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Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

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Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#371

Post by riversflow »

andreygrehov wrote: post #298
pseudalopex wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The peeing in bottles thing is true. Sanders is 1% of half of Congress. Not dictator of Vermont. They lied about what Warren said.

This is the first time I hear about Amazon News account, but from a factual perspective, they are right, despite one like it or not. Sanders is indeed a powerful politician, which is what they said in the tweet. $11.75 vs. $15 is a 20% gap, which is quite a lot and is also a fact. Again, I'm looking at it purely from a factual perspective. It seems to me that the criticism mainly comes from people not liking AmazonNe…

How are they a “progressive workplace” from a factual perspective?

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#372

Post by 13of40 »

CptFribble wrote: post #335
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest confusion I have is everybody seems to approach Amazon and Tesla unionization as "hopefully it happens so workers will get better wages!" I could be wrong but... I'm pretty sure Amazon and Tesla pay great relative to their space. Relatively demanding, sure. I get it. We've all seen the article where some Amazon worker urinated in a bottle because "the job is just so ruthless!". They employ hundreds of tho…

> If it was that bad, I think they'd have a harder time hiring. You're severely underestimating the punishing conditions of an Amazon warehouse job. A picker has a tablet that alerts them of an item to get. A clock starts counting down on the time you have to get to the right bin, find the item, and scan it. The warehouse sorting algorithms created by Amazon engineers optimize for retrieval time - but the warehouses…

I feel like I'm going to be remembering this post every time I click the "Buy Now" button from now on. I wonder if this means it's more humane to buy from third party sellers rather than Prime?

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#373

Post by marricks »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #317
clcaev wrote: post #314

The entire concept of unionization seems unnecessarily confrontational. It does not need to be this way. Corporations are creations of the state. There is nothing preventing the state to require significant representation of employees in every board of directors. This board representation could support management that better reflects employee participation, e.g. Sociocracy. In this way, labour and capital could work…

The biggest confusion I have is everybody seems to approach Amazon and Tesla unionization as "hopefully it happens so workers will get better wages!" I could be wrong but... I'm pretty sure Amazon and Tesla pay great relative to their space. Relatively demanding, sure. I get it. We've all seen the article where some Amazon worker urinated in a bottle because "the job is just so ruthless!". They employ hundreds of tho…

Counties with Amazon warehouses have a lower pay rate for warehouse work than counties without them.

Amazon makes bank because they can get away with exploiting workers more than a mom and pop shop can, or small businesses.

--- edit ---

Amazon also has an extremely high turn over rate revealing the cruelty of their workplaces: https://labor411.org/411-blog/warehouse-worker-turnover-rate...

Cite from economist for counties with lower pay: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/01/20/what-amaz... and chart without a paywall: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1375127251004571649/pho...

Let's stop with the feel good "Amazon must pay better than alternatives because they're wealthy" and look at the facts.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#374

Post by karaterobot »

KaiserPro wrote: post #179
aborsy wrote: post #134

Working in France completely changed my view of unions. I sure hope the horrors I saw won’t happen to Tesla.

And yet, the level of inequity in france is nowhere near as much as USA. Sure there arn't as many mega rich, but then there arn't people hundreds of thousands of people being bankrupted by medical bills either.

Given that the yellow vest protests have been going on for two and a half years now, I would not hold up France as a model for income equality. The U.S. may be a decade in advance of most countries in this respect, but there's no indication I can find that France has the problem solved with its approach.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#375

Post by riversflow »

2-tpg wrote: post #311
Jonnax wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They baited Warren by lying about the fact that Amazon warehouse / delivery employees have to urinate in bottles to meet deadlines? The tweets from their account caused significant negative press for Amazon on news and social media across the world. Amazon is a global company, this kind of disdain for employees isn't looked upon as favourably in other countries. It's bad for business. Especially from an official PR c…

> the fact that Amazon warehouse / delivery employees have to urinate in bottles to meet deadlines? Amazon does not want its employees to piss into bottles. But sometimes employees (predominantly male I hope) do piss into bottles, because they did not plan correctly, or just had to go while on the road. If caught, these employees (and their managers) are then reprimanded. If they get a chance to defend themselves, of…

The warehouse/delivery worker abuse at amazon runs deep, and it goes far beyond employees peeing in bottles. Checkout the Frontline documentary, Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos [1]

[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/amazon-empire/

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#376

Post by aborsy »

r0p3 wrote: post #284
aborsy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this naive image in mind that unions are labor activists mobilizing against exploitative corporate practices. What I witnessed opened my eyes to the realities on ground, that seemed like almost opposite. As usual, life is more complicated! * The objective of trade unions is not to protect workers and improve their conditions (at least directly). It’s to protect themselves. * In every organization, there exists…

What was your job in france that gave you this experience?

