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’

#411

Post by adamsea » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 7:17 AM UTC

a1369209993 wrote: post #348

kergonath wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder requires intent...

I'm comfortable assuming intent when someone discharges a kinetic weapon at a occupied vehicle. If the car was parked and they assumed it was unoccupied you might have a point. I wouldn't have any trouble believing there were more attempted murders on the part of the anti-union side, or that this example happened differently than described, but what was described was clearly a (successful) attempt to kill someone.

> discharges a kinetic weapon ...

Is that the same as shooting a gun? ; )

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

#412

Post by hlandau » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 7:21 AM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #225

dencodev wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is not the best platform to from anti-capitalism sentiments. There's a lot of privilege here and it makes people pretty blind to how awful capitalism is (and the things it creates, like anti-union sentiment).

Unions aren't anti-capitalist, they explicitly work within a capitalist framework to ensure better pay and working conditions for their workers. Unions deal in money and don't seek to change that, unions recognize and don't challenge ownership of the business. What about them makes them anti-capitalist, except that they seek to shift the balance of "who, of all the people working on a business, gets paid what for the…

Unions are extortion rackets and price fixing cartels. As such, they are not only unethical in themselves and should be illegal, they constitute an attempt to obstruct capitalism.

Amusingly, this hypocrisy is literally embedded in US antitrust law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/17 Literally "price fixing cartels are bad, except when they aren't".

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

#413

Post by rmrfstar » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #309

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...

For those who aren't aware of Pinkerton's history, from wikipedia: >One of the first union busting agencies was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which came to public attention as the result of a shooting war that broke out between strikers and three hundred Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike of 1892. When the Pinkerton agents were withdrawn, state militia forces were deployed. The militia repulsed a…

"My team and I routinely pried into workers' police records, personnel files, credit histories, medical records, and family lives in search of a weakness that we could use to discredit union activists... Once in a while, a worker is impeccable. So some consultants resort to lies. To fell the sturdiest union supporters in the 1970s, I frequently launched rumors that the targeted worker was gay or was cheating on his wife. It was a very effective technique." [1, 2]

Read the Ebay stalking indictment. They were the B team with extremely limited operational capability. Now imagine they had any of the following, which are all for sale:

* Real-time location from your cell provider

* Real-time AirBnB booking

* Real-time purchases from credit card companies

* Real-time browsing records from your mobile ISP, home ISP, and behavioral advertising networks

* Your complete prescription history from your pharmacy

[1] https://aflcionc.org/confessions-of-a-union-buster/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_spies

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

#414

Post by DanBC » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 7:42 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #356

kergonath wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder requires intent...

Well, they did intend to drop the concrete block on his car, the block wasn't dropped by accident or through their gross negligence (in which case it would be manslaughter). Murder does require intent, but it does not necessarily require an intent to kill that person ; if you intend to "just" assault a person but they die, that's murder; if you intend to kill someone but kill someone else whom you did not intend to k…

Here's what CPS says about murder: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/homicide-murder-and-ma...

> Subject to three exceptions (see Voluntary Manslaughter below) the crime of murder is committed, where a person:

> Of sound mind and discretion (i.e. sane);

> unlawfully kills (i.e. not self-defence or other justified killing);

> any reasonable creature (human being);

> in being (born alive and breathing through its own lungs - Rance v Mid-Downs Health Authority (1991) 1 All ER 801 and AG Ref No 3 of 1994 (1997) 3 All ER 936;

> under the Queen's Peace (not in war-time);

> with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (GBH).

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

#415

Post by lvs » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 7:49 AM UTC

terr-dav wrote: post #400

lvs wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Y…

Withholding health insurance is also a powerful tool for breaking/preventing strikes. While it would save employers money, it would also reduce their leverage, and workers would be able to move on to other demands, or quit huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5d814caae4b0ddcef50a1460

i agree, although it's easy to withhold health insurance by maintaining a part-time, contractor, and gig workforce. That's a much stronger power-play. If anything, single payer alleviates some of their political exposure on gig workers. The pressure to classify gig workers as full employees is, in many corners, driven by the health insurance problem.

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

#416

Post by Thorrez » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 8:03 AM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #139

refresher wrote: post #48

The relevant excerpts from the job listings: >Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals (attorney stakeholders) on sensitive topics that are highly confidential, including labor organizing threats against the company, establish and track funding and activities connected to corporate campaigns (internal and external) against Amazon, and provide sophisticated analysis on these topics >Analyst…

> ...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.

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman paid Twitter employees to spy on dissidents. He was also the guy that ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. One of the spied-on dissidents was a friend of Khashoggi.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-twit...

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

#417

Post by hehebbssjj » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

cactus2093 wrote: post #379

hehebbssjj wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As much as it is true that inequality is higher than it should be I just spent time with a friend who is working two jobs during the pandemic and cannot afford to live on their own in our relatively low cost of living city. They have to ride the bus for 2 hours to get to one job. This isn't even global inequality, this is an order of magnitude income difference between "haves" with high tech jobs that realistically…

Well I'm sorry that your friend is having a tough time. But you really didn't respond to, much less refute, any of the main points of what I wrote here.

My point is extracting the maximum value from people by paying them almost nothing because it "increases the GDP" isn't a moral imperative. It's absurd on its face to say that growth at any expense is ethical because of some trickle down bullshit.

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

#418

Post by claudiawerner » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 11:04 AM UTC

valas wrote: post #388

tehjoker wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whatever you do, do not only read the Manifesto. It was designed as an agitation pamphlet rather than an as a complete exposition of his thinking, and it is almost entirely devoid of his economic thought. As other commenters here have said, Wage Labour and Capital is a good read. You may also benefit from a companion guide if you want the full picture. Capitalism: A Companion to Marx's Economy Critique by Johan Fornas is a very high quality book, and relatively new; published by Routledge.

You will not come away with a good overview (whether you are sympathetic or not) just from the Manifesto. This is not enough to learn about Marx's thought. WLaC is better, but it too does not do a deep enough dive into the peak of his thought, nor his method of exposition. Capital, with a companion guide, is your best bet.

As another commenter here said, the first chapters (even as admitted by Marx himself) are difficult to get through, mainly due to the fact that Marx uses a dialectical presentation in his work, in which the most 'core' and highly abstract concept is dealt with first, before progressing to more concrete concepts. As such, the book gets easier as it goes on.

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

#419

Post by bitemealienboi » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 11:06 AM UTC

This is not unexpected. Merely the product of capitalism.

We build an economic system that rewards selfishness and drive for profit at all costs. Successful companies generate profit. More profit is generated by charging the highest cost for the lowest quality product and paying the worker as little as possible.

Unions threaten that profitability. Its simple math. Its cheaper to hire analysts to track and snuff out labour movements than it would be to capitulate to the demands of any labour movements that formed, such as wage increases or benefits.

Why are we shocked and appalled when the system we created does what it does best?

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

#420

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 12:07 PM 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…

[deleted]