Amazon is intimidating and harassing organizing workers in Montreal
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Amazon employs about one million people in the United States, and unionization and collective bargaining could easily result in a doubling of their labor costs. This would certainly benefit the local economies surrounding Amazon warehouse locations, but would mean profits and dividends would fall. This is a significant number, an increase in labor costs by about $30B per year.
Amazon's gross profits vary year-to-year, but are on the order of $150B, so they can clearly afford to pay their workers a wage that would allow them to move up to respectable middle-class status - and this would also likely result in less employee turnover as well. The investors and executives would have to absorb the costs, but isn't that reasonable?
If they had to pay living wages to those employees, they would stop being able to undercut every other business.
> If they cannot afford proper safety equipment then the business is a liability.
And
> If buying safety equipment causes an employer financial distress then it is a liability.
But I think most people would agree with the first statement and disagree with the second.
Except that has been an actual feature of unions. Plenty of unions have agreed on work reduction and other cost abating ways to help a struggling company continue to function in times of distress. Workers plenty well understand that a failed company provides them none of the benefits of the union.
I don't think the government will get involved at all. Seems they had these specific labor laws for decades. It'll just go to court and get settled there.
I doubt Amazon are the first to try skirting these.
Oh man, then you really don't know about Québec!
That is to say, all the libertarians complaining about unions and vaccines can do so comfortably only because they have never been exposed to the horrors they helped to prevent .
Competition is a good thing whether in labor or oil or chicken markets.
A cartel is a set of profit seeking firms in a specific industry who hold enough market influence to dictate price. It is the coordinated actions of an oligopoly to manipulate the market. You don't need to own the full market, you just need to be able to influence the market as a whole.
A union is, on a very surface level similar to a cartel, but unions are monopolies of labor, and do not represent the firms themselves.
They are both attempts to manipulate markets through group decision making, but even academically, they aren't seen as the same thing. There is a reason that cartel formation is very illegal while union formation is a protected right.
that's like saying OPEC isn't a cartel because you can still get oil from russia or canada.
>it can fire it's entire workforce and rehire
isn't that union-busting and/or illegal?
> isn't that union-busting and/or illegal?
It's supposed to be, but it's often the case that corporations are not penalized to a sufficient amount (or at all) to deter this. We've seen many cases where it's cheaper for the corporation to pay these fines and continue doing what they are doing - in that sense the current laws are ineffective.
On a local level? Maybe? But consider that the US workers of the most valuable car company in the world (by a factor of about 3)are not part of the UAW, so it's debatable at best.
It's not even in the top 10 of car manufacturers by revenue. In fact it's only like 1/5th the size of the tenth place (Hyundai), or about 1/14th the size of the first place on that list (Volkswagen). It's not going move any car markets on its own, regardless of what goes on at Tesla.
So yeah, valuation is completely detached from (current) reality in this case, and Tesla is not a great example.
We could look at the biggest manufacturer instead, but I'm sure most people have heard of VW's union by now.
In fact this is why the Clayton Act specifically exempts unions from anti-trust law, and it's why "Right to work" laws are so controversial - they reduce the monopoly status of the union.
Correct me, if I'm understanding but your point seems to be this
Unions are a monopoly so it makes sense to call OPEC a union.
Let me refer us both back to intro to programming and frame this in OOP terms. Just because a Cat has an IS-A relationship to Animal, does not make all Animals Cats.
> OPEC is also a union
missedthecue 1 hour ago
> I wouldn't call OPEC a union
You might want to re-examine your cybersecurity measures - someone hacked your account.
We're really just splitting hairs at this point. My main point is that the motives and tactics of both OPEC and the UAW are identical.
aka collective bargaining.
> If you willingly compete
aka defecting.
It's just game theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action I really don't understand why people get so fluffed up about it.
I rather focus broader reform than just focusing on Amazon.
In fact, it is your local McD franchisee who is doing the most to ensure that min wage workers do not get organized.
I came to HN because Reddit turned into a cesspool and it seems like the cesspool followed.
It's crazy to me that anyone who works in these Amazon warehouses votes agains tunionization but they do [1]. Even in the successful vote, there were still a lot of "no" votes.
Unionization in the US is the lowest of all OECD nations (~10%) [2]. Is it any wonder US workers don't get paid maternity leave, often don't get health insurance and get 2 weeks vacation?
This is why wedge issues matter. They sow discord to prevent class solidarity. You know who actually does have class solidarity? Billionaires. And the politicans they own.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/02/amazon-...
I had to laugh at this one. When I worked construction plumbing (non-union, "free-to-work" state), I received 0 days vacation and 2 days of sick pay per year.
You're saying this is a testament to the effectiveness of the propaganda and I'll back that up, anecdotally, having worked around those very people that vote against their own interests.
