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Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

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Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#391

Post by dangerlibrary »

jupp0r wrote: post #367
dangerlibrary wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are welcome to have your mind reside in an ahistorical fantasy world if you prefer, but please don't vote before at least learning the bare minimum about the history of labor organizing, and the political influence of workers' parties.

Maybe it's because I'm in my 30s and not in my 90s, but all good things I've ever seen unions do is from history books. Thanks for that I guess, but no reason to organize in the software industry in 2023.

No, it's because there's been a systematic effort for the past 70 years or so (in the US) to weaken the legal ability of unions to accomplish their goals. "Right to work" legislation is the most well known effort at the state level in the past 30 years, but there's also been repeated amendments to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to weaken unions and eliminate their negotiating power.

1947: Taft Hartley Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act 1959: Landrum Griffin Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Management_Reporting_and...

One very concrete, recent difference between US Labor Law and Labor law in places with strong labor parties and unions is that US employment is almost entirely "at will" with each side having no contractual obligation to one another. That's why European Twitter tech employees could not legally be laid off en-masse with no warning and a couple month's severance - they had contracts, and those contracts stipulated terms on which they could be fired with or without cause, and those contracts were binding. They had time to find another job without a huge disruption to their lives and income.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#392

Post by RestlessMind »

smileysteve wrote: post #292
RestlessMind wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> data has proven over and over that people can work more productively from home. Citation needed. Not my experience at all.

https://healthworkerburnout.com/is-working-from-home-more-pr... Happy workers are more productive, research shows | World Economic Forum (weforum.org) New Survey Shows 47% Increase In Productivity: 3 Things You Must Do When Working From Home (forbes.com) The Ultimate List Of Remote Work Statistics – 2021 Edition (smallbizgenius.net) Remote Workers Are More Productive – businessnewsdaily.com The productivity pitfalls…

Doesn't look like a reliable list at all. No wonder you got it from a chat response which are typically glib but useless. Addressing some of those at random

> Happy workers are more productive, research shows

doesn't say if WFH increases or decreases overall happiness. So not a citation.

> The Ultimate List Of Remote Work Statistics – 2021 Edition (smallbizgenius.net)

Haha. It opens with "Remote work is hands down one of the most desirable benefits an employer can offer." Rest of the article is full of biases.

> 66% of U.S. Employees Are Working Remotely at Least Part-Time During the COVID-19 Pandemic (prnewswire.com)

Doesn't look like the citation at all. Covid was a unique situation where no one had any choice.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#393

Post by RestlessMind »

kyleee wrote: post #277
RestlessMind wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should RTO need data? That was the setup until 2020 and it worked. Especially for the leadership who have grown up in that requirement. Onus is on the pro-remote side to provide data that that works. Sample size of 1 - at my company, remote sucks even if we tried to go all-in on fully remote. I simply cannot have trusted relationships with my colleagues since everything has to be writing or is possible being reco…

Sounds like you work in a kind of cut throat place. Is yours a common worry? I have never worried about anything like this in the last ~7 years of working remotely

I also worked at some of the nicest environments (Google) and still, it was drilled into our minds that anything in writing can be used against us or company. In various formal and informal trainings, we were explicitly told to carry out sensitive conversations in person.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#394

Post by RestlessMind »

LiquidSky wrote: post #296
RestlessMind wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should RTO need data? That was the setup until 2020 and it worked. Especially for the leadership who have grown up in that requirement. Onus is on the pro-remote side to provide data that that works. Sample size of 1 - at my company, remote sucks even if we tried to go all-in on fully remote. I simply cannot have trusted relationships with my colleagues since everything has to be writing or is possible being reco…

>That was the setup until 2020 and it worked. Especially for the leadership who have grown up in that requirement. And people were very happy with carriages until cars came along. Things change, the world changed, WFH became the new reality. Being stuck in the past way of doings just because it was done in the past is idiotic. Leadership is especially bad about adapting to change because it means actually having to l…

> All attempts to determine the effects of WFH show no-to-positive effects on productivity.

Nope, we had a different experience. For the first few months, we all coasted on our prior relationships. Also, it was a pretty unique moment in the history and there was a "let's rise to the challenge" feeling.

Later on as employees churned and new ones joined, as well as the remote fatigue set in, we saw a drastic drop in productivity.

