Amazon Sends ‘Vote No’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees
vice.com
vice.com
AND this mail piece says 'BE DONE by 3/1' when workers have until the end of the month to vote (context: amazon must stop anti-union mandatory meetings etc during voting).
This could be a legal violation & is a big deal. I think at a minimum breaks the spirit of the NLRB mail-in voting ruling.
HN seems to consider big tech = oppressive surveillance. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
This is also the latest in a long list of extreme tactics some aren't mentioned in this article. To name a few:
Amazon also fired an activist who was speaking out. It's been reported Amzn has been penalizing pro-union employees with baseless and unfair management penalties/'strikes' and purposeful last minute over-time demands as punishment. Digital surveillance. Management basically stalking associates in break rooms, asking if they are only there to organize and attorneys and consultants drawing graph person relationship research charts to map their employees. A big propaganda push online & a pretty successful press drive - most of these articles Amazon gets many inches of positive talking points.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277322/amazon-fired-warehous... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/22/how-amazon-is-fighting-back-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/02/amazon-...
Where I work [big-co], it is mandated that all of our services are GDPR-compliant, regardless of worldwide location.
The only people who hate GDPR are ad-industry parasites. To that I say: good riddance, and don't let starvation hurt too much on the way down.
Broad generalizations are nice, but my experience on HN shows that it’s also people who don’t understand the law. Complaints about cookie banners and popups that you’re powerless to stop as an American do exist.
On a committee recently we had a large argument if we could email some professors to nominate their PhD students for a price. We had one person very strongly arguing that we can't "because gdpr". Because of people like that many people think that they personally can't do things anymore that they were used to.
It’s actually fairly difficult to get an objective measurement of a companies size. Go by total sales and industries with high profit margins look much smaller. Go by number of employees and retail looks vastly larger than tech companies etc.
Finally, it promotes using lots of subsidiaries to firewall risks from fines which adds a lot of pointless overhead to the economy.
Having arbitrary amounts that don't scale is both bribery and slavery. A speeding ticket for example that cripples someone with low income for weeks is just the cost of doing business for someone with enough wealth. It's really not that far off from actual bribery.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...
If a small to medium company invests heavily in something illegal and they are forced to stop with all the lost revenue that follows it would be devastating. For a large company, not so much. They can afford to fight a legal battle that delays when they should stop, in the meantime their illegal activity might have already yielded success.
"No it's actually ok, facebook also does it."
Unions suck. Bezos should fire them all and hire people that want to work harder to make more money. And try to replace each whiner with a robot.
My experience is obviously not representative of unions as a whole, but experiences such as these do taint one’s view of them in a bad way. Especially if they’re your first experience.
But the basic idea of it is that the employees have a lot more negotiation power collectively than alone. The whole goal is to have a fair compensation for work. Why would anyone work for a wage that isn't livable? It's more a hypothetical mind you, but with a collective bargaining power, no one would. I don't think there is a minimum wage in my country, but I'm pretty sure store clerks make enough to live a decent life.
For sure: it’s the union, not the concept. But humans are a finicky bunch and let single experiences affect our view of the bigger thing. Such as when an employee at a grocery store is rude and you blame the whole company. Maybe you and I don’t do that, but some do.
When a union takes ~5-10% of your paycheck but then provides nothing of value (that you see), you aren’t going to go “well maybe there’s something behind the scenes?” If you already had a bad view of unions (possible due to the vast majority of the GOP), and then your union is bad, your negative opinion is going to be reinforced with “they’re doing nothing! Unions as a whole suck!”
Ok. I once took a massive pay cut to go from piece-work to union hourly wages. The days were longer and overall crew production was around 1/3 of what it should be. Work availability was based on seniority within the union instead of performance.
Unions are all about receiving more for doing less, and are very detrimental to businesses.
In my experience union workers are a lazy bunch that talk more then they work, killing time is their main job description.
And union administrators are just parasites. It's all political. I've seen teachers unwillingly have to go on strike for months then be stuck with a worse deal afterwards.
Anyways I think if people aren't happy with their job they should go work somewhere else or better yet start their own business.
How does your country's wages compare? I do think the US works more hours (look at OECD data for this) but I think US companies are managed better in general, and the general non-unionization of the US workforce (only about 15% overall, with the majority working for government) is a big part of why pay is higher.
Taxes is a confusing point, because, paying taxes can (should?) distribute wealth. We are after all talking about minimum wage here... General high taxes is something that benefits this group of people the most. You pay comparatively less of income as tax, and you get to spend it on other things than health care, or education (as its mostly handled by tax money).
Further, the culture at Amazon is such working harder would require sacrificing physical and mental health. Especially on the retail and warehouse side.
I should have been more clear in that while I'm against unions I'm all for paying workers twice the going rate. And firing them if they don't perform.
And my comments about working harder for more money was about pay based on performance. ie produce more, make more. Go hard or go home. Not sure how that can fit into retail and warehouse there exactly but it probably could be done.
Pensions, 401K. Not my cup of tea. I prefer to watch trees grow. And have you seen how easy it is to launch a product these days? Well, actually nothing's easy.
https://www.al.com/business/2021/02/jefferson-county-now-say...
This is one reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26263866
Even if it was someone's boss... they too get to talk / have an opinion... even if I think it is wrong. I've certainly worked for employers who I thought had some very wrong ideas, I still did my own thing voting wise.
If I had gotten mailers last year directly from the United States government instructing me "how to re-elect Donald J. Trump", I would have been livid. Individual within the company should be able to make their case for why they think unionization is bad, but I don't think the company itself gets a say in this.
That seems weird.
And unions once established have their own balance of power, and that's not in favor of the individual.
The literal purpose of a corporation in all its varieties, for profit, non-profit, co-op, S Corp, C Corp etc. is to pool the resources of its owners and serve their interests.
Unions are just another type of corporation.
Serve the interests of the majority... and even like a corporation sometimes they don't even manage to do that.
Human organizations kinda stink sometimes, although I wouldn't really endorse another kind...
This becomes more complex as you go from small business to startup with investors to a larger business, but the principles remain the same.
Nobody starts a business to have others dictate to them what to do with their business, and to be told whose interests they should really be serving. I’m not sure why you would expect that to change just because the company in question is valued at over a trillion.
What would an organisation that serves your interests look like?
Why don't you try to start one - and see how corporate management responds?
Why should I? You can start an organisation if you want, but you'd need to argue why it's in my interest if you want me to lend what little individual power I have. And the employer can present their arguments as well, which is fine. But if you think I'm going to trust you've got my interests at heart just because you're not my employer, then you're delusional. Why should I trust you more than them?
Their interests may align to mine even if they're doing it for their own benefit. And if the union's interests don't align to mine, then I'm better off without the union and with the employer.
I don't think that's a hypothetical scenario, either.
For example if the union wants to pay by seniority and the employer wants to pay by results, and I have low seniority but good results, who am I better aligned with?
For example you morally support allowing new people to enter your field but the union is mostly comprised of more established people and they vote for credentialism to restrict supply.
Probably I'm very aligned with my employer on wanting to lower barriers to entry for the field!
Why the rudeness?
I'd also note that you appear to demand 100% alignment with your ethics from unions in return for your support ("think of any situation"), but are fine with being somewhat aligned with your employer.
You seem to already have chosen a tribal affiliation.
You said I since I didn't agree with you I must not be politically astute so I returned the favour!
> I'd also note that you appear to demand 100% alignment with your ethics from unions in return for your support ("think of any situation"), but are fine with being somewhat aligned with your employer.
But my employer pays me. And they're an essential part of the agreement. The union wants me to pay them, and they're optional, so yes I expect them to do a better job aligning to me otherwise why bother with them? What is the point joining a union, lending them what little power you have, as well as actually giving them money, if they aren't very aligned?
My current work negotiation is me and my employer. I have what I want and my employer has what they want. Why involve a third party, who may want something completely different, possibly morally offensive to me? Why do that?
I guess you're going to say 'because the union acts in your interest'. Well, let me tell you - there's a whole world of people out there offering to 'act in my interest' in return for something. Most of them are charlatans. Beware.
No, I did not. If you can't be bothered to keep track of whom you're talking to, I'm done with you.
The person I was replying to said it. You asked why I was rude to them.
Unions complicate an otherwise cut and dry relationship of your employer trying to extract value from you and you trying to extract value from your employer until you reach an equilibrium.
Consensus-building and making of viable compromises has always been part of governance, any institution comprises people with diverse, sometimes competing interests.
That said, the usual workplace conflict between employee and management is about working conditions and promotion. And for that it's useful to have a paid witness on your side, because HR is always working for the employer.
Codes of conduct are fashionable these days, but at the end of the day they are upheld by HR, which will always work in favour of the company.
But I'm not sure the union is going to be on my side. I know that's their pitch, but lots of people claim they want to act on my behalf - I'd be a fool to trust most of them!
If you aren't, check the agreements the union has with you and your employer. These are contracts with enforceable terms and are upheld.
Stop and think this through for just a second.
Try this thought experiment:
If I want dogs in the office and my colleague wants dogs banned, you’re telling me you think the union will simultaneously negotiate for both our positions with our employer?
Does not compute. It is not possible for them to be on everyone's side.
This just isn't true.
If I'm a junior worker in a union with a pay-by-seniority agreement because the majority of workers are senior, then they aren't on my side are they? They're on the side of the majority senior workers. They're on the side against me and my aspirations to get paid more.
