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Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

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Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#241

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #151
drstewart wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help Can you show your work here? Assume Amazon executives cut their salaries to 0, how much extra would they be able to pay workers?

It’s something like $300-1000/yr more if we average over all Amazon employees, depending on who counts as “executives”. If the high pay is truly attracting better performers (which I admit is unlikely) they could easily be benefiting the company’s workers a larger amount by increasing demand. Or maybe not and they are kinda useless , but in any case the total cost isn’t that high.

That doesn't pass the sniff test.

Amazon allegedly has about 1.6 million employees. Assuming that the "executive" class is a trivially small number of them, and that the average employee works say 2,000 hours per year, you're suggesting that the cost to Amazon of paying those executives is somewhere between $960B and $3.2T per year.

The high end of that estimate is about one fifth of the total earned income for the entire U.S. economy.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#242

Post by denton-scratch »

makomk wrote: post #194
denton-scratch wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well. Sure. So the customer buys less product, the company makes less profit, and the shareholders eject the executives. But there are huge delays in these chains of causation, which provide opportunities for arbitrage.

The trouble with that argument is that you haven't justified why it should only cause downward pressure on prices when companies have to increase pay due to unions demanding more cash. The exact same process should drive down prices and the amount executives make all the time, which means that the price will already be near the optimum given a particular level of costs and that increasing the costs will increase that…

Well, I don't think I said it caused downward pressure on prices! So I don't have to explain why that might happen.

Obviously, if workers can negotiate more effectively by being unionised, that exerts upward pressure on costs. Those additional costs can be met out of profits (i.e. shareholders pay, and execs get sacked) or "efficiencies" (e.g. automation, reducing headcount).

If you can figure out how to make a better product that you can charge more for, then everyone's happy. If you can't, then perhaps your competitor can, even if he's unionised too. Unions can contribute at least as much to product and process improvement as management can. In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#243

Post by koolba »

blamazon wrote: post #190
pxeger1 wrote: post #73

Ok, lesson learnt: don't read the comments on any HN story about unions.

Unions and bicycling are two topics that I rarely enjoy reading HN comments about, but here I am.

I think the singularity will be reached when we discuss a unionized dev shop developing a defi bike sharing platform written in rust.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#244

Post by closewith »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #143
closewith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe this comment is for real? Labour rights - including the right to a living wage and civil working conditions - benefit those on the minimum wage more than high-earners. It's not a zero-sum game.

What about the people that now can’t get jobs at the higher minimum wage? (Or the more restrictive union-based hiring). They go from $X to $0 which seems quite a downside. So it’s disingenuous to argue that it’s strictly a benefit to all workers (obviously it does benefit many).

Labour rights extend to a robust social safety net.

Robust and enforced labour rights are strictly a benefit to all workers. Only exploitative employers benefit from their absence.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#245

Post by whimsicalism »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #231
whimsicalism wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-skilled manufacturing was absolutely outsourced outside of the US. > Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing. Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced) certainly paid that much and more in inflation adjusted dollars. From a book studying the auto industry describing average wages in Detroit, > At $11.62 an hour in 1982 wages, Detroit's autoworkers,…

The majority of the auto factory jobs that were (e.g. automotive assembly line work) are considered unskilled work; not even semi-skilled; never mind high-skill.

two points were made:

1. only low skilled jobs were outsourced

2. low skilled jobs by definition do not pay more than $30/hr.

i am saying at least one of these is wrong, but it really is a question of semantics which one it is.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#246

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

somehnguy wrote: post #228
School-Cotton wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, practically none.

Their example was only a single person cutting salary, so practically meaningless. And I would also argue, in bad faith with the design of proving a point with bad data.

Feel free to pick a representative group of executives for your purposes; it really won't make any difference.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#247

Post by Garlef »

smugma wrote: post #225
smugma wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage, more than double the federal minimum wage. I think at the time Walmart was at $10 or $11. I live in very liberal SF but outside of my bubble, I hear people complain that it’s not possible to hire Nannies/housecleaners/employees anymore when Amazon and Starbucks pay $18/hr. Seems like the answer is easy: pay them more or make the job…

Additional context: it wasn’t until 2015 that Walmart raised its minimum wage from the federal minimum to $9/hr. It’s now $12.

The federal minimum is not really something that should be taken as a point of reference (from the employees side).

A better metric: "How much do jobs pay that are easily available to me?" (And so in this sense, the wages of Wallmart and Amazon seem to be very much relevant for many.)

Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)".

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#248

Post by spaetzleesser »

tarr11 wrote: post #124
GuB-42 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Is it what usually happens when workers unionize? It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.

It also means Amazon increases spending on automation. https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/22/amazon-debuts-a-fully-auto...

Automation is going to happen no matter what. Even people working for free is not going to stop it.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#249

Post by lotsofpulp »

Retric wrote: post #219
lotsofpulp wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? What are the incentives? Why do the most highly valued companies in the world report much higher profit margins? I would need a good reason to believe the executives and owners of retail businesses do not want to report higher profit margins.

The incentives are simple, profits are taxed. To simplify, if you want to say develop new software you can call it a capital investment and pay for it with after tax money or call it operating expense and pay for it in pretax money. Guess which one is a better deal.

Regardless of how the expense is classified, the amount of additional money available for wages is still the net income figure. The owners will still want as much net income as possible. They are not going to want to waste money just so they do not have to pay 20% of it to taxes.
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