union can require all employees join in order to work. Back during the big UPS strike in the 90s, the Montgomery, Alabama warehouse had the highest picket crossing rate in the entire country. This location is probably a best case scenario for Amazon because even if the union succeeds in forming, it has a high probability of failure, especially in any labor action it attempts as finding replacement workers will be easy and there is little public support for unions in the community. They won't be able to get away with any intimidation or below board retaliatory actions on those who don't go along with the union action.

The situation is almost so ideal for Amazon that I wouldn't be surprised if someone high up in the company planned for this to be the location to try to unionize in order to poison the whole concept. They won't even need to play games with shutting down the warehouse as union failure at this location is highly probable.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#129

Post by thatguy0900 »

nicoburns wrote: post #111
koolba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it a step further and reject all public sector unions. Teachers, cops, firemen, dog catchers, you name it. There’s just too many perverse incentives for politicians to give in to union demands in exchange for buying votes. Unlike the private sector, the ones agreeing to the union demands care little about the long term costs associated since they’re not the ones paying them.

> There’s just too many perverse incentives for politicians to give in to union demands in exchange for buying votes If politicians were looking to maximise votes, wouldn't they target parents not teachers: there's a lot more parents than teachers.

Teachers are alot more likely to be single issue voters over important aspects of their job than parents will be about things they might not even know about, I'd imagine

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#130

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

I worked at and organized a local grocery store in 2015 into the UFCW local. Workers there have six weeks of vacation after a year, much higher than average wages and excellent health benefits. They also have a real shield from arbitrary discipline, which had been a rampant problem.

Seeing all the anti-union propaganda makes me wonder how many people spreading it have ever been in a union. It seems like most of it is just buying into the ambient pro-business propaganda without direct experience.

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