Well... until you start looking at advancing into upper management and realize that seniority-based hiring decisions and credentialism are very often in the best interest of the established managers and higher-ups.
In most large companies, the people making hiring decisions in upper management probably don't want to lower barriers of entry for their fields. They want to hire people who look like them, who have gone to the same schools as them and worked the same jobs as them, and they want to set up a performance system that makes it hard for them to get fired or demoted.
It's easy to make the mistake of thinking of corporations like they're some kind of impartial oiled machine, but the reality is that they're made of people who are just as biologically prone as anyone else is to forming cliques and gatekeeping their own jobs.
No, unions are not just another type of corporation. They are a very special type of corporation: One which is exempt from anti-trust laws.
What you’re failing to understand is that while there are different types if corporations as legal constructs, with differing advantages and disadvantages mostly related to their overall tax liability, a corporation in the general sense is just a group of people come together for a common goal. Usually that goal is profits. You join up with 5 people putting in 20% of the money, you are entitled to 20% of the future proceeds.
So if you take a distribution of $1000, all other shareholders holding equal shares, they must also take a distribution of $1000, or equal to their share of equity in the company.
A union has a different structure, different legal privileges and burdens, and different goals, but fundamentally it is a group of people with a common goal. I think where they tend to fall down is that unions can grow so large that the power is so diffused amongst individual members that even people in unions may come to resent the union more than their employer, particularly if they are always in the minority on union issues. In which case they might find they are actually more in alignment with their employers rather than their union leaders.
That does not violate anti-trust law in the US. It is not a special exemption the union has, it doesn't violate anti-trust law in the US even if there isn't a union involved, for employees to "collude" to get higher wages.
Or if there are such laws I'm not aware of, feel free to share. But I gather you think it ought to be illegal? Why?
Should employers be able to make an anti-union case? I'd have to say yes on free speech grounds, but I'd also say that they really should be subject to more restrictions on what kind of anti-union organizing they can do than the union should be on what kind of pro-union organizing they can do. Yes, that's deliberately giving the union an advantage -- but, again, management has the advantage of being the side that literally writes the checks.
> unions once established have their own balance of power, and that's not in favor of the individual.
I mean, that's kind of the point, in a way, isn't it? The employee/employer power balance is almost always weighted toward the employer, because the employee alone is one individual and the employer is a corporation. Employees acting as a collective are theoretically on more equal footing. That doesn't guarantee every single individual employee will support every collective action the union makes.
I’m still waiting for the Teachers’ Union to endorse the Libertarian party one day soon -I’m sure it’s gonna happen.
Some of us see the need for aspects of regulation and frameworks, others prefer the more idealist semi pastoralist view of the world. I’m more in the Johnson camp ;)
I'm not so sure about that.
I have strong libertarian (small 'l') leanings, specifically that government should stay the hell out of people's lives and bodies as much as possible. And that humans should be free to do pretty much whatever they want as long as they don't interfere with others doing the same.
But that's where I part ways with the Libertarian (big 'L') Party.
Because I do believe that, human nature being what it is, that the government does have a role to play in helping those who are disadvantaged in our society.
What's more, I believe that government has a role to play in evening the playing field and attempting to make sure that everyone has equal opportunity to succeed in our society.
The Libertarian Party doesn't believe in any of that, so I have no interest in supporting them.
I'd note that privatized everything (not saying you support that) isn't libertarian at all. Rather it's anarcho-capitalism[0], which would completely destroy our society.
While the implementation of the idea that minorities should be protected against the "tyranny of the majority" by the government has been pretty poor in the US, it has improved somewhat in recent years.
I look forward to that progress continuing. And the Libertarian Party won't be the one's that help us do that.
It's a very revealing tell that this is even being asked.
Generally, why do Libertarians seem to act as if Rest of World owes them, but relationships are solely for their personal benefit with no reciprocity of any kind?
I’m also not surprised how Amazon wants their members to vote either.
If you think they do not represent them, then maybe the solution is to develop better union structures that are more democratic and representative.
But by and large, teachers do not support the Libertarian party and instead favour the Democratic party, quite heavily in fact. So why is it wrong that their alignment follows their base?
However, using that line of thinking people voluntarily join a company too.
Often to work for a company with union rep one HAS to join, whether one agrees or not, so it’s not entirely voluntary in a strict sense.
All this said, I do believe Amazon is treating their warehouse workers unfairly and they deserve pushback though I admit I do not favor bringing in a Union due to my past member experiences with them.
A choice between starvation and warehouse job at amazon where you’re penalized for taking a bathroom break is not a choice made freely.
They are indeed not a cure, but the cure to the symptoms we are seeing is nothing short of a total overhaul of the capitalist system, which is both not politically feasible, and requires something like unions to make politically feasible to begin with. That is because by definition such a changé even if it was in the larger interests of society wouldn't be in the interests of capital.
Exploitation or at the minimum the potential for it exists in every economic system. It’s not a feature exclusive to capitalism as much as people dream it to be so. Even in a barter economy, can I not take advantage of another worker? Of course I can!
Workers unions in socialist countries were basically illegal, there was only one legally allowed union pretty much. In the Soviet Union the role of labour unions were mostly for the state to resolve interpersonal problems, and in theory to allow the state to receive feedback from employees to optimize production, but not in practice due to dysfunctions because of the broken political and economic framework.
But that brings us right back to my original point: if my choice is starvation or $5/hour, I'm going to take the $5, but that's a coercive choice. I was forced into it by the threat of death. Now explain to me how that's different from holding a gun to someone and forcing them to work? You didn't determine the value of my labor, you determined that I don't want to die.
So an attempt to increase the cost of labor (minimum wages, credentialing/protectionism) is an attempt to extract the true value of labor, even though the threat of death-by-starvation remains. Like a previous commenter said - unless we want to radically re-org our society - that threat of death is irreducible. For example, if every person was granted enough arable land to subsist off of by the state, we'd see a very different labor market.
To repurpose a famous Churchill quote "Unions are the worst solution to labour equality except all the others that have been tried before."
In contrast, for the union, even if you were forced to join, you'd still have democratic control over the union itself.
So there is a big difference. It's the difference between choosing in which dictatorship to live and living in a (sometimes direct!) democracy.
So it is no wonder that unionized teachers would oppose the Libertarian Party, libertarians want children to get a good education and allow parents to choose the type of education their child gets, taking away large amounts of power from Teachers who believe they should supplant parents and "know better".
This has never been more clear than in the Age of COVID where the hypocrisy of Teachers and their union has been on full display with their refusal to teacher (aka their job)
The three Rs are kind of incidental.
Now to be clear, we do need to grow up to be functional adults, but public schooling is not the only one option to achieve that.
It's a sneaky name designed to make you conflate the two.
Every parent has a voucher, that voucher can be redeemed at a school of their choice, could be the public school, could be a private school, etc.
School vouchers can easily lead toward incentivizing minimizing education spending.
Oh also, private schools are often not held to the same standards of avoiding religious teaching as public schools are (by virtue of being a public service). The result is that the vouchers can end up funding religious education, but that's a whole other can of worms.
It is completely false to charatice a school choice program as "more choices for the rich" as the rich already have those choices, poor and middle class people have zero choice because their money has already been taken to fund the public schools. redirecting this money to better more efficient systems is preferred and gives the poor and middle class choice that is normally reserved for the wealthy
>> This voucher results in funds being diverted from public schools
yes, that is by design and the desired outcome of libertarians.
>>Oh also, private schools are often not held to the same standards of avoiding religious teaching as public schools are (by virtue of being a public service). The result is that the vouchers can end up funding religious education, but that's a whole other can of worms.
Another red herring and strawman, but I (and most libertarian) are fine with the limited amount of religious education that would result from school choice if it means dismantling the failed and unethical public school system we have today.
I am sure you are a huge supporter of the Public School System and see nothing systemically wrong with it. We disagree with this position
I do actually see a lot wrong with the school system, I think the fact that education is largely funded from local property taxes goes strongly against most ideals around American opportunity and that the highly localized management means that a cartel of local officials can run a system into the ground with only limited options available to the DoEd to address is quite problematic.
There's a bunch of things wrong with the school system, certainly, but I can't see how partial privatization would do anything but exacerbate the issues.
Nothing I say will change anyone's minds on this topic, it is one of those things where no amount of data or facts will change minds. You either believe in a unionized Public school that only fails because we do not spend enough money, or you recognize that giving a monopoly over education to a group of people based on geography will always result in bad outcomes no matter how much money you spend.
While Libertarian and Authoritarian do exist on a spectrum in some ways, you are either on the Libertarian side of that spectrum or the Authoritarian Side.
The GGP seemed to think that there was something particularly bad about the detailed six page instructions. But the GP correctly pointed out they do the same thing in regular government elections (to milk as many voters as they can).
Nothing. The outrage is about them telling you to vote no. If they were trying to help you fill out your ballot in good faith, there wouldn't be a problem.
>The outrage is about them telling you to vote no.
Which, indeed, you correct yourself on in the next sentence, to say that the issue is that it pretends to be neutral ballot instructions, but, if followed, end in you voting no, and are thus misleading (just guessing -- again, no one here seems to be making it easy to understand what they're objecting to).
If so, it would have been helpful for the OP to communicate that the first time around. Remember rtpg joined in to clarify, but actually objected to something else, the power imbalance -- and yet s/he seemed to believe s/he was agreeing with the initial comment!
