Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#91

Post by ByteJockey » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #66

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larger unions sometimes hire staff to represent their interests who are do not work in the profession represented: negotiators, lawyers, etc. It sets up a bit of a principle/agent problem, but it also makes a lot of sense: a professional lawyer may be much better at negotiating on your behalf than the people from your profession who win the union elections.

At least in theory unions have the correct incentive structure, as they get a fixed percentage of their member's incomes, so to get more money from their members, they need to negotiate better salaries for them.

It's slightly more complicated in practice. The US has this weird system where you can opt out of full union membership and become what's called an "objector". You opt out of union membership but still pay a portion of dues (those directly around contract negotiation and the like), and you're still covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The downside being that, as you're not a union member, you generally don't get voting rights.

To quote the NLRB's website directly:

> Federal law allows unions and employers to enter into "union-security" agreements which require all employees in a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired. Employees may choose not to become union members and pay dues, or opt to pay only that share of dues used directly for representation, such as collective bargaining and contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no longer union members, but are still protected by the contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme Court ruling and is known as the Beck right.

This usually works well enough, but in certain circumstances, you can have a small minority control the entire operation and the vast majority are "represented" by an institution they have no voice in. This seems to be the case in lower paid unions (e.g. grocery baggers) because the majority can't afford the extra dues.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#92

Post by throwaway894345 » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

jballer wrote: post #24

nathanaldensr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How can we make the mundane and expected sound eeeeeeevil and dangerous?"

But did they cross state lines?

Ironically, he didn’t even cross state lines (at least not that night), he was there the night before sleeping over at a friend’s house.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#93

Post by gruez » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #63

koolba wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers? Professional bureaucrats. Teachers unions in public schools are the worst. They hold our childrens’ futures hostage and get paid out by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.

My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years. You should try talking with the people you are making claims about. I bet they're very different from what you think.

>>Professional bureaucrats.

>My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years.

Nothing you said really contradicts the parent post's claim that the people working in unions are "Professional bureaucrats". If your mom was working with disabled students for 20 years, then switched to being a bureaucrat for the next 10 years, she's still arguably a "Professional bureaucrat".

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#94

Post by f7fg_u-_h » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #66

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larger unions sometimes hire staff to represent their interests who are do not work in the profession represented: negotiators, lawyers, etc. It sets up a bit of a principle/agent problem, but it also makes a lot of sense: a professional lawyer may be much better at negotiating on your behalf than the people from your profession who win the union elections.

At least in theory unions have the correct incentive structure, as they get a fixed percentage of their member's incomes, so to get more money from their members, they need to negotiate better salaries for them.

Unions are compensated proportional to N*S where N is number of workers and S is average salary. Workers care about increasing S, but unions sometimes focus on increasing N because it is easier. But then the individual worker doesn't see their life improve.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#95

Post by pitaj » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #80

capableweb wrote: post #19

mrits: "You guys love the police union too, right? Right???" The general idea, yeah. It proves how strong a union can be. The implementation? No. A union for people who have monopoly on violence? No. A union that protects people who are actively hurting civilians without recourse? No.

The general framework for understanding police unions from a labor perspective is that the primary function of police is to safeguard private property rights, specifically the rights of the owning class. In that sense they are structurally opposed to all other sorts of labor unions, since labor unions threaten the maximal control of owners over the private property used (in conjunction with labor) to generate profit.…

Yeah, if you buy into the socialist class conflict theory. But it's pretty obvious that police only protect themselves and the state. They don't care about the private property of rich people any more than it hurts their reputation or the rich people have political connections.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#96

Post by gnulinux » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

collegeburner wrote: post #78

wahnfrieden wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

go look up what other illegal union busting behaviors they've gotten away with. and look at democrat or republican behaviors, such as biden actively strike-busting the other day

strike busting public unions is good. we should never recognize public unions. there is no middleman to reduce profits with the government, higher wages means we pay more, there's no "evil capitalist" who will get less instead.

An alternative perspective to look at this is that orgs like USPS are services provided to Americans because they're the kind of services that would otherwise be inaccessible to great majority of Americans. For this reason, increasing the wages and potentially attracting better workers and increasing the morale (and thus performance) of existing workers are beneficial for Americans.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#97

Post by ilikehurdles » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #49

photochemsyn wrote: post #10

Realistically an Amazon-wide union is the only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China, without having any cross-border capital flow penalities (neoliberal globalism in a nutshell), then the major employers like Amazon and Walmart are going to have to double their w…

> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.

While I do agree in principle that rapidly increasing wages leads to price inflation, your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland (most recently was there on Saturday and will spend the next few days there starting tomorrow.)

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#98

Post by coldpie » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #93

coldpie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years. You should try talking with the people you are making claims about. I bet they're very different from what you think.

>>Professional bureaucrats. >My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years. Nothing you said really contradicts the parent post's claim that the people working in unions are "Professional bureaucrats". If your mom was working with disabled students for 20 years, then switched to being a bureaucrat for the next 10 yea…

That's not how it worked. The union role took a few hours a month, in addition to her para job. A handful of meetings, usually in evenings after a normal workday. It would never have been considered her primary job, more like a task within her job at the school.

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#99

Post by bombcar » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

JWlrCk9PkipFTDq wrote: post #90

bombcar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in most cases in the US you have compulsory union membership (or as matters most, compulsory union dues).

Definitely agree that compulsory union membership (or compulsory membership of any political organisation for that matter) is a terrible idea!

The argument is understandable - if you're not forced to join the union and pay for it, then everyone will just not join and let the union still negotiate on their behalf; and it'll have no money to operate and fall apart.

However, I'm sure there would be other ways (for example, if the union is negotiating with the company, the company can just pay for the union, it does indirectly through salary anyway).

Re: Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards

#100

Post by bombcar » Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #68

bombcar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union just makes two huge parties, neither of which the employee has much choice about.

Most unions that have survived 40 years of anti worker propaganda are huge, yes. But they don't have to be. One thing I'm hoping comes out of this recent union revival is an exploration of different union types and sizes, to find new models that work well.

It's amusing to me that unions complain about outsourcing as they themselves outsource all their work to some mega-union.