I was even rejected from taking two weeks off when my son was born. Needless to say I was there for his birth and his first few months, but some that I worked with were not there for their children's first days.
That's just crazy! Meanwhile here in Austria employees have a legal right to 5 weeks of paid vacation...
I'm gonna steelman those no votes. BigCos don't like unions to the point they can and sometimes do close the place/warehouse alltogether. This is worse than working in non-union shop, especially in economically depressed area.
Amazon is spending millions on union-busting lawyers. From the article, workers had to go to mandatory anti-union classes, which is pretty funny coming from a company where you could get written up for "time off task" by taking a bathroom break.
The propaganda the company is pushing is that the company and the workers are working together. They are not. Those workers are being exploited. Bezos considered turnover desirable.
While it is propaganda to claim the interests of the workers and company are aligned, it's also propaganda to claim that they're being exploited.
A voluntary market interaction, that 95% of the world population would jump at the opportunity to engage in, is by no reasonable definition, exploitive.
And society at large will not benefit from forcing Amazon to give Amazon warehouse workers above market wages.
Lower turnover will also turn Amazon warehouse work into another union cast, that benefits those who got in early, before union walls closed the door behind them, while making it more difficult for new workers to get a job with Amazon.
Amazon itself is also likely to slow its hiring if union action forces its labor costs up.
The other part of the the problem with that statement of course comes from the dictionary definition (one I think most people would consider a reasonable definition), it says:
making use of a situation or treating others unfairly in order to gain an advantage or benefit.
Punishing (the term they use is penalizing because it sounds nicer) people for being people and needing to use the restroom is unfair. So is punishing people for delivery delays caused by traffic. Both of those seem pretty unfair to me - maybe I'm unreasonable for thinking a person isn't at fault for traffic?
"I want better for myself" != "if you don't offer me better, you're exploiting me". The implication of your assertion is fallacious.
>>making use of a situation or treating others unfairly in order to gain an advantage or benefit.
Nothing unfair about offering a wage for a job, and someone accepting it.
>>Punishing (the term they use is penalizing because it sounds nicer) people for being people and needing to use the restroom is unfair.
It's not a punishment. It's the terms of the deal, to ensure the employer is getting a certain unit of work for a given amount of pay.
In a free society, companies are allowed to offer such terms. What's fair/unfair is determined by the conduct of the parties to a deal, and the terms of that deal. If the conduct conforms with the terms agreed, then we in a free society should tolerate it, rather than punishing the company for it.
So selling your children into slavery, or even a distant future self, would obviously not be allowed.
It does not refer to a job offer that is the best one on the market that is available to a person.
Your definition implies that a job offer that 95% of the world population would rush to accept, that is above market rates for that job and which is voluntary according to any court of law, is exploitation. By what standard can you describe it as such? It is a completely arbitrary definition, unless you are citing marxist theory which says that all investor profit is exploitation, in which case you should disclose your ideological suppositions from the outset so that people understand you are not referring to exploitation in the way it's conventionally understood.
As for land, that is completely incomparable to a company. Land is a public resource in a sense so if a Lord monopolizes it they're depriving others of something that they have an equal share in. And no single company or cartel of companies, has anything approaching a monopoly on the job market. So your comparison is wrong on two levels. It's telling that arguments trying to justify the socialist claims of exploitation have to make inappropriate analogies. The substance of the claim cannot be justified on its own grounds.
Also with the current Amazon's turnover rate you can't count on working for more than a year. Their annual turnover is over 100% for warehouses so it may be a loss for the area, but on a case-by-case basis those people would be looking for another job soon anyway.
This is one of the most obnoxious terms I see in contemporary political dialogue.
It's presumptuous, it's elitist, it's a thinly veiled way to say 'these people are too stupid to know what's good for them'.
"I would never join a union" is a pretty easy thing to say if you are in a job with decent pay, a labour market that wants your skills, and have reasonably good working conditions.
Amazon warehouse manager.
With an unemployment rate as drastically low as many right to work states, wage inflation becomes a big issue, so companies hire less efficient employees.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/could-rising-wages-scuttle...
My wife worked for the National Education Association for 15 years. I can't recall a single positive comment that she made about the union. The way the contracts are structured, educators get locked in to their home district after 5-10 years. They are useless for mediating anything but issues that are already written up in the contract and the ability for loafers to coast for the entirety of their career is commonly discussed and real. She would avoid the union because it coddles losers and doesn't lift a finger for staff dealing with real issues.