Not everyone can read minds about what a speaker thinks is the most salient part, and we don't deserve to be ridiculed for asking.
If you want others to be outraged, it helps to clearly communicate what they're supposed to be outraged about -- starting form a clear model.
There's no assumption or mind reading needed. To be honest, I don't see how OP could have been more clear:
> Detailed, 6 step instructions on how to open a ballot and mark no? Thanks, amazon.
We all know, before that comment, Amazon wants you to vote no. The OP was adding to that, in criticism of Amazon, by saying there are detailed six page instructions on how to vote the way they want. But that doesn't tell me what's to be outraged about -- as the first response noted, that is exactly what every other campaign does.
If the OP wasn't claiming Amazon was outrageous beyond the mere fact of asking for no, then why even bring up a six page instruction set?
After an explanation that you clearly understood, I'm not sure why you're still complaining about conversational opacity.
Edit: I did get some completely separate, independent arguments, if that’s what you mean, but I’m saying I got no explanation of the original comment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26263369
There were others that gave different reasons, but none that made any sense of the "OMG six pages of instructions! Horrible!"
Imagine a handy guide from your bank that included instructions for how to wire money to its author.
Second paragraph of response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26265969
It seems possible that Amazon may not have properly accounted for that.
Vote No propaganda is bad because unions are good.
Vote Yes propaganda is good because unions are good.
If you are not convinced that unions age good in the first place, then it all falls apart.
>Vote No propaganda is bad because unions are good.
>Vote Yes propaganda is good because unions are good.
Double standard? Not really. Definitely not the peak of critical reasoning, though. But I'm not judging anti-union vs pro-union propaganda by anything but their motives.
>If you are not convinced that unions age good in the first place, then it all falls apart.
Ah, but I do. Not inherently, and not always. But net positive in my opinion. Sure, if I change my beliefs to contradict, it will not make sense. Just as if I believed unions were bad and net negative, union propaganda would be considered scummy but amazon propaganda wouldn't.
I always try to judge critically, and in my personal opinion, pro vs anti has a clear benefit for the worker on one side. This doesn't mean I think the other shouldn't exist. I don't think that means a double standard, since in my eyes they aren't the same. If they were literally the same, say Amazon wanted the Yankees to win and the workers wanted the Red Sox to win, and I insisted on one side over the other, then it would be a double standard (like 1984, they do it = bad, we do the same thing = good).
That's almost like saying
"You're too poor to fight for your rights. Know your place."
Well, yes. The goal of an antiunion campaign is the demoralization/ disempowerment of the workforce.
Notice also the recent push for "experimental polities", AKA company towns.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/sidewalk-labs-shuts-down-t...
[2] https://theconversation.com/will-silicon-valleys-new-company...
"Explain how!"
"Money can be exchanged for goods and services"
If you believe those companies will capture so much surplus, you could also buy some of their stock and participate.
> If you are unhappy with the terms or products of a company, you are free to shop or work elsewhere.
If you don't work you starve, or at the very least lose your house, car, maybe even your kids. There is no "freedom" of choice, and this is painfully obvious to anybody who is not stuck neck-deep in dogmatic ideology.
> If you believe those companies will capture so much surplus, you could also buy some of their stock and participate.
Sure, let me just get a small loan of 300 mil a month to build my competitor to Uber.
If you're not independently wealthy you probably cannot even get 100k of credit to open a restaurant or a similar small business. Again, that access to capital (nevermind to education, connections, etc) is profoundly unequal, and thus that "just start your own business" is am absurd statement, is also obvious to anyone who isn't blinded by ideology.
> "Capture of surplus" is hate speech
Ahahahaha
This argument is made often and is patently in bad faith. You understand and I hope your readers understand there is a power disparity and a prevalent culture that has a certain effect on your ability to "be free" (of what? To go elsewhere and have the same shit done to you? To have your family go hungry because some HR shithead blackballed you?).
On a personal level I would ask you to stop actively trying to make the world worse by parroting capitalist propaganda built specifically to disempower workers.
0. https://www.epi.org/publication/why-unions-are-good-for-work...
That Amazon is fighting this so hard should signal that there is something meaningful to be gained by the workers. Hopefully they recognize this and succeed in organizing. The biggest question I would have is does Amazon pull a Walmart and just shutter the FC if they succeed?
Make your voice heard! Tell Big Brother you love him!
IF YOU’RE PAYING DUES… it will be RESTRICTIVE meaning it won’t be easy to be as helpful and social with each other. So be a DOER, stay friendly and get things done versus paying dues.
(sic)
---
Couldn't even include a stock-statement like "we got you covered" without a disclaimer.
"won’t be easy to be as helpful and social with each other" What the hell does that even mean? In a union you can't talk? As though you could be totally chatty before?
It isn't always about neighborly overtime.
Amazon would still find a way to argue. "If you're not a lowest performer, don't let a union negotiate for you and force your wages down to the lowest performing among you." or many other phrases that would appeal to those who think they're above the bottom already and plant fear that bargaining with the collective would lower their outcomes.
An ego boost? I mean this seriously -- people love being moderators of Subreddits and admins of online communities largely deep down for the ego boost.
A union really needs not much more than a Discord server and maybe a Zoom membership to organize strikes and whatever else they need to do.
No union will have much luck performing collective bargaining against Amazon without working alongside experienced lawyers.
These costs don't have to be huge, but they aren't zero.
What events? If it's to discuss a certain issue, that can be virtual and almost free. If it's a social event, meh, there are enough of those already and people can self-organize them. Hell for $500/month I could organize social events where everyone goes to Michelin 3-star restaurants every month and rants over gourmet dinners about their bosses.
> pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure
Use e-mail. I don't even check my snail mail box anyway unless someone tells me to expect something by e-mail, and even then when my snail mail box gets too full I usually just dump it all in the recycle bin, so it's not an effective way for a union to communicate with me.
> and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers.
What if they just split the lawyer fees evenly?
Assuming an experienced lawyer charges $1000/hr and spends 100 hours on a case, and there are 1 million people in the union, that amounts to about $0.10/person/case, a far cry from the $500/month they seem to be charging. Even if my numbers are off by a factor of 100 it would be only $10/person/case, and if the union won the case Amazon would probably have to pay the legal fees anyway.
Although this may sound a bit naive I feel like $500/person/month sounds like there is some massive inefficiency in use of resources.
Virtual isn't the same as free.
>Although this may sound a bit naive I feel like $500/person/month sounds like there is some massive inefficiency in use of resources.
Nobody knows what the union dues will be if the union wins, but they will not be 500 per month. It might be a fair guess that they're 500 per year. About 20 per check if you get paid biweekly. The dues will be decided on by union members through some kind of democratic process.
A professional Union needs funds to do its work. Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues. If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking.
The imaginary alternative would be to have somebody do this for free in their evenings and on their weekends. Have you ever tried to manage even a class representative and budget for your kids' school or a little league or any other kind of long-term engagement? Already at that small scale things tend to break down quote easily and few stay involved more than a few years. How can you expect volunteer union reps to work 8h+/day, spend their nights writing legal briefs, researching, organising events, managing members and expenses, etc while being up against an army of professional lawyers?
Unions brought the five day work week, end to child labour, 40/38 hour weeks, the right to breaks, vacations, medical leave, ... If you don't have those right now then that's likely because you are in a non-union workplace (and/or country).
Absolutely true.
> Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues.
That strikes me as an opinion that could use some supporting facts. It might be the case, but union fees are the same order of magnitude as many workers' savings rate. If the prospective member saved those fees over a lifetime, would they be better off?
> If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking.
That means that union members are buying insurance against there being a strike declared. Would they be better off to pay smaller dues and bear the risk themselves? If all possible strikes are union-wide, it seems like this insurance can only be a losing gamble for members, all the while creating a fat piggybank for union leaders to raid/drain.
Unions have to disclose financial statements. Leaders can't just raid the strike fund. And there won't be a strike fund unless most members vote for it.
[1] https://illinoisepi.org/site/wp-content/themes/hollow/docs/w...
That said, it sounds like you haven't dealt with the real world logistics of large groups of people. From both a practical and legal perspective, there is a lot to cover. The finances need to be kept up to date and audited. You mention, in jest, that you could bring all these people together for a dinner at that price. Getting 15 people to agree on a time and place for dinner is close to impossible if you've ever tried it. Nevermind getting a warehouse full of people to show up.
100 hours (2.5 weeks of labor) for lawyers to come to an agreement for the 1mm workers you cited? Not possible, especially with an adversary like amazon.
Email as communication? Maybe, but does it qualify for legal matters? Voting? Have you ever tried to send a million emails? There's a reason that there is an entire industry built around bulk emails.
A union is more like an independent HR office than anything else. Think of how many resources HR uses, and that gives you an idea of what a union needs
Any reason why "show up at 8" wouldn't work? It doesn't have to work for everyone if they can be recorded, summarized, or otherwise disseminated.
A coworker in a non-unionized position said that the didn't like unions because of the dues. When I told them what the dues were, their opinion quickly changed. The funny part is that unionizing would only bring about small benefits in our case since the existence of unionized positions with the same employer reaped benefits for all employees.
And for what it's worth, paying $500/month in dues implies an income of about 30,000 to 50,000 per month. Not only is this outside of the target demographic of unions, but it ranks up there with taxation levels (with much richer government services). Suggesting union dues of this level is either an unintentional mistake or disingenuous anti-union propaganda.
