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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’

#331

Post by kergonath »

ardy42 wrote: post #258
MrStonedOne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each location should have its own union, grouping them all up allows the needs of the few to get drowned out by the wants of the many, and elevates union leadership to a position of power over the workers as union reps have easier access to spread their messaging to employees across locations while normal employees can only organize within their location.

>>> corpitized unions (anything union organisation bigger then 1 location of 1 employer) are goons. > Each location should have its own union You might as well go all the way, and condemn any union with more than one member. The whole point of a union is to have an organization representing the workers that has enough power to negotiate with the employer as a relative equal. Your "single site" unions would be pointle…

That specific poster would probably not see ineffective and powerless unions as a bad thing.

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

#332

Post by kergonath »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #202
rumanator wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and elevates union leadership to a position of power over the workers as union reps I don't understand your point. Do you believe that this so called risk of an elected representative getting more power than the people that elected him is overall worse than the people having absolutely no power or representation? I mean, can you explain why in your view leaving an employee SOL is more desirable than ensuring…

My view is that laws must keep unions from acting in bad faith before forced unions can be allowed to exist. The primary positive effect of a union is its appeals process that keep employers from firing you on a whim. Nothing about that positive effect requires the union be forced upon you, and if unions had to earn their dues they wouldn't act in bad faith as often.

In which actual country is forced unionisation a thing? It sounds more like stupid local laws than a flaw in the concept of trade unions.

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

#333

Post by ardy42 »

anoxor wrote: post #16

Having been a part of a union I was mandated to enter when I took the job until the supreme court ruled that wasn't legal, actual unions are a far cry from how they are portrayed as helping the worker. I would honestly do anything in my power to not have to work in a union again. They are set up as antagonistic between administration and workers, and adds a layer of bureaucracy that I've only seen be negative. I've w…

> actual unions are a far cry from how they are portrayed as helping the worker.

But that's life. Real capitalism is also a far cry from the fairy tale capitalism presented by many popular economics books and articles (e.g. the beautiful self-regulating system where everyone is better off in the end by definition).

> They are set up as antagonistic between administration and workers, and adds a layer of bureaucracy that I've only seen be negative. I've worked with people who effectively could never be fired and were so bad at their jobs they spread negativity with everyone they encountered.

You could say the same about democracy. Wouldn't it be better to replace our actual democratic system with an idealized autocracy? There'd be far less interpersonal strife over politics, and we wouldn't have to waste our time with voting or political participation, and could devote our energies to more productive things instead!

The union debate is weird like that. There's all kinds of negative discussion about specific instances of unions, considered in isolation. But that's rarely balanced against the specific problems unions are meant to solve or mitigate, so the effect is to compare the negatives of unions against an unspecified but implied positive management/shareholder-led status quo.

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

#334

Post by wnevets »

umvi wrote: post #108
wnevets wrote: post #78

Whenever unions are mentioned on HN there always seems to be a coordinated effort to attack them in the comments, very interesting.

Maybe because a lot of people on HN are small business owners, and unions take power away from business owners and can and will force you to do things to the detriment of your business if they deem it in the best interests of the union members.

>Maybe because a lot of people on HN are small business owners,

A lot of small business owners who also happened to work for a union and had a bad experience? That seems like a lot for a site largely filled with software developers. Is HN more mainstream than I'm giving credit?

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

#335

Post by chrisseaton »

calcifer wrote: post #326
chrisseaton wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was a pretty watershed moment in union relations in the UK. It's what a lot of people think of when they think of unions in the UK. They're pretty unpopular here. I was explaining why a British person might call them goons.

> They're pretty unpopular here. I was explaining why a British person might call them goons. Yeah, no. We must be living in different countries. There are lots of large, powerful, popular British unions in a wide variety of industries.

Union membership in the UK has been going down long-term for four decades. It's halved since 1980 in fact.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/287232/trade-union-densi...

The Labour party have been ineffective for a decade and haven't been less popular since 1935. They're at their least popular when their leadership is more aligned to the unions. They were at the most recent popularity when they were furthest from the unions. They have just one representative now in Scotland, once a key area for unions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2019-50768605

If you're a fan of unionisation in the UK then I'd say you have cause for concern.

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

#336

Post by notJim »

cactus2093 wrote: post #190
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.

