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Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

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Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#61

Post by jlawson »

cambalache wrote: post #35
zaksoup wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> democratic states are consistently better than non-democratic ones Union wages are consistently higher than non-union wages, so we have evidence that unions are an improvement compared to direct relationships with employers. Source: literally every long-term economic comparison of wages done for the last 50 years.

And not only wages, almost every single work right has been won by sweat and blood of the organized workers. 8 hours working day, 2 days off a week, vacation time, pregnancy leave, medical insurance, etc, etc. None of them was implemented as result of the benevolence of the dominant classes.

No, they were implemented as a result of labor-saving improvements in technology.

Activists always want to take credit, but it's the engineers and scientists who actually did the thing that changed the pattern that had lasted for 10,000 years. Unions are just one particular way of structuring one side of a human conflict that is as old as civilization and as inherent as gravity.

Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#64

Post by arcticbull »

chr1 wrote: post #25
nyolfen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it pointless to attempt democracy when so many democratic states are corrupt?

Not a good comparison because democratic states are consistently better than non-democratic ones, so we have evidence that democracy is an improvement compared to other methods.

That's not really true, for instance Singapore isn't really democratic (it's effectively a one-party semi-totalitarian 'democracy') and you know what, it works really well there.

Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#65

Post by mmcwilliams »

ckris wrote: post #48
mmcwilliams wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, there should also be room to discuss the pretty good examples of employers being corrupt and even engaging in wage-fixing collusion against workers across companies within an industry. On this site there’s plenty of anti-worker sentiment and not enough discussion of the misdeeds [0] of the employers. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust...

There are plenty of issues that should be on the table when it comes to technology workers like equity arrangements, severance at high risk companies, systems for promotions, actual vacations, open source funding, health care between employment etc. The reason it won't happen isn't because there isn't cause, or that employees would suddenly sabotage the company, but that any such organization would be a politic force…

I’m not sure I’m convinced that going into any discussion that prefaces worker organization as “impossible” is entirely in good faith. All industries view worker-related expenses as costs (they are) so I don’t see the exception in this case.

What I do see is that a $350-400M settlement was seen by insiders as being short an order of magnitude, meaning that the 65,000 tech workers affected by this wage-fixing crime left a lot on the table. Class actions lawsuits, it seems, aren’t the correct tool for this kind of negotiation and unions are a viable alternative.

Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#66

Post by BEEdwards »

mc32 wrote: post #39
icxa wrote: post #4

Absurdity of this video aside, but I just wish there was room in today's political environment to discuss pros and cons to unions and non-unions. There are some pretty good examples of unions being corrupt, there are examples where unions work. There are examples where like Amazon says, having a direct relationship with your employer is the best. Nuance is gone which is the biggest loss.

Definitely. Unions brought progress in terms of worker rights, up to a point. They helped transform the landscape for all workers. But, like all big and complex organizations they become corrupted and rather than having the interest of workers and society as foremost goals, self perpetuation and preservation become the goals. Except for Bernie no other candidate explicitly and implicitly supports unions. All the othe…

>Definitely. Unions brought progress in terms of worker rights, up to a point.

That point being when capitalists convinced the government to limit the power of unions and stifle their use of union pension funds to finance things that would be beneficial union.

Taft Hartley Act of 1947

Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#68

Post by arcticbull »

jlawson wrote: post #61
cambalache wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not only wages, almost every single work right has been won by sweat and blood of the organized workers. 8 hours working day, 2 days off a week, vacation time, pregnancy leave, medical insurance, etc, etc. None of them was implemented as result of the benevolence of the dominant classes.

No, they were implemented as a result of labor-saving improvements in technology. Activists always want to take credit, but it's the engineers and scientists who actually did the thing that changed the pattern that had lasted for 10,000 years. Unions are just one particular way of structuring one side of a human conflict that is as old as civilization and as inherent as gravity.

And not locking workers inside factories? Was that implemented as a result of labor-saving improvements in technology? You should look up the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York, 1911, which it could be argued is what kicked off the modern unionization effort. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#69

Post by mirimir »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #53
mirimir wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Sole proprietorships and individual workers have similar market power. But without unions, workers have virtually no market power vs corporations (and partnerships, for that matter). I do agree that both corporations and unions ought to be regulated by antitrust law.

Market power is irrevelant to workers being able to fetch the market rate for their labor. Corporations compete with each other for a limited pool of labor. There is no generalized class conflict between corporations and workers in a free market. Competition happens just as much within classes as between them. Ultimately that results in the wages offered being determined by the underlying market forces of supply and…

I'm certainly no expert, but it's my impression that workers for large corporations generally get screwed when unions are weak. Based on data from the past several decades.

Re: Amazon's Anti-Union Training Video [video]

#70

Post by CamperBob2 »

29athrowaway wrote: post #41
mc32 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. Unions brought progress in terms of worker rights, up to a point. They helped transform the landscape for all workers. But, like all big and complex organizations they become corrupted and rather than having the interest of workers and society as foremost goals, self perpetuation and preservation become the goals. Except for Bernie no other candidate explicitly and implicitly supports unions. All the othe…

> But, like all big and complex organizations they become corrupted and rather than having the interest of workers and society as foremost goals, self perpetuation and preservation become the goals. The same can be said of corporations too.

The corporations produce useful stuff, though.
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