Altruism maybe? The structure costs would probably be harder to cover than finding mad amazon workers who want to improve working standards
If you willfuly agree to unpaid work, you will be such a bad union leader, don't bother.
You missed the entire point.
Further: People do all kinds of unpaid work to make their community or shared experiences better without (most of?) us accusing them of advocating for slavery.
That's like calling volunteering slavery. Am I a slave for working at my hospital in the summer?
I'm thinking of the line "the capitalists will sell you the rope you use to hang them."
There could be optional dues, as well as some built in DeFi applications for investing in blockchain that could pay a dividend to the unions and their leaders.
The shoes idea works as you have to pay for them. Why pay for shoes? You know you get exactly the same benefits at Amazon while barefoot?
A classic similar example used to be the "godhatesfigs.com" parody of the Westboro Baptist church's similar slogan (sadly gone now) - with a bible passage where Jesus curses a fig tree.
I can’t help but think if this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VJqr6LBFelI
Can’t imagine this word could be used unironically
That said, people should take note of what happened when Walmart used these tactics. Employees then went on to suffer such things as zero hour contracts, contracts where time was just shy of the legal requirement to give them benefits, pay was no more than the minimum required in any given state/province and people became slaves to their jobs because they couldn't afford the time off to find other jobs because then they wouldn't be able to make ends meet or there were no other jobs so Walmart had zero incentive to pay any more than absolutely required to by law. etc. etc. etc. because humanity is only afforded if legally required [which I personally find disgusting].
These are tactics to prevent a coalition of employees from having their rights heard and maintained... even with this coalition someone is fighting to maintain and win your rights(!!!!!) There's something very wrong with anyone having to fight for their rights to be given, but that's another discussion. In a commercial environment that allow employers to behave this way, where the only advantage to winning your rights is in a coalition of the workforce holding employers to account, unions absolutely must not only be allowed but must also be protected.
Its okay if you're bullheaded enough or within your means enough to walk away if your rights aren't given fair consideration and honoured, but if you're in a position where you're a prisoner to your job, i.e. can't afford to take time off to find another job/other income, or there are no other jobs in your area and you don't have the means to leave etc. you don't have any bargaining chip.
No employer should ever have the privilege of keeping you prisoner, nor preventing you from having a means to bargain for your very right to fair treatment.
Amazon needs to be severely reprimanded for this and taught a lesson about what it means to honour employees' rights.
Employees in the UK have quite a lot more protection by default than they do in the US. I do respect your go-it-alone-and-fight-my-own-battles position, but consider that you might feel differently if you were in a US "right to work" state.
I don't understand how this situation could come to be. What if there were no employers? That situation can only occur if there are enough jobs to maintain gainful employment of every citizen of the state. In such a situation I would likely only remain around as long as there was work willing to pay me what I need to maintain a lifestyle to which I was attracted.
I left Kamloops, BC in 2001 because the only jobs available there sucked (in my eyes). I was frowned upon as a snob because I turned down 3 union jobs which appeared to be the pinnacle of success in Kamloops at the time. I couldn't understand why that seemed to be the height of ambition there. I moved to Vancouver Island in the hope of better. I loved it there, but I left there in 2004, because again the only jobs available had shit pay and I couldn't afford any kind of enjoyable lifestyle. Now I live outside Toronto and enjoy a much more financially comfortable lifestyle... at the cost of an almost complete lack of scenery admittedly. I've never been one to stick around when the economic situation wasn't viable. I couldn't see myself sticking around in a "right to work" state if that's what it meant. I don't really see how it would change my opinion either.
Genuine question, because I don't understand the issue. If they want to join a union and pay the associated fees, they are welcome to. If they just wanna work a job without joining a union and paying their fees, they can do that as well. How is it a bad thing, unless you consider forcing those employees who don't care about unions to still contribute fees a good thing?
"Right to work" is literally the right to work for any employer who will have you regardless of whether you're in a union or not in a union.
You should question where you got the misleading definition of "right to work" and cui bono? by feeding you that misinformation.
The definition of US gun laws isn't "you can have most semi-auto rifles unless you've gone to jail, you live in California and the rifle looks scary, or the barrel is too short", but it's probably how someone would explain the practical outcome.
“In the context of U.S. labor politics, "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions. Under these laws, employees in unionized workplaces are banned from negotiating contracts which force employees who are not union members to contribute to the costs of union representation.”
So, in such states, the (union, employer) combo cannot force every employee to pay the union (employees can choose not to become a member, but still would have to pay them)
I don’t understand how that fits in the story, though. I guess the OP meant “at will”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment): “In U.S. labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning, as long as the reason is not illegal.”
Honestly, I'd say you're being more hyperbolic and misleading. At-will employment is "just an anti-slavery law?" I'm pretty sure that was already illegal before these laws, and at-will employment wasn't the mechanism for its abolition.
My understanding is that the actual effect of at-will employment laws wasn't to free employees from jobs they didn't want, but to make their positions more precarious (e.g. previously employers had to give a good reason for termination or it was invalid, or at least give notice).
It’s Doublespeak. It’s a union-busting law. Effectively, it means the opposite — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
> Right-to-work means that you can work in a union trade without joining the union. Otherwise you have to join and pay the union to work in your profession. Why should you have to pay to work as a <insert profession here>? Support right-to-work!
That's how I often see it sold. In the end, it means unions get weaker in industries that need them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#Arguments_fo...
There's debate over what the impact of "right to work" is, and of course, what role unions should play.
Another term that might interest you is "at will employment". This one means that your employer can fire you at any time for any reason that isn't illegal; and, you can leave your employer at any time for any reason that isn't illegal. This one is also argued intensely as to whether it is more favorable to the employer, employee, or neither.
It's the opposite! It means you can be fired for any reason whatsoever.
Zero hours contracts in theory mean you can refuse work (at least that’s how it works in the U.K.), but obviously you’re going to be fired for doing so, so you’re essentially constantly on call for both/all your jobs.
You're saying they should keep the Walmart job and get rid of the other, and spend the time freed up searching for one that's full time and paid enough to replace both, right? But if you can't support yourself and your dependants on the Walmart job alone, then that's risky.
Look, here’s how it goes:
1) you have no job
2) you take the first job that comes your way, even if it doesn’t actually pay enough to survive - a little money is better than no money
3) you take the second job that comes your way so that you can survive
4) you have no time to actually do anything towards getting a better job
Understand?
This is why jobs that pay less than what is needed to survive are bad for individuals and bad for society; people have to take them. Nobody is going to help you survive otherwise.
Searching for a job that is _mechanically better_ (think office job versus min-wage retail) is significantly more challenging than finding a min-wage job. For example, most salaried or otherwise higher paying jobs require multiple rounds of interviews while many min-wage jobs will hire you on the spot to fill a staff position.
It's just shy of full-time (to withhold benefits), but not exactly the same thing as a side gig. And you're bent over a barrel.
What could be a bigger social justice issue than paying working class people proper wages and benefits? It just screams out to me how hollow and PR driven their support of social justice organizations and initiatives is. And more importantly, the silence from these same social justice initiatives is deafening.
I strongly suspect that paying working class employees more money would have a far higher positive impact on black communities than donating money to activist organizations.
Compared to Walmart, Target is absolutely abysmal on many fronts. The amount of wasted fuel caused by their horrifically inept logistics makes Walmart look like the Sierra Club. And they were the model for substituting low-impact inclusion messaging in place of actually treating workers decently.
I live near Boulder, Colorado, and it was infuriating seeing friends of mine protesting and proudly stopping the construction of a Walmart, while happily shopping at Target and Amazon. People are absolute lemmings when it comes to "feel-good" activism. Hearing my rather hippyish and moralistic friend talk about "Walmart destroys small businesses" while noticing the pile of Amazon packages at her door is absolutely infuriating.
1. Prices are slightly higher that Walmart, which keeps away the most budget conscious shoppers (ie, couponers & low-income people will go to walmart to stretch their money). Because lower-class shoppers are less visible at Target, middle-class shoppers flock to it, and even non-middle class people who can swing it may prefer it because it confers higher social status. (This is also why the common nickname for Target is "Tar - Jhey", aka, "Target" with a fake french accent to mock the aspirational bougieness of the brand).
2. Target has fairly aggressive policies about how long customers should have to wait in line (if there's more than 3 people waiting, the manager is supposed to call a sales floor person up to assist) + a policy on how long checkouts should take to complete (they actually give the cashier a pass/fail score that everyone can see after each checkout, and if the average is too low, it's grounds for dismissal). For the customer, this does mean a faster checkout. For the employees - it means more work interruptions and ultimately more work to do at closing.
3. Target doesn't even attempt to provide certain products and services that are culturally associated with rural/poor America. They don't sell guns, they don't cash checks, they don't have gardening centers.
Walmart will have one cashier at the special register line where they sell cigarettes, during the dinnertime rush when there are 30 people up front wanting to check out.
Then there will be somebody telling you that if you don't need cigarettes, go wait in the massive line at self checkout.
I don't mind paying a couple percent more for goods if they are paying cashiers with that cash so I can go home sooner.
If those same couple bucks are what is keeping the store and parking lot less crowded... I'll take it. Walmart is a hellhole over here.
