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Comment by Nicksil | Hacker News Reader

I sincerely wish Amazon employees well and the best of luck working out their grievances, but

> [...] told The Seattle Times that the company deleted the invites from its internal calendar, [...]

It looks like the event was created on the company's internal system. You cannot expect the company to be OK with keeping this sort of stuff around. Do your organizing using tools outside of the company you're organizing against. You must expect anything pertaining to such activity to be removed swiftly and likely used against you in their fight to quell opposition.

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There's a lot of misunderstanding in general, I think, about the rights that employees have under labor relations laws, and how those laws are routinely broken.

For example, up until very recently (December 2019, when a Republican-led NLRB overturned a previous 2014 ruling) it was expressly required that employees at a company be allowed to use email in order to unionize and organize.

In fact, in general there are still quite a few protections afforded to organizing workers -- even with recent rulings. The rule is that policies cannot discriminate on content. For example, if employees are allowed to use a work Google Calendar to plan birthday parties and events, then they must be allowed to use the same calendar to unionize. If employees have a workplace bulletin board where they can post about Girl Scout cookie sales or anything else personal, then they must be allowed to use that same bulletin board to post about unionization.

> You must expect anything pertaining to such activity to be removed swiftly

You actually should not because the US has plenty of legal protections that cover the employees right to organise as well as prohibiting companies from engaging in practises that make this impossible.

> prohibiting companies from engaging in practises that make this impossible

I'm pretty sure this would exclude utilizing company equipment (i.e. email) for that purpose though. To illustrate: if you worked at Walmart and used their posters to make picket signs that wouldn't fly under employee rights.

Email is not inventory to be sold, or even depletable. This is more like putting up a flyer in the break room. Technically the cork board gets damaged by the push pin, but it's not particularly relevant.

Energy and (wo)man-hours to run an email server infrastructure and all of the security to go along with it.

Which is basically a fixed cost, like putting up a cork board. So as I said, not particularly relevant.

But as you're helping shoehorn property rights into support for authoritarianism, I will point you to some legal advice directly:

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/shop-talk-rules-unio...

As long as Amazon prohibits using their calendars for all non-work content (and enforces this), they're in the right. Otherwise, this is censorship targeted at employee organizing and they're in the wrong.

It’s not a fixed cost.

But there's a broader issue here besides using an internal employee calendar. Amazon could have just addressed their employees legitimate concerns but this just comes off as petty and out of touch. It's not like they can't afford to treat their employees better, they're choosing not to do it because they'll profit slightly less.

If you cede to every employee request...?

Come back to me when there is no further growth possible, and investors are starting to bail out. Then seriious talk, can be had about it. As it stands; Amazon is coming off as petty and adversarial.

The fact is; the labor force is no longer accepting what Amazon is selling as acceptable compensation. They have the right to organize amongst themselves in their common interest, and if they (Amazon) as an employer wishes to continue in safety from "unfair labor practices" (wildcat strikes etc...) I'd personally recommend they honor their obligation to allow organization to take place. Not doing so only sends the message that the office is an economic battlefield complete with victors and the vanquished; and not a workplace where good people come together to get work done, and make money in the process.

When you sacrifice your relationship with the people who work for you, I find it difficult to offer much in the way of sympathy and understanding. Especially given the last 40 year's have been marked with capital holders rolling over their laborers in myriad new ways.

Employee request like protecting their health. Why would a company grant that request? /s

yea it's like sending out CVs to companies using your current work email. they can read it.

No, it's like putting your personal appointments on the calendar, with or without details...which everyone does, right? I mean, if I'm going to be out next Monday morning to go to the dentist, it makes sense to put it on my work calendar and probably share it with my department, so they know where I am. In a union workplace, meetings would be one of the things that you put on your schedule. I mean, how would a union even work if it was treated differently from normal activities?

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