Junk made in China by impoverished and forced labor + union busting and poor wages in fulfillment = Jeff Bezos and his executives becoming even fatter cats.
Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
271–280 of 468 posts
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#272Pretty disgusting and completely unsurprising. Most of us (sadly) can't avoid if our companies use AWS, but a significant fraction can absolutely do without the "convenience" of Amazon, shopping at Whole Foods, etc.
I'm lucky enough to be able-bodied enough that I don't need package delivery, so I haven't used Amazon in a few years. I don't miss it, doubly so when articles like this come out.
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#273Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.
For those who identify strongly with unions, union-busting stuff like this is triggering... like "bringing up the war" in a war traumatised nation. I get that. But... 2020 isn't 1920 or even 1980. Fresh eyes might see more clearly. To the advantage of union organisers, mass communication and organisation is a lot easier today. Surveillance is easier too. IDK. Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just le…
>I don't think the central factor here is Pinkertons. Union organising is the actual determinant.
"If you didn't want to be spied-on, you wouldn't try to unionize"? Really?
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
You actually believe that NPR doesn’t edit articles to protect the people who fund them?
Yes, I do actually believe in their editorial independence. Here's an NPR opinion piece talking openly about the subject https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/1487788... Some excerpts that I liked (keep in mind, these are out of context, which is largely focused on why we should keep a very close eye out): > Companies are most interested in getting their name before NPR's audience. They are, in other w…
I mean this with all due respect, but highlighting NPR's own defense of their editorial practices is hardly convincing.
NPR routinely runs editorial pieces that were pitched to them by corporate sponsors or their fronts like think tanks. They likewise have have discussion panels featuring these groups' talking heads. Listen to a few episodes of Marketplace if you want the most obvious corporate propaganda imaginable. Their impartiality is laughable.
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#275In 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and…
Is there anything stopping workers from crowdsource their own protection anonymously? Does it have to be some kind of formal union? If you think about it, work is just a business deal and wouldn't be possible for employees create some kind of company that deals with the companies they are employed? Pretty much like an agency, I guess.
I think you just described a union
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#276In 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and…
(Probably) The first aerial bombardment on US soil was when private planes dropped homemade bombs on striking coal workers at Blair Mountain in 1921. The US has a looong and brutal history of breaking up labor movements.
It looks like the Tulsa Race Massacre [0] has Blair Mountain beat by a few months (May vs August).
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre#Attack_by_...
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve been living in my car in SF for about 915 days, on less than $18k/yr take home. I’m so poor that I can barely get hired to a minimum wage job (“but you have a car,” “but you have an iPhone”). Everything I have is left over from a time when I made $200k/yr as a software engineer, and thankfully I’ve been given a lot of benefit of the doubt given my upstanding ways. (I was slandered, so people I meet see a good gu…
I went to your blog and listened to your post on "Interviewing Without Resources" and it feels like a non sequitur. It felt like you see yourself as a victim. I've been out of work before, but I never saw myself as a victim or powerless. I knew what I was worth and yes, it does take a lot of work, but I found work based on my own skills and merits. America is increasingly growing into a nation where we cloth ourselve…
> America is increasingly growing into a nation where we cloth ourselves in victimhood as virtue. We are literally in a space where no-body is in the office today. You could pick up a $130 ~ $160k job anywhere and move out to a suburb in Texas. All you need is half-decent Internet, and you'd basically be living as if you were making the $200k you had in The Valley.
You're talking to someone who is homeless, who probably hasn't been able to bathe in a while given the pandemic, and who is probably wearing clothes that they've slept in for several years now.
Yes, there are employers that will hire people literally off the street, but they aren't hiring for $130-$160k IT jobs, they're hiring for manual labor jobs without benefits that are probably off the books and can't offer steady hours.
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you seriously arguing that whatever fraction of Americans are below "middle income category" should should be ok with not being able to house, feed, cloth, heat themselves - and somehow this would work out ok for the country as a whole? That seems extreme.
> Are you seriously arguing that whatever fraction of Americans are below "middle income category" should should be ok with not being able to house, feed, cloth, heat themselves No, I'm saying that people who are below the middle income category (as that adjusts locally) often cannot reliably, securely "afford someplace relatively clean to live, feed themselves, afford heat in winter, etc.". I'm not saying that they…
Ok, I misread you. I'm not confident your assertion is true, but I don't know enough about the "living wage" analysis to be sure.
I guess one factor here is "middle income range", if well defined, will move if the floor is moved. In things like this, distribution is also very important.
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that, land that once belonged to the people was privatized during the Industrial Revolution in order to create a landless class of people that needed to work in the new factories in order to eat. It was hard to convince people to work in them otherwise.
Land belonging to the people is a horrible system that creates huge inefficiencies due to moral hazard. If you look at the agricultural revolution in Europe, a major reason for increased crop yields was private property. Incentives matter.
I don't think that makes it just that people have no opportunity to work for themselves or be payed a fair wage working for someone else.
Re: Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another echo from those old days: this news about Amazon was broken by a writer named Lauren Gurley. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a famous union organizer who fought the Pinkertons more than a hundred years ago. Coincidentally, the new novel The Cold Millions by Jess Walter portrays Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the Pinkertons in Spokane in 1909. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Gurley_Flynn (A quick search shows L…
Are you reading the book? Do you like it?
Yes, I am about midway through right now and I do like it.
Imagine my reaction this morning when I saw that the top story on HN was about Pinkerton union busting - reported by a writer named Gurley!