> Because, as noted above, there hasn't been any measurable drop in productivity due to WFH.

There has been, in our company. Management is wondering why we have less output when our workforce has more than doubled in the remote setting. To their credit, they literally went all in on remote. But one key thing they didn't realize is that remote needs rewiring of the entire communication culture. Much easier said than done.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#395

Post by RestlessMind »

eYrKEC2 wrote: post #390
RestlessMind wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure there are some parts of the world where there are tech worker unions. Do you know any examples? If so, we can look at their experience.

Boeing engineers. Engineers working for Ford, GM, et c.

Bad example then. All 3 of them have done multiple layoffs so unions didn't protect those jobs really.

Here, RTO is used as a means to lay people off.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#396

Post by jtode »

wkat4242 wrote: post #385
skinnymuch wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuba hasn’t fared well? Has socialism been tried without American and western interference? The Nordic countries aren’t socialist. Have you read Marx? What do you find is the issue? I haven’t read too much myself but I don’t see why you think capitalism will keep working out the way it is now when we have never been at this point in history with technology and globalization with the continued western hegemony?

Cuba hasn't fared well because the US is strangling them with sanctions. The Nordic countries have strong elements from socialism. It's the balance that's the best.

Cuba has fared incredibly, considering.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#397

Post by skinnymuch »

wkat4242 wrote: post #385
skinnymuch wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuba hasn’t fared well? Has socialism been tried without American and western interference? The Nordic countries aren’t socialist. Have you read Marx? What do you find is the issue? I haven’t read too much myself but I don’t see why you think capitalism will keep working out the way it is now when we have never been at this point in history with technology and globalization with the continued western hegemony?

Cuba hasn't fared well because the US is strangling them with sanctions. The Nordic countries have strong elements from socialism. It's the balance that's the best.

Have you read Marx or socialist stuff? From the bits I’ve read the Nordic countries have little to do with socialism (means of production).

Cuba has seemingly fared really well since you pointed out the issue with the country being handicapped. Cuba has medicine to stop lung cancer I heard. Americans die every day from lung cancer.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#398

Post by skinnymuch »

nielsbot wrote: post #374
lr1970 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want a just world, be a Socialist. Read Marx for real. And join the rest of the historically frustrated who will die watching humanity flagellate itself. If there's hope, it's in the proles. Socialism and Marxism were tried in 20-th century several times -- Russia, China, "Socialist Block" of East European countries under Soviet control, Cuba, etc. Somehow every attempt at creating a decent non-capitalist so…

Nobody (I don't think) is advocating for absolute socialism and the abolishment of capitalism. And I hope nobody is advocating for the opposite: absolute capitalism. Both leave lots of people in misery. Pointing to the failed examples of socialism and saying it can never work is not a serious argument. Socialism has worked as intended in many places. Look at the nordic countries (as others have mentioned). Features o…

Are you saying socialists don’t advocate for socialism? Obviously they do. Why would socialists not want the means of production to be in the hands of the masses? Also what do you think anti-capitalists advocate for? Not capitalism :).

The Nordic countries aren’t socialist. They’re capitalism with some welfare.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#399

Post by skinnymuch »

nielsbot wrote: post #373
skinnymuch wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s Social Democracy which is just capitalism.

Surely "capitalism" and "socialism" aren't binary choices. You can have well-regulated capitalism where excess profits are channeled to help those who would otherwise be left to fend for themselves due to "not winning at capitalism"

That’s just capitalism. Capitalism was never ever without any regulation.

Sure technically most things are hybrids, but to act like what almost the entire world isn’t mainly capitalist is incorrect.

Also they are sort of binary. The means of production are in the hands of the workers in socialism and in the hands of the bourgeoisie in capitalism.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#400

Post by toomuchtodo »

ryaneager wrote: post #372
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

Y’all gonna unionize or what? It has to get old listening to edicts from the folks who filter up to the top. Could also investigate a constructive dismissal class action in the interim if you can find someone willing to take it on.

This has been what I’ve been hoping for. Can be make forming a union a SaaS product? Build a unionize social network that helps people assemble.

More Wix meets Mailchimp. Website, email list, and perhaps a Slack/Discord/Telegram group are all you need in my experience assisting with organizing efforts.
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