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Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

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Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#531

Post by colejohnson66 »

chokeartist wrote: post #489
rendall wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an American living in Europe, I love GDPR.

Speaking as an American living in America, I love GDPR. Where I work [big-co], it is mandated that all of our services are GDPR-compliant, regardless of worldwide location. The only people who hate GDPR are ad-industry parasites. To that I say: good riddance, and don't let starvation hurt too much on the way down.

> The only people who hate GDPR are ad-industry parasites. To that I say: good riddance, and don't let starvation hurt too much on the way down.

Broad generalizations are nice, but my experience on HN shows that it’s also people who don’t understand the law. Complaints about cookie banners and popups that you’re powerless to stop as an American do exist.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#532

Post by htrp »

JPKab wrote: post #343
sudosteph wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's destroyed, another retailer will take it's place. I worked at Target back in the day, and I still remember the onboarding videos they showed us. Half of it was ridiculous drivel about how much they love employees and support LGBT and minorities, and the other half was literal anti-union propaganda and fear-mongering. When it came right down to it, Target is just as happy to treat human workers as disposable t…

I used to do extensive data science work with various retailers, including Target, Walmart, and Amazon. Compared to Walmart, Target is absolutely abysmal on many fronts. The amount of wasted fuel caused by their horrifically inept logistics makes Walmart look like the Sierra Club. And they were the model for substituting low-impact inclusion messaging in place of actually treating workers decently. I live near Boulde…

I've heard amazing things about WalMart's logistics systems, care to comment a bit more about the ones at Target?

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#533

Post by htnsao »

okamiueru wrote: post #524
htnsao wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having actually worked a union job once, I'll say this: Unions suck. Bezos should fire them all and hire people that want to work harder to make more money. And try to replace each whiner with a robot.

Care to explain or elaborate? I'm in utter confusion at every hacker news discussion that touches on unions. I live in a country that is heavily unionised. Its almost unheard of to not be in one. And, y the benefits are so prevalent, that I'm just confused reading the things I read on hacker news. It's just, weird. I have my suspicious, but I'd have to keep those to myself due to the guidelines here.

>Care to explain or elaborate?

Ok. I once took a massive pay cut to go from piece-work to union hourly wages. The days were longer and overall crew production was around 1/3 of what it should be. Work availability was based on seniority within the union instead of performance.

Unions are all about receiving more for doing less, and are very detrimental to businesses.

In my experience union workers are a lazy bunch that talk more then they work, killing time is their main job description.

And union administrators are just parasites. It's all political. I've seen teachers unwillingly have to go on strike for months then be stuck with a worse deal afterwards.

Anyways I think if people aren't happy with their job they should go work somewhere else or better yet start their own business.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#534

Post by sokoloff »

simlevesque wrote: post #518
sodality2 wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I don't think so. You probably couldn't pick a random union member but there's gotta be someone smart, driven, and mad enough to do it for free and do a good job at it. Hell, if I had the skills and resources to, I would.

You are advocating for slavery, unpaid work. If you willfuly agree to unpaid work, you will be such a bad union leader, don't bother. You missed the entire point.

Doing something that helps you and helps your similarly-situated fellow worker seems like something that would qualify you for a union leadership role.

Further: People do all kinds of unpaid work to make their community or shared experiences better without (most of?) us accusing them of advocating for slavery.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#535

Post by eldavido »

okamiueru wrote: post #524
htnsao wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having actually worked a union job once, I'll say this: Unions suck. Bezos should fire them all and hire people that want to work harder to make more money. And try to replace each whiner with a robot.

Care to explain or elaborate? I'm in utter confusion at every hacker news discussion that touches on unions. I live in a country that is heavily unionised. Its almost unheard of to not be in one. And, y the benefits are so prevalent, that I'm just confused reading the things I read on hacker news. It's just, weird. I have my suspicious, but I'd have to keep those to myself due to the guidelines here.

Data point: wages are higher in the US than most other countries, even for equivalent jobs. I routinely see development jobs in Europe offering 40-50k Euros that would pay double that in dollars in the US, and the US also tends to have lower taxes.

