Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#781

Post by djrobstep » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 2:40 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #779

djrobstep wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google "US health expenditure vs life expectancy" and "adverse selection in healthcare", read the top few links and get back to me. You're making several basic mistakes thinking about freedom, because once again you're not even familiar with basic knowledge of the topic. In particular: - Confusing the quality and quantity of choices. Free healthcare increases freedom because it increases overall quality of choices pe…

You didn't read the article I cited. Please return when you have. BTW, the Soviet Union didn't allow people to own property, and had free healthcare. People were so free there they had to build a wall around it and shoot people who tried to escape. Ditto for every other communist country. And where do those freedom-loving people want to go? The US. So many, in fact, that the US had to build a wall to keep them out .…

People in Norway with high taxes, high state ownership of the economy, and a great welfare state seem to be happily staying in Norway rather than clamouring to move to the USA for the extra “freedom”, even in spite of the weather. What do all these people know that you missed?

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#782

Post by JustLurking2022 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #303

JustLurking2022 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predict the Staten Island warehouse will soon be closed due to redundancy as part of a strategic rebalancing of their logistics operations due to changing consumer demand. Someone at Amazon is probably already touring all the warehouse sites in Jersey. Doubt they accept this loss.

I’m having a hard time seeing that work for them. Amazon’s tactics here fundamentally depend on there being an effectively inexhaustible pool of talent elsewhere that can be used to threaten any given store that considers unionizing, combined with the plausible threat of moving to get non union labor. Close up shop, hire non-union labor elsewhere, etc. That might have been true of Walmart stores, which are relatively…

There are large warehouses regularly available all along I-95 in New Jersey. They also may not need as huge of a footprint as you think - I believe they have some large warehouses just across the border in PA as well (<2 hours away), so this one may only be critical for same day delivery. Yes, it would be expensive, more expensive than closing a Wal-Mart store, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon finds the alternative worse.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#783

Post by eclat » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 11:08 AM UTC

alexk307 wrote: post #296

cs702 wrote: post #103

A single successful effort of unionization at an Amazon facility is more than symbolic: It will encourage -- and serve as a blueprint for -- employees at other Amazon facilities to do the same. Moreover, it will motivate employees at other large companies to try. This has been brewing for a while. It's possible we'll see a generational wave of unionization.

> It's possible we'll see a generational wave of unionization. One can only hope. Collective bargaining is the most powerful tool to dismantle income inequality and corporate greed.

This is not true at all in the case of unions. Salaries are much higher in the US than in other equivalent economies with higher levels of unionisation.

Now worker representatives in boards, that would be very beneficial.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#784

Post by thathndude » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #671

thathndude wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point should we be ok with low-level Amazon jobs sucking? I worked at a fast food restaurant. That sucked. But I was also a high school kid with no marketable skills. So I sort of understood I was “putting in my time” and this is the way it goes. I never thought “we should unionize and demand more money.” If Amazon needs career people in these positions, they’ll be forced to treat the employees as career peop…

I’m sympathetic to that perspective, and it’s the one I would normally take. But the working conditions at Amazon warehouses and for their delivery people seem to include things like peeing and pooping into bottles, breaks too short to get to a bathroom across the warehouse, etc. I had menial jobs myself but never quite so demeaning or physically punishing—holding it in all day seems like hell.

To be clear, I don’t disagree with this perspective. While I do remember getting yelled at for taking a, literally, 10 second drink break (“you need to ask”), I never found myself peeing in a bottle.

Re: Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize

#785

Post by peanuty1 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #430

peanuty1 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the NBA union, players like Labron James would make much more than they do today.

Maybe, but there are also a few hundred non-LeBron like players in the NBA. You can argue that the union negotiates away the rights of players like LeBron to benefit those few hundred players. But you can also argue that LeBron is only in the position to make as much money because the union has been fighting for him before he was even born. Would the NBA have free agency, guaranteed contracts, and players making tens…

We don't have to guess if someone like Labron would make as much as he makes now without a union because MJ got paid about as much. That said, you're right that the median NBA salary is much higher now. The question is whether that came at the expense of players like Labron or at the expense of the teams.