It was at a university and the union is called in France CGT.

The basic problem is, if we have such powerful semi-paralegal entity (considering its scope and power), it protects people in need, but what mechanisms do we have in place to prevent it from evolving into an entity protecting itself (or to a mixed state), attracting those with perverse incentives in addition to those in need?

I agree with comments above. I wouldn’t say we should rush to dismiss unions. It probably depends on a lot of factors, eg, on country and how it’s set up. However, we need to recognize that this is an organization functioning like any other, eg, a bank, it has internal motives and can, and will, use its concentrated power to produce good and bad results. We probably need a balanced approach, and checks ...

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#377

Post by Jonnax »

jbroson wrote: post #274
Jonnax wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's okay for a business to treat employees so badly they find they have to piss in bottles? And it's okay for their official PR twitter account to lie and say it doesn't happen? But it's not okay that a politician says they're going to do something about it?

Amazon's actions have absolutely nothing to do with this. US Senators should not be threatening retaliation against a company because of tweets that piss them off. Why is this only bad when Trump or a Republican does it?

Why can't US Senators do that?

I presume the people that voted for Warren are on her side in this argument so she's being an advocate for their views.

Just because you think Amazon's employees being forced to piss in bottles isn't bad to you doesn't mean that others sees it as an injustice that makes people angry.

>Why is this only bad when Trump or a Republican does it?

Maybe treat each event on a case by case basis rather than a blanket rule?

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#378

Post by fastball »

whimsicalism wrote: post #271
fastball wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No absolutely the government should enforce legal agreements via the legal system. But that's not what this is suggesting, right? This is suggesting the government should treat unions preferentially, not equitably.

> This is suggesting the government should treat unions preferentially, not equitably. Equity is in the eye of the beholder. I don't see how this law is treating unions preferentially, and am interested in how you distinguish it with the aforementioned minority shareholder protections.

The idea here seems to be that unions can interfere with the running of a business however they want (strikes, etc), but businesses should not be allowed to "interfere" with the formation of union, where "interfere" seems to be a very low bar in terms of what is unacceptable.

When I say equitable treatment, I'm looking for symmetry, and I'm not seeing it here.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#379

Post by Jonnax »

dahfizz wrote: post #277
Jonnax wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's okay for a business to treat employees so badly they find they have to piss in bottles? And it's okay for their official PR twitter account to lie and say it doesn't happen? But it's not okay that a politician says they're going to do something about it?

I would expect more nuance from an HN reader. It's possible for both amazon and warren to be in the wrong.

I don't see where Warren is wrong here.

Care to explain it? Because it seems like the point of view advocated is "Politicans should not express views I don't like on social media"

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#380

Post by MuffinFlavored »

marricks wrote: post #373
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest confusion I have is everybody seems to approach Amazon and Tesla unionization as "hopefully it happens so workers will get better wages!" I could be wrong but... I'm pretty sure Amazon and Tesla pay great relative to their space. Relatively demanding, sure. I get it. We've all seen the article where some Amazon worker urinated in a bottle because "the job is just so ruthless!". They employ hundreds of tho…

Counties with Amazon warehouses have a lower pay rate for warehouse work than counties without them. Amazon makes bank because they can get away with exploiting workers more than a mom and pop shop can, or small businesses. --- edit --- Amazon also has an extremely high turn over rate revealing the cruelty of their workplaces: https://labor411.org/411-blog/warehouse-worker-turnover-rate... Cite from economist for cou…

> Counties with Amazon warehouses have a lower pay rate for warehouse work than counties without them.

Mom and pop warehouses pay $12-$13/hr in my county and Amazon pays $15-$20/hr with health care I believe.

https://www.amazondelivers.jobs/about/benefits/

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