How does your country's wages compare? I do think the US works more hours (look at OECD data for this) but I think US companies are managed better in general, and the general non-unionization of the US workforce (only about 15% overall, with the majority working for government) is a big part of why pay is higher.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#536

Post by selestify »

eldavido wrote: post #535
okamiueru wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain or elaborate? I'm in utter confusion at every hacker news discussion that touches on unions. I live in a country that is heavily unionised. Its almost unheard of to not be in one. And, y the benefits are so prevalent, that I'm just confused reading the things I read on hacker news. It's just, weird. I have my suspicious, but I'd have to keep those to myself due to the guidelines here.

Data point: wages are higher in the US than most other countries, even for equivalent jobs. I routinely see development jobs in Europe offering 40-50k Euros that would pay double that in dollars in the US, and the US also tends to have lower taxes. How does your country's wages compare? I do think the US works more hours (look at OECD data for this) but I think US companies are managed better in general, and the gene…

Nah. Even within the US, union members are better paid than non-union members.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#537

Post by gowld »

htnsao wrote: post #533
okamiueru wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain or elaborate? I'm in utter confusion at every hacker news discussion that touches on unions. I live in a country that is heavily unionised. Its almost unheard of to not be in one. And, y the benefits are so prevalent, that I'm just confused reading the things I read on hacker news. It's just, weird. I have my suspicious, but I'd have to keep those to myself due to the guidelines here.

>Care to explain or elaborate? Ok. I once took a massive pay cut to go from piece-work to union hourly wages. The days were longer and overall crew production was around 1/3 of what it should be. Work availability was based on seniority within the union instead of performance. Unions are all about receiving more for doing less, and are very detrimental to businesses. In my experience union workers are a lazy bunch th…

Replacing "union" with "management" yields a substantially equivalent argument.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#538

Post by filoleg »

pseudalopex wrote: post #450
yohannparis wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It mostly means that you are not forced to be part of a union to work. Which is something I agree with. But I highly encourage people to be part of an union.

You can never be forced to join a union. Federal law forces unions to represent non members. "Right to work" means non members can force them to do it for free. Other states let unions force non members to pay for what the union is forced to provide them.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this law simply prevent a situation where a non-union employee would be forced to pay the union fees even if he doesn't want to be a part of the union in a unionized workplace? If yes, how is it a bad thing for employees?

Genuine question, because I don't understand the issue. If they want to join a union and pay the associated fees, they are welcome to. If they just wanna work a job without joining a union and paying their fees, they can do that as well. How is it a bad thing, unless you consider forcing those employees who don't care about unions to still contribute fees a good thing?

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#539

Post by gowld »

sudosysgen wrote: post #202
mc32 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with your points. However, using that line of thinking people voluntarily join a company too. Often to work for a company with union rep one HAS to join, whether one agrees or not, so it’s not entirely voluntary in a strict sense. All this said, I do believe Amazon is treating their warehouse workers unfairly and they deserve pushback though I admit I do not favor bringing in a Union due to my past member exper…

There is a huge difference. People have no choice but to work, and once you are employed, you cannot have any democratic control over the company. In contrast, for the union, even if you were forced to join, you'd still have democratic control over the union itself. So there is a big difference. It's the difference between choosing in which dictatorship to live and living in a (sometimes direct!) democracy.

By that argument, Trump's behavior is OK because he was elected.

Re: Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees

#540

Post by ByteJockey »

flyt wrote: post #333
dheera wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? An ego boost? I mean this seriously -- people love being moderators of Subreddits and admins of online communities largely deep down for the ego boost. A union really needs not much more than a Discord server and maybe a Zoom membership to organize strikes and whatever else they need to do.

Unions need more than a Discord to organize. They may need to compensate union leadership for time taken to organize away from their work duties, pay for events, pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure, and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers. No union will have much luck performing collective bargaining against Amazon without working alongside experienced lawyers. These costs don't hav…

You also need a well funded strike fund so your threat of a strike looks more realistic on paper.
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