1. Walmart provides as much data as possible to it's suppliers, and expects the suppliers to use this data to then advise Walmart on projected sales and inventory in a collaborative manner. Target, on the other hand, has a data feed for it's suppliers, which is VASTLY inferior, unreliable, and the data isn't nearly as complete. A few years ago, they switched this feed from one system to another, and didn't think it was a big deal that the new system barely worked. This made the suppliers/CPG companies I advised scramble and have extreme difficulty in planning. The buyer teams at Target didn't care, and still expected the suppliers to do the same analysis.
2. Walmart has a religion of keeping items in stock and on the shelves. It's not easy to achieve, and they drop the ball at many stores on this, but it's CLEARLY not a priority at Target. They just don't have logistics as a core focus there, and it shows. My wife's experience of expecting a core item that was on the shelf last week at Target to be out of stock is typical.
3. Hearing trucking companies describe what it's like to ship goods to Target vs. WM is sad. Truckers charge extra for Target because they frequently find themselves waiting hours, sometimes days, at Target distribution centers to get their cargo offloaded. This NEVER happens at Walmart DCs. When trucking companies negotiate contracts with Target, this is something they have to "bake in". It's horrible when you hear stories from mom and pop truckers who get suckered into doing business with Target.
4. Target coporate vs. Walmart corporate: Walmart corporate has a shocking number of very high ranking executives (often in their 30s) who never went to college and worked their way up from working in stores. Bentonville, Arkansas is filled with these folks. They have a real "gut level" understanding of the stores/DCs and this is probably the only reason Walmart hasn't collapsed into gross mismanagement. Their worst executives have always been external hires. At Target, it's rare to see people who worked their way up internally in high-ranking roles. Much more typical corporate environment there.
Well, wrote a novel anyway. But yeah, that sums it up.
I suppose this explains why my orders from target.com always seem to come in an absurd number of separately shipped boxes. Once I ordered a small set of nonperishable grocery items and they were delivered in maybe 7 boxes - including one toasted sized box that held only a single can of tomato paste and an air pillow. It seems to me like they must lose money on many orders.
> Data collected in the heat map suggest that stores with low racial and ethnic diversity, especially those located in poor communities, are more likely to unionize.
Does Amazon really see unionization as an existential threat? Surely at some point, a company as large as Amazon or Walmart can handle a worker's union.
What other perceived "existential threats" are they handling with these kinds of tactics, that we just don't know about because it's not as public?
(Disclaimer: I benefit substantially off of Walmart's continued ability to make money.)
This is the core issue. Would a federal level solution work? Maybe then people won't feel like the only solution is to form a union.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th...
"By August 29 battle was fully joined. Chafin's men, though outnumbered, had the advantage of higher positions and better weaponry. Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I were dropped in several locations near the towns of Jeffery, Sharples and Blair." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
Someone else in the thread mentioned a revived push for "company towns", which is exactly what these workers were fighting against. Being fired from their company meant losing their job and their house, since it was owned by the company. Honestly, it's not much different from being fired in 2021 and losing your job and your health insurance.
No idea if it has any relation to the original Pinkerton strike-breakers, but using that name is pretty callous given its history.
What's more is that it isn't some sort of ironic twist of circumstances, it's just that there aren't a lot of organizations you can call for that kind of work at scale.
The US has enterprise level bargaining (as does UK). In enterprise bargaining anything that helps workers hurts enterprises against their nonunionized competition. It's a bad system to have as a main method.
Most other countries have versions of sectoral bargaining system, sometimes with some national and enterprise level aspects. Once you understand the difference, it's easier to understand why in the US unions and enterprises have so bad relationship.
> The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was founded as a private police force in Chicago in 1850, and quickly expanded its reach; its detectives initially focused on catching thieves and burglars, but soon became the bane of the labor movement for their work as enthusiastic, vicious strikebreakers. Throughout the Civil War era and in the decades after, Pinkerton operatives left their bloody mark on strikes, protests, and massacres, and gained a ruthless reputation for protecting the interests of capital by any means necessary.
> [...]
> The Pinkertons, who are now a subsidiary of Swedish security company Securitas AB, are reportedly cozying up to 2020’s version of the Gilded Age robber baron: Silicon Valley tech bosses like billionaire vampire Jeff Bezos, who has hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to reportedly surveil workers in at least one of Amazon’s European warehouses and infiltrate its worksite, according to documents obtained by the publication.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/who-were-the-pinkertons
And yes, that is a Teen Vogue link, and yes, it’s worth reading.
EDIT: This is unsurprisingly attracting downvotes. I'm curious if people are objecting to the characterization of Teen Vogue as partisan and ideological or the implication that marketing divisive ideology to children is a social ill? Or perhaps that journalism should aspire toward the truth and not partisan advocacy?
This doesn’t exist. I haven’t yet given up hope that it could someday exist, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t currently. Would love to be proven wrong though.
Parenti wrote Inventing Reality and Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent in the 80's. Your examples of lies that that you believe demonstrate how especially bad media is today just reveal that you only notice certain exaggerations or interpretations of news that go against your politics.
I presume you think yourself unbiased too.
> I presume you think yourself unbiased too.
0/2 on your assumptions about me. Of course I’m biased; everyone is biased. The difference is that I don’t double down on my biases, but rather challenge and evolve them by reading and debating other points of view. Note that the stark contrast between that and the folks (esp in the media) who persecute others for ideological transgressions.
Even the person Damore was inspired to write his manifesto because of (SlateStarCodex) admitted it was too far.
Biased reporting isn't new, it's always been universal, and it'll never go away. You just sound like you want more conservative outlets. Here's a tip: Turn on your local news. Local news in America is almost always owned by one of three conservative companies (Sinclair and Nextstar come to mind most immediately), and all of them have an extremely conservative bent.
That's not even getting into the bias of media on scientific issues. HIV/AIDS never got proper coverage, and the coverage it did get was usually outright wrong and hostile during the 1990s. Climate change? Completely debatable! A matter of emotion! They were still pushing that up until a few years ago. Encryption? Can be government-crackable and still secure! That's been a constant topic since the 1990s, too!
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/26/8296091/media-bias-race-crime
According to a report by the progressive research center Media Matters, New York City television stations give disproportionate coverage to crimes involving black suspects.
The Media Matters study found that between August 18 and December 13, 2014, the stations (WCBS, WNBC, WABC, and WNYW) used their late-night broadcasts to report on murder, theft, and assault cases in which African Americans were suspects at rates that far exceeded African-American arrest rates for those crimes.
There's always bias. Always will be bias. The above issue was even worse in the past.
> the quality or state of being partisan : strong and sometimes blind adherence to a particular party, faction, cause, or person [0]
Didn't know that, thanks.
[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/partisanship
Everything is naturally biased, the only distinction is whether an entity is open about their bias. This goes for anything: whether it was the New York Times and FOX hawking for nearly every war during the 2000s, or it was Newsweek favoring MLK Jr. and Life describing his speeches with phrases like "demagogic slander" during the 1960s, everyone's naturally got an opinion. This doesn't stop applying when writing about a subject.
Granted. The extent to which journalism is valuable is the extent to which it is neutral and objective. When it abandons even the pursuit of truth, it becomes a social ill.
> Everything is naturally biased, the only distinction is whether an entity is open about their bias.
I don't think this is true on any level of analysis (though it is one of the most popular and obvious of mistruths). At the individual level, one can choose to counterbalance his biases or commit himself to them. He can choose to lean on rhetoric or reason. He can debate against his most competent opponents or he can choose stooges. He can choose between straw men and steel men. He can choose to be honest (if fallible) or dishonest.
At an organizational level, we can choose between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. We can have an ideological monoculture or a diverse culture. We can build a culture that calls out rhetoric and favors reason. The net result of a heterodox organization isn't the absolute lack of bias, but the bias is severely attenuated compared to the modern newsroom.
Vampires suck blood.
He's a fking vampire.
Not so amazing when you look at DNC backers, July 30, 1975, etc. More radical unions (e.g. IWW) tend to look at the 'mainstream' unions as 'bosses unions' or 'controlled opposition', and the more libertarian minded often similarly view the relationship between unions and capital as power plays by big corps to raise the 'free market' price of labor and consolidate power.
They do seem stuck cosplaying Edwardian trades union activists - instead of actually concentrating on the actual TU issues.
As long as they act within the law it's fair game really because it's obviously not in a company's interest to have unions.
For example on France there are unions at Amazon and they are recognised. Why? Because in law there is nothing Amazon can do about either.
This is annoying for companies but it cuts down on the BS.
Their justification for this was that the strike was illegal, after Reagan himself declared it illegal via an executive order.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/05/reagan-fires-11-00...
While differences in spending surely have some effect, spending isn't the only way to get the word out. I didn't measure, but I feel pretty confident that no more than 60% of the total communication about Prop 22 that I heard from any source was pro. I think it could have been a minority actually. For every PR firm the pro side hired, there were thousands of unpaid activists on the con side (which does say something positive about the con side!).
I noticed you brought out the "lawmakers can't repeal" line. This is true, but also effectively standard for ballot measures in CA. In fact the default is that you can't repeal or change the law under any circumstances. This was one point that initially swayed me to vote "against", but once I learned that this was basically how all ballot measures work (including ones you support, I'm sure), I swung back to voting "for".
For me, this was a difficult call, but I voted "for" on the basis of the net good for the entire pool of current drivers, admittedly at the expense of the smaller number of drivers who would have been able to drive under a better deal had this passed.
