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Comment by goonogle | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone blame them?

There are 3 types of workers.

Temp style who are planning on making money and leaving Amazon as soon as they get a better paying job. These people get limited to negative benefits from the union.

Ambitious workers who want to climb up Amazon, this takes 2 paths. You can go up the union ranks, but this is nearly entirely seniority dependent. Going from union position to non union(management) means you cut all ties with your former life and union friends, sorry but it's the truth.

Finally you have the lifers, they benefit from the union because this is their career. Doing unskilled labor for slightly above market rates. They want union protection to make their job easier at the expense of everything else. Maybe the job is hard and these lifers deserve it. But this is still a minority population.

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The only people who benefit from lack of unionization are the owners of Amazon.

This is classic, low effort, anti union rhetoric that might as well have pulled from the pinkertond themselves. From a brand new account too. Now I'm not saying you're a shill, but Amazon has been spending so much fuck you money against this union drive that I wouldn't be surprised if they're also paying some poor guy in Mumbai to post stuff like this, just like they're doing on Twitter. Why not own your opinions and post from your main account?

Edit to add why a union at Amazon is important, copied from another comment of mine:

If not for the relentless quotas drivers and warehouse workers would be able to effectively use their breaks and lunch time to care for their biological needs. Amazon knowingly continues with their quota system as-is because they know that their employees have nowhere else to go.[0,1] Amazon doesn't care that their employees have no alternatives to defacating in bags and urinating in bottles[2]; only that their staff take their biological waste with them. This tweet was an attempt to reframe the criticism away from the image of a human, crouched down, in the back of an Amazon truck, clutching a bag beneath their butt as they desperately relieve themselves; all so they can meet their delivery quota.[3] The solution is rather simple and should be easily palatable for all but those whose livelihoods are dependent on the perverted form of socialised-for-the-capitalists capitalism under corpocracy as opposed to social market economies. That solution is industrial democracy in businesses.[4] ID is not perfect, nothing is. However, it would be give the majority of Amazon's employees the freedom to choose whether they want to continue to work themselves at a pace that requires them to use their [trucks, customers lawn, diapers, alleyway] as a rest room or if they should be given the latitude to locate a bathroom along their route.

0. https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/80935

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/business/economy/amazon-w...

2. https://twitter.com/amazonnews/status/1374911222361956359?s=...

3. https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7j7mb/amazon-delivery-drive...

4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_democracy

>Why not own your opinions and post from your main account?

because anti-union rhetoric tends to get downvoted to hell and is received negatively for some (see for instance, the first sentence of your comment). With how cancel culture is going these days there's also the concern that 10 years from now someone will dig up your anti-union post and use that against you.

Cancel culture, as far as I understand it is mainly just the exposition of sexual predators and unapologetic racists in positions of power. DBAD, and you'll be fine. The last two people I heard talking about cancel culture were two frat bros simultaneously rating women that walked by so I might be a bit touchy on the subject right now.

This is all to say that equating being against unions is about as far away from sexual predators and racists as communists are. You might be fringe, but it'll never get you cancelled. I guess unless you're trying to cancel a union or run for union leadership positions.

Don't forget that conservatives invented cancel culture. We still have Christmas and Harry Potter and witchcraft. Your anti union prejudices are fine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/19/nobody-lo...

>Cancel culture, as far as I understand it is mainly just the exposition of sexual predators and unapologetic racists in positions of power. DBAD, and you'll be fine. [...] You might be fringe, but it'll never get you cancelled. I guess unless you're trying to cancel a union or run for union leadership positions.

I'm talking about Brendan Eich, who got forced out of mozilla because of his donation to support proposition 8[1]. In the end the proposition received 52% yes, 48% no, so it wasn't exactly a fringe position.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8

I think you misunderstand the situation. These are generation changes taking place where workers expect their companies to support their values. "Cancel culture" is simply a derogatory term for workers and the public holding organizations accountable for the actions, decisions, and beliefs of those they employ.

https://www.axios.com/ceo-political-activism-03b148a0-d921-4...

>"Cancel culture" is simply a derogatory term for workers and the public holding organizations accountable for the actions, decisions, and beliefs of those they employ.

How does this relate to the initial discussion? The end result is the same: your commenting behavior right now may jeopardize your career 10 years from now, therefore people are taking steps to mitigate that risk.

Respond to individual points.

I don't have a main account due to social media addiction.

First you need to prove all Amazon employees fit your stereotypes. Without that that's there's nothing for me to argue against. Your premise is flawed.

The only counter argument needed:

Some people work in Amazon warehouses because they're disenfranchised under served and desperate to not be homeless.

Anecdote: I've worked one union job in my life. I didn't work sufficient hours to get benefits but I was expected to pay dues. The union offered me no benefits and made plenty of statements about how I had to pay or they'd force me out of the job. I was young and didn't care, so I never paid and left when I found better employment. During my exit, my manager told me he was sorry to see me go but the union was going to force him to fire me soon anyway.

That single experience has left me no love for unions. Why should those who receive no benefits (I'm talking about things like medical) because they work less than a minimum amount be forced to participate? Why does a group get to string arm and individual who doesn't want to be part it? I'm not an amazon employee. I have no skin in this game. If I was working one of those jobs and had the hours, I'd probably have voted in favor. If I didn't have the hours though? Not a chance. Odds are the chunk the union would take immediately would be worth something to me and waiting for the collective bargaining improvements to hopefully (likely) come would not be a risk I'd be okay with.

So how many people working in these warehouses wouldn't qualify? I don't have the answer but I bet that's a well represented number of voters.

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