Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track ‘labor organizing threats’ • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by hannasanarion » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

supercollision wrote: post #339

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lo…

> I think a tech union is very unlikely but would rather things get fixed before they get that far.

There is no need to wait for a "tech union" to unionize tech offices. Kickstarter unionized last year under the Office and Professional Employees International Union.

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

#382

Post by oefrha » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #334

umvi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

HN is not mainstream but has a diverse audience. The subset commenting on any story is a self-selected group that likely has more experience in or devotion to the topic. Find a thread about math or physics and you’ll find an outsized representation of mathematicians and physicists commenting; does that indicate the site is full of mathematicians and physicists? No, they’re just self-selected to comment. Same here.

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

#383

Post by hannasanarion » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

yibg wrote: post #300

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 a lot of people just have had negative interactions with unions.

Maybe a lot of people have been told nebulous negative union stories repeated over and over by big business.

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

#384

Post by sangnoir » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #171

sangnoir wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...hostile political leaders. Nice! It's always good to see corporates fight against elected politicians that are hostile to projects like HQ 2. This is not dystopian at all.

dystopian? democracy is a flawed system so politicians should expect pushbacks.

Yes - Dystopian. You're likely familiar with the dystopian trope where unchecked corporate entities supersede nation-states. I got reminded of that here.

In my ideal democracy, I do expect pushback, but I'd like for it to come from actual voters. If you believe that not only are "corporations are people (my friend)", but should be able to go mano a mano with individual politicians (not lobbying), here's a quick thought experiment: how would you feel if that sentence were from a document by TikTok Inc?

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

#385

Post by hannasanarion » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

supercollision wrote: post #276

badRNG wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't think getting bogged down in a political discussion here is a good idea (and I don't necessarily disagree,) I do think it is interesting how ignorant Americans often are of the many literal battles in the war for humane working conditions. It might be worth reading about how workers were bombed and gunned down during the labor movement (late 19th, early 20th centuries) in the US, notably the Battle of B…

+1 to your post and links. I'm also surprised by how much anti-union sentiment exists in the US; things like the 40-hour workweek and concept of overtime were paid for in blood.

The US works hard to surpress labor history education. We even celebrate Labor Day in September, and as a result most Americans have never heard of the Haymarket Massacre, which is the whole reason it exists everywhere else in the world.

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

#386

Post by hannasanarion » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:35 AM UTC

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #253

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.

Because not all unions are angelic as they are portrayed in popular culture. I am a 34 year old immigrant from a country where unions are synonymous with both corruption and workers rights. US also has a similar history. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=518184... Edit: downvoted for pointing out facts. Your downvotes won't change reality, as much as you think it does.

I don't understand this sentiment. Why is

1. an allegedly corrupt democratic institution that you personally have influence over which exists to fight for your rights

a bigger problem than

2. a definitely corrupt authoritarian institution run by self-interested plutocrats that exists to squeeze as much free work out of you as possible?

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

#387

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:41 AM UTC

Communitivity wrote: post #14

This does not surprise me. I've been waiting to see corporate intelligence agencies pop up. When you think about it, Amazon had an operating budget last year of around $309 billion [1], already 75% of Germany's at $399 billion [2]. Facebook has an operating budget of around $35 billion, but that is still enough to field a small intelligence arm. Also, that is Facebook..not all Facebook properties combined. [1] https:…

Corporate intelligence agencies have long existed, but they don't call themselves that. They are usually called corporate law firms or PR agencies. Note that the Amazon job description was specific about working with attorneys.

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

#388

Post by valas » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #101

reading-at-work wrote: post #17

Not surprised. Tech companies (Facebook and Google in this case, and probably others) have been known to retain Pinkerton agents to monitor employees. Yes, those Pinkertons. “Among other services, Pinkerton offers to send investigators to coffee shops or restaurants near a company’s campus to eavesdrop on employees’ conversations.” https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-neve...

Everyone that likes the New Deal should thank the union organizers and socialists that literally had to fight police in the streets to force the hand of the state. A large enough faction of the capitalists back then agreed to reforms because they feared things were going the way of revolution. In the 1930s, the 1917 revolution in Russia was a recent memory that scared the piss out of them. Bezos would like to continu…

"read some Marx"... do you have some book in mind? Perhaps some good summary? I hear Capital is hard to parse.

So far my experience in trying to distill Marx is that he did reasonable assessment of the state of affairs at the time (i.e. identifying main classes in society of 1800s), but then his prescriptions of what to do (socialize means of production) did not work out anywhere. Maybe I'm reading wrong books.

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

#389

Post by yibg » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 3:52 AM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #383

yibg wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a lot of people just have had negative interactions with unions.

Maybe a lot of people have been told nebulous negative union stories repeated over and over by big business.

Can't speak for other people, but my views are from personal experience. Granted low sample size of 2, but that's what I have to judge by.

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

#390

Post by lvs » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

droptablemain wrote: post #347

burfog wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now the work week is less than 30 hours. Yay! All it took was requiring health insurance for employees with 30 hours. By that strategy, we could have a 10-hour work week if we wanted it.

The burden of health insurance shouldn't fall to the business anyway. It is the responsibility of the federal government.

This is an important argument that people miss. Cost increases in health care for government systems are managed at the government level, not at the level of individual companies. That's a pretty desirable situation for companies. Not only do companies make targets of themselves when they downgrade coverage, but the overall compensation is also less transparent to the worker when insurance is tied to the workplace. You get rid of all that stuff in a single payer system.