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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

#281

Post by kennywinker »

mh- wrote: post #262
whimsicalism wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if they can get 50% of employees on legal record saying they support the union, it is obvious that they don't need an election. Your language, IMO, is value-laden. Card-signing is a common "tactic" for unions like the presidential election is a "tactic" for deciding the next president.

Election votes are anonymous by nature. Card signing is not. I'm not opposed to unionizing but I take issue with the idea that getting 50% support means "it is obvious that they don't need an election."

It seems like you’re saying the lack of anonymity will inflate support for a union. I.e. organizers will be able to pressure people who would otherwise vote no on a union. Frankly, I’d be worried about the opposite. Knowing how aggressively amazon is fighting unions, if I worked there i’d hesitate to put my name down on paper - when I wouldn’t hesitate to vote in a secret ballot. If that’s the case, 50% support implies a stronger majority.

Maybe that’s not always the case, but that’s what I’d guess is happening in this case.

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

#282

Post by mh- »

kennywinker wrote: post #281
mh- wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election votes are anonymous by nature. Card signing is not. I'm not opposed to unionizing but I take issue with the idea that getting 50% support means "it is obvious that they don't need an election."

It seems like you’re saying the lack of anonymity will inflate support for a union. I.e. organizers will be able to pressure people who would otherwise vote no on a union. Frankly, I’d be worried about the opposite. Knowing how aggressively amazon is fighting unions, if I worked there i’d hesitate to put my name down on paper - when I wouldn’t hesitate to vote in a secret ballot. If that’s the case, 50% support impli…

Probably both! That's why we shouldn't guess, and votes are secret for a reason.

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

#283

Post by Retric »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #249
Retric wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The trick means real net income is larger than what’s on the books/10-K filings. Misclassified investments are not wasted money, simply hiding how much money is available for other expenses.

It’s like the old trick of paying an offshore subsidiary in a tax heaven licensing fees to use your own IP with the added advantage of being able to directly profit from the use of these investments. Nobody looking at the books would think such things are actual expenses, but companies must pretend they are.

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

#284

Post by TimeBearingDown »

kqr wrote: post #221
xhkkffbf wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like the idea of unions, I can say that they've been a disappointment in my career. One of my colleagues desperately needed the protection of the union at work when he got caught up in office politics. Some of his rivals for a big promotion got him accused of something that had nothing to do with work. It was all cancel culture. The union, though, didn't back him up at all. They make a big show about somehow…

This is not a problem with unions as a concept, but rather with the huge, centralised, bureaucratic, political entities they have become in practise. That type of organisation has some benefits, but I believe federations of highly local unions would be more effective for helping individual people deal with specific pickles.

It’s easily possible to argue that the concept or structure of unions, and their relationships to business, as generally implemented, tends towards those corruptions.

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

#286

Post by whimsicalism »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #258
whimsicalism wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I rather think the point is that outsourcing of those jobs was proof of the assertion that unskilled manufacturing jobs at $30/hr (in 2022 money) plus rich benefits are not a thing that was sustainable.

Go ahead and re-read the comment you are defending. I think it has twisted in your memory to something much more reasonable rather than something that can be verifiably fact-checked as false.

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

#288

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

gruez wrote: post #89
formerly_proven wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in theory unions have the correct incentive structure, as they get a fixed percentage of their member's incomes, so to get more money from their members, they need to negotiate better salaries for them.

Except unions aren't for-profit, so it's unclear where those extra money is going to. Senior leadership perhaps? But unions beholden to members, which means there's no "fixed percentage", because that's decided by the members themselves. We can see a parallel in public sector compensation: democratically controlled organizations are very reluctant to spend extra money on compensating leadership (or any other high pay…

The extra money goes to more union staff and union facilities; lobbying; and grants - overwhelming the former. Also, it's not like non-profits have to balance their budgets every year; the UAW added $60M to its net assets in 2021.

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

#289

Post by seabird »

hourago wrote: post #276
seabird wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Unions can and do negotiate terms that protect union members to ridiculous extents at the cost of making what is basically an underclass out of non-union employees and employees of other unions. You'll find terms that limit certain scopes of work exclusively to employees of a certain union, and even employees of that union with a certain standing within it. Some of this work is gravy train shit that…

Many rights that everybody enjoys were won by unions and applied to everybody. You are generalising to all unions some hypothetical case. Better job opportunities for a part of the population means that all employers need to improve conditions to compete for employees.

Have you ever worked in a union shop, or have family that did? Demarcation is not a hypothetical case, and it's not something that's so uncommon that you can just not worry about it, especially as a worker that needs to consider whether or not your opportunities are going to be hindered by it. Me, my father, my grandfathers, my friends, their fathers and grandfathers, and basically my community on the whole have watched it happen firsthand or have been directly affected by it. Union membership can be a big choice where you're heavily incentivized to join the union not just on the merits of them protecting you as a worker, but because they're going to work against you if you don't. Some unions have worse problems with it than others, and some don't have the problem at all, but it's not something that is so minor that you can just ignore it.

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

#290

Post by TimeBearingDown »

feet wrote: post #269
Garlef wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)".

>Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)". In my opinion, this is the only valid metric. If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the business should not exist. Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.

So, you would have the government step in and deny the right of an individual to earn what they may need at that moment, in their specific circumstance, to form a contract with another person - a business owner? The bureaucracy knows better, and if the individual can’t find another job at a level to even scrape by then the bureaucracy steps in again, but is this a path to a solid job in 20 years? The higher the wage, especially federally, the more dramatic and onerous the effect.

It feels deeply infantilizing to me, and will absolutely cut off the bottom rung of society and hasten the unprepared and unskilled towards the coming AI cliff in my opinion.

I personally did not have my own shit together enough to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.

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