Amazon's Position on Unions (YouTube video)

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3 points·traderjane··2 comments

This series of videos is pretty crummy, Amazon couldn't hire a decent actor (or was too cheap to do so), and proceeds to have their talking heads contradict themselves by saying they are neutral towards unions, but they will "boldy defend their direct relationship with employees" AKA they will fight unionization.

Another clip has "managers" (animated talking heads) calling unions thieves and crooks, followed by a quiz on which manager most closely reflects Amazon's position on unions.

The current worker <==> Amazon relationship is so imbalanced that workers feel they can't use the bathroom during their shift for fear of being fired.

Even the programmers here in Seattle are treated poorly, only "profitable" divisions get a breakroom stocked with cereal, but even those breakrooms were pretty threadbare compared to most other non-tech companies in Seattle.

Remember when UPS unionized and UPS management claimed it would make them uncompetitive, especially relative to FedEx? Curious that UPS maintains a much larger and healthier business than FedEx, _especially_ at the low-end where margins are tighter.

I think of that every time I feel the urge to defend Amazon's anti-union stance as a strategy to keep prices low. Now that Amazon's core (non-AWS) business is entering steady state, you need your labor invested in the organization to help streamline process, maintain discipline, and squeeze out profits, and one of the best ways to help accomplish that long-term is organized labor. It's not sufficient, but closer to necessary than American business is inclined to accept.

EDIT: I misremembered. UPS drivers have been unionized since the 1930s. I probably had in mind the 1997 strike where the union succeeded in forcing UPS to significantly increase wages and make a large number of part-time positions full-time.

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