The only partial success story with unions that I'm aware of is with my brother, a lineman for AT&T. He's had that job for almost 30 years (through a variety of telcos ultimately renamed AT&T) and has been a member of the Communication Workers of America. He talks about endless frustration with the union, that the reps are useless and that the contracts they negotiate are terrible. But he does have the ability to tell his management to fuck off if they ask him to do something dangerous (which happens rarely but enough to matter) and he takes advantage of that from time to time. He might re-up for a union, i don't know.
Some people feel that they’ll do better negotiating with a multi billion dollar company. Others are unable to think ahead/strategically and focus on the 3% fee or whatever.
When you’re working for a company that manages you as tightly as Amazon does, it ridiculous to not have a union, if only for having some recourse with respect to work rules. My wife works for a local government where a bunch of the guys made a big show out of opting out of the union, they regretted that when a new administration came in and started targeting them for petty rule violations - eventually they were all forced out and replaced by cheaper people.
Same reason I will never buy a home with a HOA.
Let's assume the absolute best of intent, no corruption, etc. There is some good, of course. I won't deny this. I'm not going to talk about the upside, but please don't whataboutism me simply because i'm going to talk about the downsides - you asked whether it is irrational. It is no more irrational than any other moral/ethical/etc viewpoint that someone chooses over a financial one. I am plenty aware of the history and good they have done, and the horrible labor practices they helped put an end to. I just do not happen to be an ends justify means kind of person.
their are a few countries where union equivalents have an explicit goal/requirements/etc around societal good - i have no issues there, the rest of this is about the ones that don't.
For unions, overall, their goal is not to help society, it is to protect and help their members. They have no duty to society whatsoever. In the extreme, that ends up bad for anyone not their members.
That is, they do everything they can only to get their members more money, more benefits, protect their jobs, etc. This sort of thing comes at a cost too.
So they make it harder to fire bad cops, bad teachers, etc.
When a municipality or state would be bankrupted by paying pensions, the unions will force them into bankruptcy at a cost to everyone else. The unions will first force them to raise pensions, too, to unpayable levels. The state/municipality has essentially no practical power against its workforce in that situation, so it agrees, again, at a cost to everyone else. The unions of course, do not care about the consequences for anyone else. They want it paid anyway.
I have no issue with pushing for a living wage, etc. But again, it's for their members, not for everyone, except where they believe it will generate more union membership.
So sum total, they do not care about anyone else. Literally. It's not their job.
This is awesome for their members. Horrible for everyone else.
So no, it's not irrational. Not everyone wants to group themselves with organizations designed to literally not care about anyone else.
Follow the US-style unions to their logical extreme - everyone in society in is a union, divided by job. Yay!?
I think that ends very badly for society - you really think the unions won't paint other jobs/unions/etc as the enemy? They do in plenty of cases already! So - i think it will end up the same sort of strong polarization/hate that exists across political affiliation, but across jobs instead. Great.
Now explain why unionized European programmers don't get paid nearly the same as un-unionized American ones. Is it because of fascism or something?
I'd be happy to be disproven (go unions!), but I haven't heard of other countries that have unionized programmers.
Do you have any data or reason to believe "unionized European programmers don't get paid nearly the same as un-unionized American ones?"
Does it show which of these are "UNIONIZED European programmers" and how many are "NON-UNION Americans?" If not, we can dismiss the claim outright.
All you can say at that point is "I'm too lazy to confirm or disprove it". If you want to disprove his statement for real, you're going to have to put in some effort looking things up.
https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/2019/05/11/join-a-union-or-bu...
So you don't quit actually, because it is not possible for you to quit. Capital has far more power than a (so-called) "unskilled worker", especially if there's no collective action. They have all the leverage, the worker has none, so they can dictate the conditions, i.e. the bare minimum for the worker to survive and continue working, and the worker has only to accept.
I feel like I'm saying really basic stuff.
But as a practical matter, opportunities expand faster when labor markets are free, and capital owners are secure in their rights.
Employment growth has been widely observed to be stronger where labor laws are less restrictive.
Detroit was the richest city in America in 1950. Within 40 years of the UAW Union taking over the Big Three automakers (membership rose through the 50s and 60s, peaking in 1979), the big automakers have lost their market dominance, and Detroit is a shell of its former self.
It's not about "difficult circumstances" at all. It's about the fundamental divide between those who need to sell their labour to survive, and those who can extract rent without working due only to having a monopoly on capital. It's a qualitative distinction, of class, not a quantitative matter of being more or less poor.
Also I did not even say anything about "government seizing control". But I will say this: the current economic system based on joint-stock ownership of firms by capital monopolists is an entirely fabricated system, and not a rule of Nature. So don't argue "but you would seize property from their rightful owners" as if the very particular system of property rights currently in force wasn't a social invention enforced with violence by the state.
>Employment growth has been widely observed to be stronger where labor laws are less restrictive.