The net effect this would have had on driver welfare is far from obvious, so it always bugs me when people assert that the only reason this passed by a 17 point margin is that people were tricked and confused by the ride sharing companies.
You’ll note the issue of slavery wasn’t put to a public vote to outlaw it. It was still of a struggle to outlaw as it was.
All that most people, unfortunately, care about, is that they can open an app that solves a problem for them, and it's solved. They don't care about the people who are hurt in the process.
And then, yeah, incredible spending on Uber's part is going to slide the scale a bit too.
Look, if you put a vote out to say that Amazon workers are now indentured servants of Jeff Bezos and have to work for free and can never leave, but their Amazon purchases will all be 15% cheaper... the vote would pass, because the majority of people don't work at Amazon.
I personally know several people who voted for the proposition under the impression that it was a pro-worker proposition that would guarantee benefits for drivers. There were 3 other people for whom I explained the context around it (including the fact that it was preempting a flawed bill from the legislature) before they mailed their ballots in and they changed their vote.
I also know several people who think that we should eliminate the rules for treating workers as employees in general, and they voted for the bill as well, so there's definitely some support. Its definitely clear from my point of view that a significant fraction of the people who voted for the proposition did so because they misunderstood what they were voting for.
OTOH that's probably true about all ballot measures ever, and probably most legislation as well.
Advertising works.
Generally, we should be moving away from linking health insurance and other benefits to employment.
Having insurance tied to employment is bad for workers. It makes switching jobs far more difficult and stressful, and makes losing your job that much more of an issue.
The insurance market model for healthcare coverage is such a fractally broken failure that if you're still stuck on the stage of twisting some knobs and adjusting some levers in the hope that second-order market effects will improve things then there really is just nothing that will convince you to move on.
Healthcare is an area where market forces are inherently perverted because people often don't have a choice of not buying the service. This is why every sensible country uses a socialized system instead. Not only does it provide better service, but without the perverse market incentives and multiple layers of middlemen infesting the system it is much less expensive.
Only the surgeon's pricing was available ahead of time. The hospital provided an invoice at the time of surgery, marked as "SUBJECT TO CHANGE". The anesthesiologist himself didn't know how much his services would cost.
Three weeks later, we're still watching invoices and insurance claims roll in.
Medical tourism is a direct testament to inflated charges as a systematic problem. Finding a hospital with non-inflated costs requires crossing international borders.
I'd rather have a fully private market without national entities messing with the prices and charities for those who can't afford it.
Of course, no politician will ever champion such a system, because it removes the gov from the equation, making them less powerful and needed by the masses that keep paying taxes.
What other sort of W4 job lets you chose both how many and which hours you want to work, and let you skip any assignments you don't want to complete? That honestly is so totally backwards to even how part time jobs work that I'm not convinced it would be viable.
I'm not saying this is correct, but unions are rarely aligned with companies, so there is always going to be a perpetual fight between unions and companies that have them. You can't really expect Amazon to embrace unionization. They are in their right to try to disincentivize unionization if they believe it could be damaging for their business.
Again. I'm not saying this is correct, but I guess that's the whole point of unionizing. If it were an easy fight, it wouldn't make sense to unionize.
For the sake of transparency, I would disclose that I'm in principle anti-union but I understand why they exist and how can they be helpful, especially to employees who work low wage jobs and who could be vulnerable to abusive employment practices.
I'm not at all surprised that Amazon is doing the same.
btw, the line between 'disincentivising' and 'forcing' is decided arbitrarily by you. If they send text messages, block traffic lights, and screw with people's mailboxes, i think amazon crosses the line.
Things companies that have unions or are dealing with unionization efforts can do [1]:
- Describe the good features of working for your company, such as existing benefits, job security and steady work.
- Remind them that signing union authorization cards doesn’t mean they must vote for the union.
- Inform them of the disadvantages of belonging to a union, such as the possibility of strikes, serving on picket lines, paying dues, fines and assessments.
- Explain the meaning of the phrases “dues checkoff” and “union shop.”
- Inform them of any prior experience you’ve had with unions and what facts you know about the particular union that’s trying to organize them.
- Tell your employees how their wages and benefits compare with other unionized and nonunionized companies with less desirable packages.
- Disclose the names of known gangsters or other undesirable elements who may be or have been active in the union, provided this is accurate information that can be verified by official sources.
- Inform them that, insofar as their status with the company is concerned, they are free to join or not to join any organization they choose.
- Express the hope that your employees vote against this or any union.
[1] https://www.thehrspecialist.com/14099/unions-in-the-spotligh...
Special emphasis on the last point. This is not me "arbitrarily" deciding anything. I don't even care that much about this. This is simply the other side of the coin. Companies can do this and therefore they do it. I have no personal feelings or strong opinions regarding unionization. I'm just showing the facts.
Things an employer can't do: - Engage in surveillance of employees to determine their views on the union.
Christ dude, read the article and your own source.
This is staggeringly naive about both how large companies & the legal system operate.
I would like to understand your side? How is my take staggeringly naive?
I was replying to the parent commenter who seemed to think that desincentivizing union formation/joining is illegal which is clearly not.
I agree with you that law isn’t binary, but the final interpretation of a law is a binary decision. You engage on what you think is lawful behavior or you don’t. If they did this, they clearly think that the pros outweigh the cons, and they believe they are operating within their legal rights.
No, they don't necessarily believe they are operating within their legal rights. They believe the penalty for noncompliance with the law is low enough to be worth it. This is an important distinction, because it means we need much greater penalties for labor violations.
The rewards of preventing unionization outweighs the penalties of engaging in unlawful behavior.
What? You could conclude that anything that Amazon does is legal by this logic. I'm sure they /did/ consult their lawyers - not for lessons on "right" and "wrong", but to find exactly how to skirt or cross the legal line with an acceptable level of legal exposure.
Not because some corporations are moral, but because happy workers are a good long-term strategy and many corporations are stuck with rolling short-term-ism. They reward the top tier on a three-ish year cycle, so executives only need to make the numbers go up for three years before exiting with a higher paying job and compensation via stock sales.
The US has a massive issue in general with rolling corporate pump & dump. The whole stock market basically encourages it. That's why we see things like customer retention strategies that actually reduce re-subscriptions and hurt the long term reputations remaining popular (because the short term matters more to executives than the long term, even if the company burns down after they leave).
I always see this cited as a reason but it so rarely happens that it might as well be a Horatio Alger fable. It's not instructive or useful in our current reality and it would be like taking lessons from the workplace successes of Santa's elves.
Of course it is not necessarily the case that what works here in Norway would work in the US even if the legal framework were changed to support it.
>As of February 2021 Costco has a market cap of $148.54 B
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-airlines-stock-si...
>“We are troubled by [American’s] wealth transfer of nearly $1 billion to its labor groups,” Baker wrote in a note to clients.
Treating employees well is punished by the market and neither Costco or American Airlines treat them particularly well, just less terribly than their competitors. A company necessarily has to treat its employees like shit in order to succeed.
However a corporation which has a large amount of jobs which require little skill or job-specific training but a lot of effort may actually find the opposite is a good long-term strategy: they have a vast supply of potential employees and hiring and firing is cheap so they can work their employees hard to the point of burn-out and then fire and rehire the next batch. These workers have basically no power over their employer individually. Unions are effectively a way for these workers to exercise some power over their employer as a collective, to get what some workers essentially have automatically due to the labour market in which they work.
Steve Yegge's accidentally-published blog post isn't the whole story, but it has a ring of truth to it.
It's not just businesses though who are employers. If you've ever hired someone to do a contract job for you, say a plumber, electrician or some other small construction project, you probably thought about and devised all sorts of ways to reduce the time and material costs of their efforts to save you money. I see this happen with a lot of people. Our culture has a deep seated disregard for other humans when money is involved. For those who can easily afford the cost, I don't understand. For those who have to pay someone out of necessity but can't really afford the costs, I understand.
Successful businesses fall into the former category. They are not charities, they have a profit motive and margin so they can afford it otherwise they have a failing business model. It all becomes a matter of how much success of that model they want to share with those who make their model possible and how entitled they feel in deserving of reward for their models success. To me, a lot of it is sheer coincidence and luck. I say you should contribute back to those who enable and make you successful. It's all about balance though, again, a business (well, most) isn't a charity and its reasonable to expect them to garner rewards for their efforts and success, whether it be luck or innovation and hard work based. A business also shouldn't be on the other extreme operating as a sweat shop driving down others rights to benefit those in charge.
There's a healthy balance somewhere in between and many captains of industry or investors holding the purse strings seem to have forgotten this. In addition, hyper competitive markets have forced these sort of optimizations. If you take two identical businesses with identical cost structures, products, etc and one decides to better compete and lower costs to consumers, they can reduce their labor costs, then other participants in the market will have to follow suit to remain competitive or fail in a low cost driven society. So even if you understand the value of people and want to share the wealth, it would be quite difficult.
The way to protect against this is through baseline legislation like minimum wage, overtime limits, etc. When all competitors in a market have to comply or be fined a cost with too high of risk (the punishments for violation need to be high to dissuade abuse), it's not possible to undercut your competitors in these aspects because you can't optimize beyond these constraints. We need more robust labor laws and enforcement to fix this issue, IMO. Let businesses optimize outside of labor because labor is already incredibly optimized as is and will only reduce quality of life for most if it continues the ongoing trend.