You're talking about union education as if it's equivalent to mathematics or something, like there is an absolute truth to be learned. Surely even the most pro-union people would acknowledge that not every implementation of a union is equivalent? And that some have caused harm? I would say I'm union agnostic, I'm not against them but I have about the same amount of faith that a union will improve things in a given si…

> You're talking about union education as if it's equivalent to mathematics or something, like there is an absolute truth to be learned. Surely even the most pro-union people would acknowledge that not every implementation of a union is equivalent

Just like in school civics class you probably learned about the concepts of the government is structured, the principals behind it, a bit about other approaches, etc, I don't see why you couldn't learn the same things for unions. Of course the government doesn't really quite work like that, but isn't it better to have a baseline understanding and shared idea? The situation with unions now is that basically the only thing people know about them is propaganda from anti-union groups, unless they happen to be in one. I fail to see how this is better. It would be like if you first learned about democracy from a monarchist telling you how bad democracy is.

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

#337

Post by andybak »

andybak wrote: post #305
chrisseaton wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was a pretty watershed moment in union relations in the UK. It's what a lot of people think of when they think of unions in the UK. They're pretty unpopular here. I was explaining why a British person might call them goons.

Brit here. Don't listen to this person. I'm mostly centrist/moderate left. None of this rings true. Typing on phone so excuse the brevity.

OK. At a keyboard now so I'll flesh this out a bit.

In my experience people have a fairly balanced view of unions. There's pretty broad membership. In most places I've worked people join the union if there is one. Some unions where regarded negatively at some points in time but there's also general sympathy for some industrial action. It varies - blue collar workers tend to be more positive and white collar workers (especially in non-unionized fields) tend to be less.

But this guy seems to be implying that that's wide-ranging hostility to unions in the UK - which I've never been aware of. There's a plurality of views as you would expect. I've known plenty of tory-voting union members so it's not even a strict right/left split.

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

#338

Post by notJim »

wnevets wrote: post #78

Whenever unions are mentioned on HN there always seems to be a coordinated effort to attack them in the comments, very interesting.

I don't think there's coordination happening on HN necessarily. There is a very high degree of anti-union propaganda in the broader culture, and many have taken that propaganda on without considering or hearing much from the other side. None of the stuff people say about unions on HN is anything I haven't heard a million times in casual conversation with others.

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

#339

Post by supercollision »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #185
heavyset_go wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people on HN are people who need to work to eat and keep a roof over their heads, and the companies they work for take power away from them, and will force them to do things to the detriment of themselves if it's deemed in the best interests of the company. A union is a company that represents the interests of workers in the same way that a company is an entity that represents the interests of ca…

That lawsuit didn’t require unions, though. If anything, it’s a great example of how our industry can overcome these issues without unionization. People tend to forget that unions represent the existing employees, not aspiring hires. This can actually work to the detriment of juniors and newcomers to the industry. It can also work to the detriment of teams where it becomes intensely difficult to fire people who are l…

One lawsuit was a Department of Justice antitrust investigation (quickly settled) that required a bunch of lawyers, discovery, and having the conduct run up against the Sherman antitrust act. I think a tech union is very unlikely but would rather things get fixed before they get that far.

My understanding is that the related civil class action suit recouped small fractions of estimated lost wages, though there's a lot of hand-waving there and both sides are going to wave their hands differently.

I might be mistaken; this didn't affect me too much, and I most mostly just amused how incredibly afraid of Steve Jobs everyone was.

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

#340

Post by rumanator »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #202
rumanator wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and elevates union leadership to a position of power over the workers as union reps I don't understand your point. Do you believe that this so called risk of an elected representative getting more power than the people that elected him is overall worse than the people having absolutely no power or representation? I mean, can you explain why in your view leaving an employee SOL is more desirable than ensuring…

My view is that laws must keep unions from acting in bad faith before forced unions can be allowed to exist. The primary positive effect of a union is its appeals process that keep employers from firing you on a whim. Nothing about that positive effect requires the union be forced upon you, and if unions had to earn their dues they wouldn't act in bad faith as often.

> My view is that laws must keep unions from acting in bad faith before forced unions can be allowed to exist.

Who said anything about forced unions? We're talking about allowing unions to exist so that workers are free to join them if that happens to be their wish.

I mean, we're having a discussion on how corporations use their coercive power and influence over workers lives to degrade their lives to serve the interests of a few, and somehow you're expecting to shift the conversation to how bad unions are if we don't get a say whether we join one or not?

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