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Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

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Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#31

Post by random5634 »

j_walter wrote: post #12
simpixelated wrote: post #5

Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…

Unions in the US and unions is Europe are completely different. In one they cooperate to see that the company succeeds...and in the other they seek to drive up the cost of doing business to the point that shitty products are extremely expensive (GM, Ford). Unions used to be for protecting the workers and ensuring that companies were getting the very best skillsets when hiring. Now they protect the lazy, promote the w…

I actually know a bit about the german union model.

A couple of factors - the overall labor force is pretty highly educated and skilled - so less free riding overall.

Strong social safety net - so folks not suited to a job have a place to land with health care etc.

a MUCH more cooperate relationship with management -> the unions in Germany at least also want productivity / common sense stuff.

In the US, you can have totally illogical and inefficient work rules and unions will keep them on purpose just to drive up bargaining power, even though it hurts everyone (ie, being able to no show for work with no call etc).

Not all of europe is the same. The french unions have a different approach than german unions etc.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#32

Post by Frondo »

random5634 wrote: post #21
simpixelated wrote: post #5

Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…

The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…

Just one comment on this:

> Teachers unions may care more about teachers ...

That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#33

Post by pydry »

nostromo wrote: post #16
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #2

I wonder what percentage of otherwise very liberal Amazon devs read sentences like "The company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." and come away thinking "we're definitely the good guys."

Honest question: does the Democratic Party care about labor anymore? It feels like anti-Trumpism, identity issues (race, trans issues, etc.), and immigration have sucked all the oxygen out of the room. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Democrat run with supporting labor as their headline issue.

I rather thought that the function of these other issues was to suck the oxygen out of the room so they didn't have to talk about labor issues. Their donors tend to be wealthy and anti-union.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#34

Post by apengwin »

legitster wrote: post #9

I have to imagine unions have a bit of an uphill battle right now, they took some major black eyes in 2020: - Police unions openly declaring war on their own citizens - Teachers unions causing general chaos in school reopening plans I understand that public sector unions are a different beast, but purely from an optics perspective I have to imagine public sentiment for unions can't be very high right now.

Also Janus v AFSCME, which was decided 2 years ago.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#35

Post by dominotw »

simpixelated wrote: post #5

Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…

> I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies

Isn't the trend the rise of 'big' companies. I wish there were a lot of small/medium companies, instead, that were competing for workers, then we won't need 'solutions' like unions.

Looks like we are just accepting these 'big' companies as fact of life and moving on to finding solutions to deal with them.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#36

Post by zdragnar »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13
j_walter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions in the US and unions is Europe are completely different. In one they cooperate to see that the company succeeds...and in the other they seek to drive up the cost of doing business to the point that shitty products are extremely expensive (GM, Ford). Unions used to be for protecting the workers and ensuring that companies were getting the very best skillsets when hiring. Now they protect the lazy, promote the w…

The quality of a union is a function of membership engagement and organizational structure. Shitty unions, shitty companies, these are all who is in charge and how they're governed and the transparency available. Better to admit we need better operating models for unions (and that unions need to work in partnership with management to create sustainable relationships and businesses), rigorous governance and oversight…

It is also a function of "closed shop" unions in the US. Rarely do you get to pick a union to join when you work at a company; if the company workers are represented, it is often exclusively by a single union.

The result is that unions have the exact same leverage over employees as the companies themselves do, and do not often have sufficient accountability. It is not as simple as voting a union out once it has gotten in, and it takes on a life of its own.

Also, stories like SEIU collaborating with the DFL in Minnesota to get family members of disabled adults declared "in home caretaker employees" of the state so that the union gets a cut of the disability benefits is terrible. There are surely good things that unions can do, but that doesn't mean they are an intrinsic good, or that they are appropriately structured in the US.

Edit: reference: https://www.thecentersquare.com/minnesota/after-trump-rule-c...

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#37

Post by maxerickson »

filoleg wrote: post #25
paul7986 wrote: post #3

They should and should be making no less then $20 an hour to start!

> They should be making no less then $20 an hour to start! This is a noble goal, and I am all for seeing it happen. But if you think it won't just give Amazon warehouses a stronger foothold, you are mistaken. I, personally, don't think it is necessarily a bad thing if Amazon warehouses gain more workers due to their conditions becoming better as a result of unionization. But quite a lot of people will disagree with t…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795459 links an article about Amazon driving average wages down.

Seems likely enough that people working in other warehouses mostly aren't the ones filling Amazon jobs. Do we have some anecdotes about people leaving logistics jobs to go entry level at an Amazon warehouse?

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#38

Post by ghaff »

ryanmercer wrote: post #24
legitster wrote: post #9

I have to imagine unions have a bit of an uphill battle right now, they took some major black eyes in 2020: - Police unions openly declaring war on their own citizens - Teachers unions causing general chaos in school reopening plans I understand that public sector unions are a different beast, but purely from an optics perspective I have to imagine public sentiment for unions can't be very high right now.

>Teachers unions causing general chaos in school reopening plans Maybe out west but schools have been carrying on as normal here in Indiana. My wife is at school teaching right now, they've had exactly 1 day this school year where she didn't have to go to work (earlier this week) because 3 students physically cut the internet going into the building and they couldn't get repairs done in time to open that day. Edit: I…

There's been an ongoing fight in NYC as well between the union and the city/state. So it definitely varies.

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#39

Post by LatteLazy »

Can anyone outline what unionisation means in this case?

If they vote yes, is everyone at this location required to join? Are amazon required to negotiate with the union? Can amazon simply close the plant?

Presumably if unionisation works for these workers (better pay etc) then other centres will follow suit...

Re: Amazon Warehouse Workers to Decide Whether to Form Company's First U.S. Union

#40

Post by WitCanStain »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #26

I asked this in the google union thread, but was too late to the party to get any answers. Copy pasting it here: Everybody here seems to agree that unions have the potential to do good or bad in every thread on it. The next logical step to me is that there needs to be a selection mechanism in place. For companies, the selection mechanism is competition. If someone else does better, the consumer or worker can choose s…

>Is there such a mechanism for unions?

Unions should be democratic. The workers in the union should collectively decide how it is run, and it should have a fairly flat hierarchical structure. So if you feel that your union does not sufficiently represent your interests, you can get rid of the leadership and change the union for the better. As opposed to companies where you essentially have the choice to tolerate it or leave if you don't like what's happening (without unions, that is).

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