Would they have done the same thing if animal rights protesters, or the Proud Boys, or whoever came and someone thought they were on Amazon property illegally? I think so.
Are you arguing that Amazon doesn't know where their property line is? (Also, comparing classic union organizing to white supremacists who are charged with "seditious conspiracy" in the violent attack on the nation's capital in an attempt to overthrow an election is wild.)
You might have got that from the wide political difference between the two examples.
Bringing up a violent group like this makes no sense at all. And yes, examples are given specifically as points of comparison.
>> Would they have done the same thing if animal rights protesters, or the Proud Boys, or whoever came and someone thought they were on Amazon property illegally? I think so.
I read it as: take any arbitrary group of people who might organise a protest from any arbitrary political or social position "or whoever". Regardless, Amazon would have reacted the same. There is no implicit comparison to insurrectionists in such a reading.
Using the Proud Boys as an example during a discussion about lawful, non-violent efforts makes no sense at all; this group isn't merely a group with a different political or social position than the union organizers.
Amazon knows where their property line is, in the sense that the organization could locate it eventually given the need. However, just one person called the sheriff. Maybe they thought their property extended to the roadway, instead of only to the fence line?
In either case, it is basically a nothing-burger because the Sheriffs showed up and recognized their right to be where they were, and went on with their day. It seems like the system worked?
Feel free to attribute organizational motive to it through your own heuristics, but I expected a little bit better from a globally read newspaper.
If you call the police on your neighbors for spurious reasons, and the cops come and discover it was a spurious complaint, your neighbors are going to think you are targeting them and trying to get them in trouble, even if in the end "everything is okay". Especially if you have a cosy relationship with the cops, and you actually own the home your neighbors are renting, for example.
If you think this was some kind of corporate intimidation, how many people would you guess were involved with the decision?
Why isn't Amazon hiring scary bike gangs with plausible deniability to come harass the organizers instead of cops who generally enforce the law?
Sorry. But I just can't see it. "We're a trillion dollar organization with hundreds of thousands of employees with global reach. Our preferred intimidation methods involve a bumpkin county sheriff who knows how to enforce the law"
What's likely to have happened is that a person in local management wanted to stop union solicitation, so they called the cops with little regard for whether it was actually legitimate or not, in the hope that the cops might at least recommend the organizer move their activity to a less "aggravating" (i.e., less effective) location.
In any case, Amazon may also make mistakes that help the protesters, but that would never be reported on(e.g protesters illegally trespassing, but no one at Amazon realizes it and calls the police)
And I have no idea where you're getting your information about Proud Boys "often" being authorized employees. Mind to share any kind of source?
It was almost certainly meant to be IN CONTRAST to Proud Boys. Edit: apparently not, see below!
I was in fact saying that a lot of Proud Boys are employed by Amazon, and that I doubt Amazon would particularly care about PB demonstrations. And of course I can’t answer GP with proof of that, quite a lot of the group operates with aliases. But I live in the company town and people get to know each other.
That said, again your point is much more salient.
What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. This is like saying that Taco Bell employs racists. Yes, undoubtedly it does, because 200,000 people work for taco bell and at least some of them are bound to be racist. But how exactly are you going from that fact, to the idea that Taco Bell condones racists?
Yes.
> Why are these groups operating in secret if they're supported by Amazon?
I’m not saying they’re supported, to be clear.
As to why they operate in secret, to the extent they do: they’re fascists. That’s somewhat more socially acceptable today than it was 20 years ago, but still generally frowned upon to admit outright.
> What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.
Come stand out on the streets in company town and get to know some of the locals, I guess?
> This is like saying that Taco Bell employs racists. Yes, undoubtedly it does, because 200,000 people work for taco bell and at least some of them are bound to be racist. But how exactly are you going from that fact, to the idea that Taco Bell condones racists?
A fair point. I can’t tell you how many Taco Bell employees are also fascists, it’s bound to be greater than zero. I can say that the proportion of highly organized fascists are generally not slinging fast food.
Go ahead and share your reasons then please.
> I can say that the proportion of highly organized fascists are generally not slinging fast food.
Instead, they're slinging boxes in fulfillment centers?
I'm sorry, I just don't believe you. There are clearly racists and fascists working for Amazon, due to the sheer size of it, but to suggest that Amazon would protect them is ridiculous.