Edit: Also, why are "union avoidance consultants" a thing? The US needs to fix its culture around unions. That's absolutely wild.
/s
I doubt any union would charge anywhere near that much.
It's hopefully obvious that the union makes it better for at least the lower 50% of performers. It seems likely to me that it makes things better for more like the bottom 90% of performers or more. A lot of anti-union literature is based upon the fact that most people think they are above average.
Unions are not magically good.
One thing which can said with absolute certainty: they're not a structure which breeds efficiency.
But if unions were more common place would there be more efficiency or more in the average union? Would it be better for many people to have some job security instead of a company having efficiency?
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-pinkerton-spies-worke...
Lots of analysis could be done around the macro-socio-economics of the why, but in general I believe it’s because of the availability of remote, work starved populations, historically concentrated capital, and ease (from a cultural and legal perspective) of moving businesses and doing intracountry trade, have meant there was generally always a place industry could move, get what they want (including cheap labor), and sell to the same customer base or maket. Labor loses a lot of power when the company can just up and go somewhere else. This has historically been harder in Europe due to historically hard border controls and strong national identities - it will be interesting to see how this shakes out in the EU!
This is obviously not absolute (or Labor would not have gotten the power it has now, which is still non trivial in the US), but it is much more the case than Europe, where Labor has been able to dictate terms for awhile, and movements related to this problem were major contributors to the world wars.
One could also make arguments around shortage of labor in Europe due to deaths from the many world wars (which had only a minor impact on the US), or the world wars weakening the established sources of Capital or control in Europe more than the US, or shifts in population phenotypes due to mass migration to the Americas and susceptibility to certain types of working conditions or living styles (are children of folks who immigrate for work more like to move for jobs and take harsh living conditions as part of the deal?).
Overall, it’s hard to not notice that no one seems to actually be enforcing labor laws designed to protect workers, or that Labor isn’t organizing effectively and using it’s muscle. That may be changing, but especially on the low end it seems kinda unlikely right now.
Back then, titans of industry hired Pinkertons to attack and kill striking workers. Now, they buy media companies and tech companies that are designed to incentivize viewers to violently threaten the politicians and organizers who support striking workers. It's the same continuum, just evolved in subtlety.
Now they still hire Pinkerton to know what the employees are up to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1]
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/11/30/940196997/amazon-reportedly-h...
https://twitter.com/moreperfectus/status/1364318690271969285
Here in my country, unions work like political parties (which I understand is not exactly enticing right now):
- you are free to join or not
- there are elected workers' representatives whether there are unions are not
- unions serve to organize workers for action and representatives elections, support candidates, and provide additional services as well
In this context, there is no one big vote to unionize or not, and no "union jobs". How does it work in the US?
1) Many unions are govt unions - think police, prison guard, teachers.
2) For closed shop states, if a union wins election, EVERYONE has to join the union.
3) A history of corruption in unions in some cases.
4) There is a perception in the US that unions and lazy workers overlap.
Teachers unions, prison guard unions, police unions - they need to have some real good examples of the successes unions can bring. Internationally (at least in EU in my experience) there really are those. In the US it's a bit muddied.
The latest example I saw, a parent wanted to try and get schools to reopen. Union called them racist -
"she was being racist and not considering “the needs of brown/black families who 'predominantly want to stay home' as evidenced by the several months old OUSD survey that was sent out to all district parents."
Stuff like this is kind of eye rolling. The union starts calling folks racist for wanting their kids in school? Do the black/brown folks they are speaking for even agree with these claims?
In 27/50 states workers who opt out of union membership loose the power to vote in union matters, but still are governed by union negotiations and must pay the unions "agency fees" for representing them. They no longer have to pay for political campaigning and lobbying by the union on other activism.
In 23/50 states, workers can not opt out of union dues and the union can spend the dues to campaign for political figures and issues.
Unions generally support Democratic politicians and agendas, and unions have high approval Among members of the Democratic Party. Republican Party members disfavor unions and resent obligatory union dues used to fund the party they do not support.
I much prefer the European concept of unions, where employees can pick and choose between different options
27 states are "right-to-work" states [1] The remaining 23 allow "Union Security Agreements" between employers and unions where all employees are required to be members. [2] The 23 states without right-to-work allow agency fees. However, these 23 states also allow "union shops", where non-membership is not an option, so everyone can be charged for political activates.
Another big change since I last looked is that the US supreme court struck down agency fees for all government employees in 2018, including the 23 states.
[1] https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-to-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_security_agreement
My understanding is that closed shops where you need membership to apply are illegal, but union shops (post-entry closed shops) are legal in states without right-to-work.[1]
That said, I was wrong before and may be wrong again. It is really hard to understand the specifics of union law as many sources are sloppy with their terms and there are state-to-state differences?
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-an-agency-shop-vs-...
PS, I really appreciate your use of "You're confused". It is much more polite than some of the contradictions people use.
[1] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/473/95.html
Much like the role of the party and State organs in one-party state vs many parties democracies. In the former the roles are much more muddied between the two.
At AWS - we'd definitely notice, because their support is really good.
> Will they be actual organized units capable of orchestrating coordinated action to withhold labor for improvement of material conditions?
Developers have the money to withstand very long strikes if needed. I think there's a lot of power in that.
Sending out propaganda is a new piece of information. When someone is trying really hard to get you to believe something, or act in a particular way, that in and of itself is informative. You don't play Magic The Gathering, do you?
Many humans, when treated with contempt and addressed as if he's a gullible moron by someone who patronisingly tries to lead him into a decision explicitly to that patronising jerk's advantage, often dislikes it to the point of generating what we might call the "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" response. People who play poker yet somehow aren't familiar with humans will struggle playing against them.
Interestingly, there is now a global union, based in Switzerland, that's organizing multinationals. They're up to 20 million members.[2] They've been able to organize two US gig-worker companies, Manpower and Kelly Services.
They have a brochure on Amazon: "Essentially irresponsible".[3]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/23/amazon-be...
[2] https://uniglobalunion.org/about-us/global-agreements
[3] https://uniglobalunion.org/sites/default/files/attachments/p...
The way FC workers are treated is not ok. It's the main blemish on a company I otherwise respect. "Other companies treat FC staff like shit too" is not an excuse.
Disclaimer: Work for Amazon (corp / tech side). Opinion my own, obviously.
How is this not an excuse? Most people would switch to Walmart/Target/Bestbuy or any other retailer if the price on Amazon is higher.
Otherwise Amazon is leaving money on the table by not already charging higher prices, which is a bet I would not make.
I don't think we should pretend that FC jobs will ever be super high paying or enviable jobs, but there are other ways to improve worker conditions. e.g. In some FC's, people allegedly have to walk for 20 minutes to reach a toilet. That's easily fixed. Making sure people don't have to choose between feeding their families and casting a vote in the election is another example. In general, even for a low skill job, pressure shouldn't be so high as to burn people out.
I think some FCs might actually have decent worker conditions. Others don't. As you alluded to, a company has financial interests that may not align with worker interests, which is why I think this needs to be approached in a structural way. Like Bezos himself once said: "Good intentions don't work; you need good mechanisms to make anything happen."
The answer is federal legislation. How break time, overtime after certain # of work hours in a day, parental leave.
If we want people to have a certain quality of life at work, I don't see any purpose directing any energy at certain large employers. All efforts should be direct to politicians, who we can vote in, to provide that quality of life at work.
The US did that and the governments solutions was to pass laws allowing for unions. By unionizing these employees are doing the thing the government has already determined will help them.
The only reason Amazon raised their fulfillment pay was because Bernie Sanders shamed them into it [1].
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+bernie+sanders+pay
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-A...
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/05/06/Answers
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-wo...
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/youre-just-dispos...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazo...
https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/inside-the-hellish-workday-of-...
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696154/amazon-prime-day...
Yeah, though the problem is that "case" is likely professionally polished FUD (if American Factory is any guide) hammered home in mandatory meeting after mandatory meeting. It's like if every voter was required to attend mandatory info sessions by Republican advocates for 20 hours in the two weeks before an election, while listening to the Democratic advocates was voluntary and optional.
I don't think this kind of claim, especially without evidence, is helpful. How do you know what their reasoning is? You're telling me on the one hand that this is a big powerful company and on the other hand saying they are easily cowed and susceptible to something as toothless as 'shame'. So which is it? My take is that companies are complex and make decisions based on many factors typically. You have no idea why they did or didn't do certain things, and it most likely has nothing to do with Sanders.
Also consider that trillion Dollars is their market capitalization not liquid cash on their hand. I don't think being a trillion Dollar company changes what they can afford or who they should reward with their profits. Amazon is already paying market-leading wages for unskilled labor and provides benefits. I don't really expect them to pay any more than minimum wage if they have enough workers interested in their jobs, since this is not differentiated work. So the fact that they're doing anything more should be appreciated. I don't think it makes sense to twist that into a criticism.
If you feel Amazon management isn't moral, they should repent and change their behavior, not "make their case."
Lying to people to try to get them to vote against their economic interests seems the sort of thing that lands people in hell or haunted by an evil doll in such a universe.
"He's just making his case" doesn't really seem like sort of reasoning that would follow in a moral universe. The import thing is "is that case moral?"
I can understand being wary, but that's all it is, wary.
I think we are both retreating to our priors, but it also seems speculative that amazon is using a sealed ballot drop off location to somehow track who is voting yes or no.
