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Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

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Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#281

Post by ashtonkem »

newbie789 wrote: post #280

It'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…

There are two separate issues here. They’re only tangentially related.

1) Unions, good or bad?

2) Is it appropriate for a company like Amazon to spy on their work force to stop them from unionizing, as compared to persuading their work force that unionizing would be bad?

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#282

Post by grecy »

ativzzz wrote: post #242
grecy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American style unions are bad for business, plain and simple They're not bad for business, they reduce profits, and they limit the ability of a company to exploit it's workers.

> they reduce profits, and they limit the ability of a company to exploit it's workers. Right, so bad for business. Great for most workers though.

I would define "bad for business" as something that reduces the core business - less sales.

Reducing profits is a different thing. Business can still be booming while profits are not through the roof.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#283

Post by csb6 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #191
csb6 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s partially self-interest, true, but speaking for Americans, there really is no widespread, institutional education on what labor unions are or do, and what benefits they can bring. Most people simply don’t think about them or believe whatever their employers’ PSAs tell them to believe because no one else ever talks about labor organizing to them.

I don’t understand this desire to dismiss any criticism of unions as ignorance. This attitude that the only way someone might oppose unionization is because they’re too dumb to understand the concept is extremely condescending. Take a look at the current situation with police unions defending bad cops, for example. The union is just doing its job in protecting the cops, right? But in reality, this can come at the exp…

I am not dismissing any criticism, just the problematic fact that no one talks about unions except corporate PSAs. There are no institutions or traditions to support labor organizing in the way there once was. Like the idea of joining or forming a union is alien to most Americans.

> they’re too dumb to understand the concept is extremely condescending

This is a bad faith interpretation of my post. I did not say people are dumb. I believe the opposite; working class and middle class people can absolutely understand unions. My point is that there are no movements or institutions to bring awareness or organize people, and so people forget the history of labor organizing in this country. People intuitively get what’s wrong, there’s just no longer any vocabulary to express it. It’s not stupidity, it’s a multi-decade effort by capital to erase unions from the public consciousness. People just don’t talk about organization anymore, it’s a social phenomenon, not an individual one.

> Take a look at the current situation with police unions

Police unions are not part of the unionization movement because police are not on the side of workers. Police are tasked with defending property and the owners of property are overwhelmingly capitalists or other relatively wealthy individuals. In fact, many of the most deadly anti-union activities (e.g. attacking strikers) have been performed by police.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#285

Post by YetAnotherNick »

shadowgovt wrote: post #266
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is illegal in surveilling employees during work hour on workplace or on work device? It's not like amazon is bugging the house of workers. In all the companies I worked, I am pretty sure I signed contract allowing that. It's a different story that I have technical ability to turn off all the remote disable/access software they install on my work device.

It is, apparently, the case that creating an environment where a reasonable person would feel surveilled is in violation of the law. Concrete things that are highlighted as out-of-bounds: 1) Putting a dummy security camera in a breakroom 2) Hiring someone to sit in a car in the company parking lot and pretend to talk into a phone every time someone goes to their car Given that wide constraint, I can definitely see ho…

Are we talking about being unethical or illegal? I think putting even a real camera in breakout room is legal in almost all of the world. If the second story is correct, which I doubt, even that could be legal. Attendance system is used by many companies with report being sent to manager.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#286

Post by centimeter »

An interesting thing from Amazon’s labor organizing risk rubric: increased diversity drastically decreases the risk of employees organizing. In case you were curious why all the big companies are so strongly pro-diversity, that’s a pretty compelling reason for them.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#287

Post by YetAnotherNick »

I am surprised from the reactions here. What is the best way to deal with worker union blackmails according to you? I know people like to portray worker and amazon as good guy and bad guy, but I think most of us has seen some demands that are pretty outrageous from them. I think it is best if both sides have contact person with whom they can negotiate.

Don't get me wrong, I think worker unions are essential for pushing the demands of underprivileged and should exist, but nobody should agree every demand from them.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#288

Post by jariel »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #70
jariel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it's not a single anecdote, and this issue is widespread. Ignoring the realities and complexities of established organized labour is not going to help the cause.

It is, very literally, a single anecdote that they guy is responding to.

As I clearly stated: problems with unions are widespread and there are even quite a handful of examples right on this thread.

"Racism doesn't exist just because one person used n-word! It's just one anecdote!"

... is not an argument.

Anyone with any exposure unions knows they are far from perfect, many of them are quite terrible.

This kind of ideological, wilful ignorance kills any goodwill people might otherwise have among the adult population who will invariably have come up against theses issue probably multiple times in their lives through either personal experiences or acquaintances.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#289

Post by ARandumGuy »

umvi wrote: post #151
xiler wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actual unions are a far cry from how they are portrayed as helping the worker. I think it's a fairly well established industry trend that, on average, union membership is a net positive for the worker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_wage_premium

Couldn't this just be because unions can have a deteriorating effect on meritocracy? Say you have 10 workers - 2 are rock stars and make $50/hr, 6 are average and make $20/hr, and 2 are bad and make $10/hr (min wage - because they are never promoted). Average "non-union" pay is: $24/hr Now say you unionize and the union forces you to start paying the bad employees $20/hr like all the other average ones. So now you pa…

I'm not sure what companies you've worked for, but salary is almost never based on a 'meritocracy,' it's based on the minimum amount an employer thinks they can get away with. That value has nothing to do with an employee's output, and everything to do with minimizing costs.

Re: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’

#290

Post by yibg »

em-bee wrote: post #251
yibg wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Amazon and I had other options. What about me do you have to question?

were you aware of amazons practices before you started to work there? if yes, how did that factor into your decision to take the job?

Do you mean specifically around their anti union stance?

It wasn’t widely in the news back then. But I also don’t want to be part of an union and most of the unions I’m aware of in North America are not shining examples. So I’d be ok with working there today given what I know.

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