I very much doubt they no longer intend to hire somebody for such activities, this was just way too much in the open.
https://pinkerton.com/
This page is quite interesting in its omissions: https://pinkerton.com/our-story
Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
271–280 of 458 posts
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#272Beyond the creepiness of the tasks required, what sticks out to me is the persistent use of Amazon-specific jargon: > Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals (attorney stakeholders) Does anyone who doesn’t work at Amazon know what “L7 + ER Principals” means? Perhaps these are universally understood terms in some fields, but my guess is that the “error” was posting this publicly, and it wa…
L7 is a Level 7 employee, going from lowest to highest, Bezos is level 12. ER is Employee Relations (HR).
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
>At the height of union fever back in the 80s it got so bad at one point that union activists Were subjected to police brutality while largely peacefully picketing. Meanwhile the army was called in to do their jobs... Apparently there was evidence of "excessive violence by police officers, a false narrative from police exaggerating violence by miners, perjury by officers giving evidence to prosecute the arrested men,…
I don't know of anyone who disputes the killing of Wilkie happened or claims that it was somehow exaggerated. As a taxi driver he was also not a police officer or an agent of the state. He was not armed or causing violence to anyone. He was just driving someone who didn't agree with the union to work. So they killed him.
And they offenders were arrested, tried and punished. The difference here is the police are never subject to the same justice.
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#274Beyond the creepiness of the tasks required, what sticks out to me is the persistent use of Amazon-specific jargon: > Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals (attorney stakeholders) Does anyone who doesn’t work at Amazon know what “L7 + ER Principals” means? Perhaps these are universally understood terms in some fields, but my guess is that the “error” was posting this publicly, and it wa…
A quick search shows that L7 also exists at Facebook and Google at least. It's a senior (staff) software engineer. https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... Not sure about the ER part though.
Better then have a HR...because a Human is NOT a resource, funny that everyone thinks this is normal.
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice anecdata. Unions are necessary to ensure fair negotiations between employees and their employer, though. Any negotiation between a single employee and their employer is inherently unfair, as the latter holds far more power. Unions are a tried and true concept almost everywhere in the world, the Nordic Countries being a particulary good example. It'd seem that being unable to provide basic rights for workers is p…
> Any negotiation between a single employee and their employer is inherently unfair wow! what a statement. you are of course entirely wrong. you are generalising when in reality your statement is true only for some employees in some jobs. i think the time for these kinds of statements died in the 80s. the more we progress thru time the less we need unions because of all the new wealth that is created via the internet…
> You are of course entirely wrong. you are generalising when in reality your statement is true only for some employees in some jobs.
I am not wrong:
"According to Nielsen data, the American Payroll Association, CareerBuilder and the National Endowment for Financial Education, somewhere between 50 percent and 78 percent of employees earn just enough money to pay their bills each month. Should they miss a paycheck, some of those bills would go unpaid." -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/17/breakdown...
> I think the time for these kinds of statements died in the 80s.
They are as relevant as they were in 1776:
"It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate." -- Adam Smith
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone that likes the New Deal should thank the union organizers and socialists that literally had to fight police in the streets to force the hand of the state. A large enough faction of the capitalists back then agreed to reforms because they feared things were going the way of revolution. In the 1930s, the 1917 revolution in Russia was a recent memory that scared the piss out of them. Bezos would like to continu…
While I don't think getting bogged down in a political discussion here is a good idea (and I don't necessarily disagree,) I do think it is interesting how ignorant Americans often are of the many literal battles in the war for humane working conditions. It might be worth reading about how workers were bombed and gunned down during the labor movement (late 19th, early 20th centuries) in the US, notably the Battle of B…
+1 to your post and links. I'm also surprised by how much anti-union sentiment exists in the US; things like the 40-hour workweek and concept of overtime were paid for in blood.
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#277Do unions really provide a better work experience for the worker? Genuine question.
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
The core of a union is bad for workers that excel You won't get paid what you are worth and will get held back when you want a raise. In almost all unions that I've encountered, if you want a raise, it's as a collective. They also prevent technological advances and it only makes things more expensive for the consumer (Who do you think is fighting Uber and Lyft in major cities? Taxicab unions that were fleecing custom…
> The core of a union is bad for workers that excel You should really let go of that folclore because it makes absolutely no sense at all and has absolutely zero connection to the real world. First of all, it's widely known that Amazon already has a rigid employee structure that pays according to the internal pay scale. This alone shuts dispels the "omg unions keep top performers down", because internally your only s…
"You should really let go of that folclore because it makes absolutely no sense at all and has absolutely zero connection to the real world."
You mean the 3 decades I dealt with unions?
"Unions are about employee representation and negotiating power."
In theory, they were there to help employees. In practice, they are just as corrupt as any large organization and only hurt companies that have to deal with them.
"They are the only way to create change such as limiting working hours and demand safe working conditions and cut down on arbitrarily firing people for no reason."
The only way? Please. We have federal and state employment laws that protect all works. No unions required.
"Without unions you have zero power. With an underperforming union you have some power. Sounds like even a bad union is progress."
If you are a good employee, you have plenty of power. If you are bad and under performing, you need the protection by the unions.
In countries that have really string unions, it's getting to the point where you won't get hired at all without experience because firing an employee involves a court case and lots of red tape. This resulted in protests/riots in Sweden about 5 or 6 years ago.
It also makes a company less competitive in the international marketplace. Now that the Internet has opened up commerce internationally, companies that pay unskilled workers 4x what they are actually worth don't do so well.
It's difficult for me to change my views on this when I've seen the rampant corruption first-hand and the cancerous like effect unions have on a company over time.
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#279Beyond the creepiness of the tasks required, what sticks out to me is the persistent use of Amazon-specific jargon: > Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals (attorney stakeholders) Does anyone who doesn’t work at Amazon know what “L7 + ER Principals” means? Perhaps these are universally understood terms in some fields, but my guess is that the “error” was posting this publicly, and it wa…
A quick search shows that L7 also exists at Facebook and Google at least. It's a senior (staff) software engineer. https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... Not sure about the ER part though.
Levels don't scale the same among FAANGs
Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’
#280It's fascinating how emotional of a topic this is on HN. A lot of people seem to be taking a staunch binary, black-and-white, us-vs-them approach to this issue.
I've known friends that hate their unions (usually retail), and those that love their unions (electricians, UPS drivers etc.) These are of course just a small group of anecdotes and not representative of a comprehensive dataset so I don't really have a strong opinion one way or another if the question is "are unions horrifically evil or a godsend that's universally necessary."
The framing of this type of debate doesn't seem to foster good faith discussion.
My only personal experience with being in a union was a call center job I had when I was 18. I don't recall dues being much, and everybody got full health coverage (including dental and vision) at 25 hrs/wk, and that ended up being a big draw for a lot of people in the area. So that was pretty cool.
I've also worked at a lot of places that weren't union where the employees were paid well, received benefits and treated fairly. That was also pretty cool.
I guess to me if I were to have an opinion it'd be something along the lines of "If people want to unionize, they have a legal right to do so, and I don't have any particular issue with that. If it works out with a positive outcome, great! If it doesn't, that sucks!"
I'm definitely not in favor of people being bullied or misled to go either way on this issue. It literally just seems like something people should talk about in good faith and make their decision accordingly. It's just a choice.