Amazon Employee Warns Internal Groups Being Monitored for Labor Organizing | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Employee Warns Internal Groups Being Monitored for Labor Organizing

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42 pointsclaudeganon20 comments

Several of those listservs are very obviously centered around protected classes. Could increased monitoring (or lack thereof, say, of @christians) be seen as discrimination under employment law?

I'm confused as to why anyone would presume to be able to use company equipment, resources, email, etc for these types of activities. Obviously you have a right to organize, but I don't see how they have to let you use their systems to do so, and anything you send on company email they can and should be able to view. I've seen this sort of thing with the Google protests and whatnot too. The forums, message boards, and email accounts you are using belong to the company. Use external resources if you're going to do such things.

Because company makes these resources available specifically for employee's personal use? And if you read the article Amazon specifically says that they are only monitoring for anonymized feedback so if they don't want employees using them to organize then they are not being very clear with that communication.

Also the article notes that Amazon is not only monitoring the internal listservers but also their employee's social media accounts including infiltrating private social media groups that employees created.

> Because company makes these resources available specifically for employee's personal use

Really? Is that an Amazon thing? Because my company's equipment is clearly not primarily intended for my personal use, as stated in a few company documents.

Company documents can say whatever they want, but labor law wins.

For sure, can you point me to the labor law stating that company issued equipment is primarily for the personal use of the employee? I couldn't find anything at the federal level.

My info was out of date but pre-Dec 2019 (Caesars Union Suit), electronic communication channels were treated like break rooms- if they aren’t already restricted to only work chat, and you could shoot the shit, then they can’t block or specifically spy (or appear to spy) on protected union activity. Post that ruling, I don’t really understand where the line is. Apparently if there is no other way to communicate outside of work with your co-workers, then they have to let you do it. Maybe you could argue that’s the case during coronavirus unless you can easily get everyone’s personal emails. Shrug

I see. Yeah it's typically the kind of thing where the line is pretty blurry.

Except maybe by word of mouth spread the existence of external forums for communication that don’t involve leveraging company paid resources and some kind of entitlement to use said resources for non-company purposes. Using external resources and word of mouth may not be the most convenient result but it’s realistically fair.

So entitlement to things paid for by others, that you have a “right” to for your own purposes. Got it.

It seems like you’re painting with a broad brush. Does the company literally allow those resources to be used for personal use without restriction? Or are there in fact terms of use associated with those resources? Can you use them to advertise for your personal business? Can you post a singles ad? Or are there terms of use that specify what kind of communication is acceptable and maybe terms that allow the company to monitor the communications over that medium? Without knowing the actual terms of the use of those resources and just saying “well, personal use” you’re just speaking in very broad terms.

If these employees would use their own devices on their own time to organize, they would probably be much more successful.

Imagine if you worked at the FBI and you used the internal chat app to coordinate illegal activity, and then became surprised when the FBI found out about your misconduct because of messages you posted on the bureau's equipment.

Also confused about this, as well. You don't sh*t where you eat.

Wrong on all counts except when you said you’re allowed to organize: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...

> This includes your right to distribute union literature, wear union buttons t-shirts, or other insignia (except in unusual "special circumstances"), solicit coworkers to sign union authorization cards, and discuss the union with coworkers. Supervisors and managers cannot spy on you (or make it appear that they are doing so), coercively question you, threaten you or bribe you regarding your union activity or the union activities of your co-workers. You can't be fired, disciplined, demoted, or penalized in any way for engaging in these activities.

> presume to be able to use company equipment

I think this is the central point. You can do all those things, but are you entitled to use company equipment to do so?

The term spying becomes less clear-cut in that context too. It's spying if I get your personal private communication, but monitoring one's own internal network would not normally be considered spying.

Looks like I’m out of date as of December after Caesars https://www.google.com/amp/s/onezero.medium.com/amp/p/8d5d92...

The other prong of this that is still possibly illegal though is spying on union-specific activity, and leaving that information out for employees to find, which fits under the criteria of making employees believe they’ll be spied on for unionizing - even not on company IT systems.

There’s already an NLRA complaint against amazon (source: Matt Bruenig on Twitter) over the Union-spy job posting. It’ll be interesting to see where that goes and if this gets tacked on.

I think you’re wrong and exposing some weird form of entitlement to resources that don’t belong to you. Of course you can talk to people and organize. None of that grants you the right to use their systems, equipment, or resources to pursue those activities. Company email isn’t “talking” to people, you do that with your mouth. Company email is an IT system the company implements for whatever company business and communication they chose to allow. You are not entitled to use the company’s systems in any way they don’t allow, and they have every right to monitor communications on those systems.

? Not entitled nor even saying it’s a good idea. Unionizers all recommend doing it in secret anyway. I was more interested in talking about the legality

I am a huge supporter of organizing and in general POWER TO THE PEOPLE. I believe that with my heart and soul. But the idea that you should be able to force the company to let you use company resources and systems that they pay for, for this purpose seems truly stupid to me.

TIL: Amazon is not run by amateurs.

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