I think this is pretty standard and if they didn't have drop onsite drop off locations, the story would be that they are discouraging organizers by not providing them
heh if it passes and a union is formed i wonder how many "tabs" are going to be kept on employees who dare choose not to join. There's plenty of precedent for unions doing their own threatening and pressuring of employees to increase the coffers.
Taking ownership of the failures that led to the conditions which created support for the union vote in a substantial, committed, and convincing fashion is hard, but potentially an effective way for employers to change the direction of the case they've made to employees.
Directly instructing employees to vote "no", lying about how unions work in their area, lying about the voting timeline, installing an easily surveillable special mailbox for union votes, and pressuring the government to alter traffic controls to prevent employees from being able to spend time outside the workplace during the union voting period - this is how Amazon has chosen to make their case.
Amazon or any employer should still be able to make their case, even if they're wrong about some things ...
Indeed, a lot of unions, especially the big, old ones in the US, have become lazy and more interested in making nice deals with management than with sticking up for the workers.
That said, the experience the workers get from the process of unionizing in the first place can give them the confidence they need to realize that the union bureaucracy isn't doing everything it can, and to pressure it to be better (by things like wildcat strikes, as the teachers in Virginia did very successfully a few years ago).
> Amazon or any employer should still be able to make their case, even if they're wrong about some things ...
I recommend re-reading the post you're responding to, which addressed that the first time you said it.
The problem as I see it are the two other things:
- telling employees to vote by March 1st in a specific mailbox, even though the deadline is March 29th, is blatant intimidation (since management is clearly surveilling the mailbox and will know if you don’t comply). If that’s not illegal it really needs to be.
- “Protect what you have” is a very suspicious and threatening message that suggests retaliation if workers unionize (especially given the last page in the mailer). I would say this is paranoid if we weren’t talking about Amazon - they lost all presumptions of decency with the traffic light shenanigan.
Its not fair that Walmart and Amazon must compete against each other to buy labor but the sellers of labor can form a cartel protected by the federal government.
Mabye the executive of Amazon could be allowed to post a little column in paper like the Washington Post. Maybe the owner of that paper wouldn’t object to that idea.
do you think we should accept climate science from fossil fuel companies?
I think people should be treated pretty well in a job setting, my thought is that well treated employees while costing more actually wind up producing for the business well in excess of the expense and much more than when treated like parts as well as it imo just being the ethical thing to do.
I've only heard negative things from friends who have worked in unions or with unionized employees and I understand things vary greatly union to union so I'm skeptical of how overall beneficial they are to normal workers, high performing workers and the business which ultimately they work for. They largely seem like ways for certain outspoken individuals to consolidate power and become another vehicle for corruption and stagnation, much like already broken corporate structure.
All of that said this may be the only avenue possible at the moment as nothing in the US screams major labor reforms to me and no larger business seems willing to try to experiment with other solutions.
Edit: Oh and a general contractor or two.
Amazon often sells items lower quality than Walmart. It sucks and it feels like they have a monopoly. I'd rather shop anywhere else.
edit: Maybe https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/ ? I haven't bought anything there, but I might try it if there are not better recommendations.
The outside of the envelope typically doesn't have any legal privacy protections. That means Amazon can collect a list of people who have voted.
You know who has pretty good unions? The police departments, ask them about it.
I'd probably quit if some organization suddenly started siphoning my paycheck. Sure unionize if you want, and I'll strike with you over issues, but that doesn't require my payment to accomplish.
I am very thankful to live in a right to work state where nobody can forcibly steal the fruits of my labor.
No one is trying to steal anything from you. Unions are for workers. If you think Amazon is in your corner more than a union would be, I would consider reevaluating that idea.\
All that said: almost no unionized workplace that I know of has a situation where you are required to be part of the union to work there, so no, you won't be forced. For example, U.S. federal employees have huge, long-lived unions with a lot of prominence, and only 26% of federal employees actually belong to a union.
funny.
I understand that there are shitty unions out there. But my statement seems pretty factual for the idea of unions as a whole.
Amazon certainly isn't on the side of its workers. No company is. They want maximum work for minimum pay. Workers want maximum pay for minimum work. I've always found the labor market to be an entertaining fight between the two.
I think the part hanging me up most is what the dues could go to. Theoretically speaking, I'm down to pay some folks to represent me and fight in meetings with <employer>. But, I don't believe in paying dues to keep members afloat when they're not working (striking, etc.). I believe that's my responsibility to stay solvent. All my life I've forced myself to spend far less than I make in pursuit of this.
But the sentiment you're expressing is one of the #1 tools in the anti-union-propaganda belt, and for good reason: nobody wants to be forced!
Honestly, you're the kind of person who would be really helpful in a union meeting! You bring up great points: some industries really need to be able to pay people to strike, but others don't. Where do we fit in (whoever "we" is)? And knowing where your dues are going is important; anybody trying to hide that kind of information is immediately suspect.
> All my life I've forced myself to spend far less than I make in pursuit of [solvency].
Not to go totally Marxist on you... but some would say that this is because you live in a deeply capitalist, anti-worker society, and that strong unions are just one piece in a potential society-wide safety net that would mean people could just spend the money they make without having to worry about sudden and catastrophic destitution.
In an ideal world, I personally would love if people who found themselves out of work had a third party (potentially comprised of other workers in their field) that could support them while they got back on their feet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#:~:text=In%2....
I often see mandatory dues being brought up as arguments against unions in the US. I've never heard of that practice here, so I looked and it is in fact illegal here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop#Council_of_Europe based on the freedom of association (which also covers freedom of _not_ associating).
There's also no requirement for employers to negotiate or recognise unions. Usually if sufficient members of the company are in a union the employer will negotiate pay terms with them - they don't have a requirement too, though of course the union can strike to bring them to the negotiating table. Some employers might make a single negotiation with the union and use that as the basis for their pay grades or other terms, though again, there's no requirement for them to do so.
What I don't understand is why US unions don't embrace that - if they don't adopt the "mandatory membership" part, surely the opposition to their existence has less to argue for. You don't need a big vote, members just join, and if there's enough of them they can bring employers to the negotiating table. Yes, you can get freeloaders, but that seems preferable to having no union for the employees that need it most.
I'm in tech, so there's not much call for the unionisation of tech in my country. But that's because it's a seller's market, an individual tech worker often has more leeway to insist on improvements to their pay or conditions than a factory worker and both sides know it. it's why e.g. you get management apologising for 9:30am meetings if a visiting exec is in town and they want to impress but arrive at 9:10am to the factory or mcdonalds and expect an unpleasant meeting with your supervisor. (Also if you were lucky, you knew that you were rosted for 9am the week before)
Most people from my school days, and even my father are in jobs like this. If I was too, I would totally be in a union. Part of me wonders if in tech we really should be too to have the infrastructure in place if a time comes when the market for tech work is dramatically different. Certainly given the state of unions and low wage employment conditions in my country, if I hadn't been lucky to have something I was interested in and had aptitude for pay so well, I would join a union if I had to work on it.
I know people like to harp on about examples like the US auto industry or UK mining industry where strong insistence of worker's rights was arguably a contributor to the industry in those countries going under, but it's not clear to me that industries like call centers or retail where that didn't happen have had much better outcomes for employees. Better outcomes for the businesses operating them, sure, employees, ehh...
US labor law doesn't recognize members only unions. Employers don't have to negotiate with them. They have less incentive to negotiate because the outcome isn't binding. Strikers are just AWOL. And the prevailing legal opinion seems to be a union can't represent more than 50% but less than 100% of a bargaining unit.
Just do something about it. Take the nuclear option.
I understand why some people want unions. I also know about a very long history of unions either completely destroying companies or having a negative influence over them, including the countries in Europe like my own. Long term unions become a parasitic entity that has the main purpose to continue its existence for the profit of the union leaders and nobody else and using all the influence to achieve that goal, even if the host is negatively impacted.
1. You get outcompeted by other companies that look out for Number One, namely the bottom line
2. You get surrounded by an entourage of corporate sycophants that nurture your lie about how your company is so benevolent that no worker representation is necessary
> turns a competitive workforce into a mediocre one
Because the people employed in Amazon warehouses will stop self improving and being competitive, but only if they join a union.
CEO or blue-collar worker?
And believe it or not, a union is also an organization with some negative and positive aspects.
The difference is, once you have a union in an organization its very hard to dislodge it no matter how dysfunctional it gets.
I would suggest HN readers read about what UAW did in the auto industry, particularly the way the auto union functioned at the Toyota NUMA plant in California.
Then they should read about the corruption at the Teamsters (I'm sure you have heard about the collusion between union bosses like Hoffa and the Mafia). The high profile corruption is just the tip of the iceberg. Even your local teachers union has a tremendous amount of nepotism and corruption ... its not at all meritocratic.
And the worst part about a union is that it turns the workplace from a zone where we are evaluated based on our output into a zone where politics dominates when it comes time for compensation and promotion discussions.
I will never again work in a unionized workplace ... and thanks to getting an education and learning how to program I will thankfully not have to do it ever again.
With a union there's some democratic influence. You're only option for changing the company is to leave if you're anywhere below VP level.
Link some, first results I get for UAW + auto industry are propagandized anti-union sites and Toyota's own press release about how they're proud to give more money to the team.
In comparison to a business? With a union I have some voting power. With a business I have zero power.