Amazon is a private company. They should be able to stop unionization if they so choose.
What a repulsive thing to say.
Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
191–200 of 378 posts
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point that the OP is making is that the negative propaganda against unions is not just entirely made up, but also something that many people with kids in school have experienced first-hand. This does factor in when that same parent then goes to their workplace and is pitched to form/join a union. I am not saying they won't agree to it, but they might remember the negative aspects of dealing with the concept of a…
It is very rare that the best propaganda is made up. The best is true but incomplete, anecdotal in this case. To hold up it must be true, but misleading.
What are you basing this on?
For years the Nazi went on and on about the Jews being the inferior race, about how it was science based, they indoctrinated the youth.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#193Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
Fortunately most tech employees, including most Google employees, understand that unions don’t make any sense for them. Warehouse employees are very different, and it might make more sense there.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#194Earlier 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.
I'd say they are allowed to have unions, local governments just need to be able to exert meaningful oversight even with the unions.
The situation with police union contracts in the US is so bad I think it will lead to courts needing to overturn them as they are not in the public interest.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Even if unions are affecting no change, their are able to give the workers at least some power. Who knows, maybe they'll make Amazon to allow unmetered bathroom breaks one day.
Bathroom breaks aren't metered in Amazon warehouses.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.
I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread. The teachers that I know work tirelessly, don't make very much money, and do literally everything they can to help students. This is doubly true during the past year when they've had to re work plans so that they work over zoom or in person. I think perhaps the point of friction is that all of this is true and the city can't afford to pay th…
>>I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread.
I mean, have you seen the American Education system? Millions of people thought Betsy Davos was a good idea. MILLIONS. The DOE under her tenure was basically a full on assault against public education in favor of charters/private schools. I've had hours-long, in-person arguments with people who are CONVINCED teachers have the easiest jobs on the planet and we pay them too much.
Not to mention many HN commenters in general tend to strong pro-management stance which pushes them anti-union in general.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…
Unions are awful. They come in the guise of protecting people, and protecting employees, but they quickly become a weapon against non union employees - if you don’t join the union can’t work here. Which pressures people to agree with union groupthink in order just to have a job. To hell with unions. All unions are bad.
How can the union stop the employer from hiring non-unionized workers?
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#198I asked this in the google union thread, but was too late to the party to get any answers. Copy pasting it here: Everybody here seems to agree that unions have the potential to do good or bad in every thread on it. The next logical step to me is that there needs to be a selection mechanism in place. For companies, the selection mechanism is competition. If someone else does better, the consumer or worker can choose s…
No, IANAL, but my reading of the relevant law indicates that such an arrangement is illegal in the US. Unions in the US are legally enshrined as the exclusive representative of all members of a "unit" which has a precise legal definition which is approximately a group of non-management workers with a well-defined role (e.g. line workers in a factory, butchers in a supermarket, teachers in California) [1]. When a union is formed, all members of the unit are represented by the union including individuals who are not members of the union [2]. This also means that once a union is formed representing the unit, all non-official unions of the form you are suggesting are legally superseded by the official union.
I believe this to be an accurate reading of the law as, as far as I am aware, there are no competing unions anywhere in the US unlike many countries in Europe which appear to have competing unions, though I am not particularly familiar with European labor markets.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/nation... Sec. 9 159 (b)
[2] https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/nation... Sec. 9 159 (a)
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.
Non-union private schools can innovate at will, but so far it's not clear whether any of them have found a solution that works better than the one in place at public schools, while also satisfying the legal requirements put on public schools to accept all students, etc.
Last I heard (twelve months ago) the results for "charter schools" were statistically no different than any other.
There are anecdotes to support the point of view they are bad, and anecdotes to support that they are good.
The source of funding does not seem to be the problem. The quantity of funding, definitely.
Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"Cancelling student debt will help a shit tonne more workers."
I will feel terrible if that ever happens for folks that were smart with money and didn't incur tons of debt. It's gonna be a real bummer when you learn that you paid off your educational debt or never had any and that now you get to pay off debt of others that made bad decisions.