Whole Foods workers seek to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#381

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

GabrielBen wrote: post #364

Apocryphon wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. So you yearn for a world without capitalism.

Its not capitalism that creates spoils it is the government that takes money from people and then decides what to do with it.

The ancestral post in this thread that listed many different types of NGOs backed by industry leaders who seek to enlarge their share of the spoils, and asked why unions should not be one of them. No one mentioned government involvement.

Maybe society is based upon competition?

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#382

Post by grasshopperpurp » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

spacehome wrote: post #367

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I agree. Yet people keep voting for socialism.

>Employers are not and should not be required to pay you for work you are not doing. If maternity leave is important to an employee, it's important to negotiate it when arranging employment, or failing that, negotiate a high enough salary that you can afford to save for a couple months without income.

As if people have any negotiating power without unions, as if there is not a well-documented power imbalance in this country. Your attitude toward the common woman/man = why we can't have nice things. You and people like you labeling any thing that gives people a decent chance socialism = why we can't have nice things. Would you consider Denmark a socialist country?

Or maybe you were just being glib?

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#383

Post by rossdavidh » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

Kephael wrote: post #261

yurishimo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a small side note, Central Market is also pushing into the online shopping model and using open source software to do it. A friend here in Dallas worked on their WooCommerce integration.

WooCommerce vs the largest e-commerce platform in the world? I've been to the Amazon Go store and took a close look at the camera arrays, these toy retailers are whistling past the graveyard.

Perhaps, but a decade ago people said that HEB/Central Market were doomed because WalMart was moving into groceries, and at that time WalMart was considered the unstoppable retail behemoth. If I were placing bets on who will do better in groceries ecommerce, I would bet on the company that has its entire focus on that, especially when they have a history of beating back big competitors who come from other retail sectors.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#384

Post by nickthemagicman » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #321

nickthemagicman wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I just donate to actual organizations that are changing the world like the ACLU.

... They're a charity. You didn't stop donating to charity.

Thanks for the correction!

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#385

Post by mulmen » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #363

mulmen wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to work unless conditions improve.

Then they all get fired, or progressively fired and replaced with non-unions.Not-working is not much of a leverage as much as non-selling is not a leverage for a company.

With a few exceptions you can’t be fired for striking in the United States.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#386

Post by zaroth » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

nsnick wrote: post #332

zaroth wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me a while to get the Amazon app on my phone. Now it’s one of the most useful apps I have. I love being able to quickly drop something in my cart in like two taps just as I think about it, or scan a barcode to double check the price of something. If you do a lot of shopping on Amazon anyway the app is a win. Once I can use it to scan groceries as I put them in the cart and walk straight to the car it’ll be ev…

Scanning groceries as you shop and not having to take them out of the cart again at a till has existed at Waitrose since at least the year 2000

I do it at Stop&Shop with a dedicated scanner all the time. Does anyone do it with a smartphone app?

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#387

Post by zdragnar » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

u-r-a-scab wrote: post #324

zdragnar wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked well enough for me when I was younger, though I wasn't living in SF.

younger is the key word there.

Not really. Everyone else who worked their longer, or had more experience elsewhere, got paid more, typically with a different job title.

Another job that was more uniform was in a factory, where I was making roughly $12 / hour. Not only was it unskilled labor, but those jobs were slowly disappearing as lines were being replaced with fully automated systems that only needed a third, at most, of the people to run them. Any effort to raise wages or unionize would merely ensure that the remaining lines were replaced sooner rather than later.

Therein lies the problem with trying to "solve" unskilled work. It's easier to automate, and there's more people capable of doing it. Given that often means that supply exceeds demand, wages are inevitably going to stay low, or the jobs will simply evaporate.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#388

Post by ironmagma » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

ProfBernardo wrote: post #218

megablast wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make things better for everyone? Not everyone is selfish.

So, working somewhere you hate in the name of bettering others is the right thing to do? Does that really help anyone?

Well, we wouldn't really have operating schools or governments without that, so yes it does help people.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#389

Post by tptacek » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

andrewprock wrote: post #210

akudha wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if things have gone bad for employees (not a surprise though), but as a shopper, things have definitely gone bad. Most visible one is empty shelves, which is becoming more and more frequent. Maybe they did some "optimization", doesn't help shoppers though

I went there the other day to buy tomatillos. They didn't have any, so I had to go to Smart and Final. When Whole Foods can't get produce that Smart and Final can, it tells me that they don't want to carry that produce.

Whole Foods produce has been dreadful for years. As I understand it, that's the result of a deliberate shift from groceries to prepared foods ("stop in and pick up dinner for the night"). Amazon definitely didn't break Whole Foods produce.

Whole Foods in Chicago does a good job with meat, dairy, and beer. We more or less treat it as a specialty store for those three categories, and buy everything else from local stores. Produce, in particular, is always better at Mexican grocery stores.

Re: Whole Foods workers seek to unionize

#390

Post by deathanatos » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #75

deathanatos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's part of the problem. I go to Super Duper in SF, and every time, the employee is forced to ask: "Have you been to Super Duper before?" If I say yes, "Welcome back!" if I say no, "Welcome!"¹. It is pointless. All I want is lunch. Want to see that I've been here before? You have my credit card number… ¹The exact words might not be right, the point is that there is no meaningful difference to the customer betw…

> All I want is lunch. All they want is to know whether they need to explain to you in detail or if you already have a sense of the menu. Not sure what you find odd with people trying to provide you good service. smh

> All they want is to know whether they need to explain to you in detail or if you already have a sense of the menu.

You missed the point of my post: they don't explain the menu to you in detail, if you answer in the negative. This particular part of their script occurs after you order to, so there isn't even an opportunity.

Their menu is also bog-standard hamburgers, with not a whole lot of options.

> trying to provide you good service

No service is being provided during this part of the interaction, is my point. The whole thing would be more pleasurable if it was genuine, and not a forced, scripted word track.