This is simply not true. Notice how the best countries to live in the world are invariably those with more labour protections and a mixed economy with heavy public participation. Limiting ourselves to the US, compare the standard of living in the gilded age vs the golden age of American labour organisation.
>Detroit
Also, it's very rich trying to link the downfall of American industry to unionisation... I could go on for an hour about this topic.
No capital owner has a monopoly on capital, and capital owners do not collude to act as one with respect to recruiting workers, making your claim totally specious. Also, typically businesses don't extract economic rent. Investment is a difficult and risk-filled enterprise, that adds value to the economy, making it by definition, not a form of rent extraction.
I suggest putting aside Marxist narratives and studying mainstream Economics, which would dispel you of these fallacies on which your claims of class victimhood rest.
>>This is simply not true. Notice how the best countries to live in the world are invariably those with more labour protections and a mixed economy with heavy public participation. Limiting ourselves to the US, compare the standard of living in the gilded age vs the golden age of American labour organisation.
You just criticized me for making the correlation equals causation argument with respect to Detroit and then you go on to make a far more egregious use of this argument in claiming that conditions being worse in an era 80 years prior tell us the policies in place 80 years prior were worse.
A rational analysis compares the trajectory of an economy relative to its contemporaries when trying to use comparisons between different eras to decipher what works. The fact is wages and productivity grow faster on average in countries where labor markets are more free. The Nordic countries saw far faster economic growth relative to the rest of the world when they were more free market economies and have been leapfrogged by Singapore and Hong-Kong in life expectancy since abandoning those free market policies and embracing socialism-lite.
>>Also I did not even say anything about "government seizing control"
The government mandating companies to enter into collective bargaining to the exclusion of negotiating with any other worker is the government taking control of the shareholder's negotiating agency with respect to their property. Without this compulsion, the ability of unions to extract economic rent would be non-existent.
Oh yeah blame the unions for the downfall of the american auto industry. It had nothing to do with the biggest recession in the last 40 years and the fact that no one wanted new cars when they were losing their house to the banks.
That prosperity almost certainly more to do with the post-WW2 economic boom than anything else. There are arguments to be made against unions but citing what happened in the golden era of the '50s-'60s isn't one of them.
You want $100/hour to pack and move boxes? Start a moving company.
Healthcare isn't a right. It is a luxury. Self defense, free speech, freedom of movement and association; those are human rights. Healthcare is only expensive because of the multiple layers of government and private corruption, litigation, and pie-halving. At the same time, Healthcare can save your life; what is your life truly worth? A $10 co-pay?
If we had a good education, then people wouldn't be whining about $18/hour.
Safety? Such as being insulated from ideas & opinions you don't like, or having zero risk for electrocution in electrical contracting?
Healthcare isn't a right
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing
and medical care and necessary social servicess, and the right to security
in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or
other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.I think it's a lie. AFAIK they pay warehouse workers $15/hour. As you start your message with lying, the rest of is BS.
Safety, by the way, means not being afraid of being shut by a right-wing delusional maniac.
So "lie" is a bit strong here.
Like I said, it's $15/h
But anyway, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and there is zero chance that it will be increased.
This isn't the 19th century anymore. Unions had served a good purpose, but in no way do they serve the interests of everybody, especially in modern society given labor laws. My experience in several unions only demonstrated how corrupt, inept, and self-serving they are.
We're returning to the 19th century it seems with worker protections being eroded. It makes sense that Unionization would make a comeback.
I wonder if the rather abhorrent means of union busting has led to an extreme reaction of causing passer bys to take a cartoonish slant, as though unions can only do good in the world and only if they can overcome evil corporate interest. Unions have some clear advantages, but are far from a panacea of aligning interests for all parties.
This seems to me to be yet another fault line on which propagandists at the dials have managed to convince people to coalesce into tribes strong enough to use absolutist language where nuance is required.
Why ? I don't think unions forbid any direct negotiation. Or this is a US-thing ?
So no, unions are not in my personal interest. Though as I said, I can appreciate there are others who are less mobile or less inclined to negotiate as aggressively for whatever reason for whom they are useful. As long as unions don't get in my way (e.g. by mafia-style locking down an industry I want to work in) then I have no problem with them.
(it probably explains why it is difficult to have meaningful conversations and everybody attacks each other, if we have such radically different experiences and knowledge of union laws and procedures)
FWIW, from my experience, In North America, it is the whole point of a union that "everybody gets the same" --> pay scale in particular. To make it explicit - if I'm in a union, I know EXACTLY how much anybody in any particular position makes. I can look it up in the pay scale table. I know how much my teacher cousin makes, I know how much my government friend makes, I know how much anybody at my brother-in-law's factory makes, by looking at the pay scale table.
I would be eager to hear about other countries. Maybe unions are different in Europe or Asia or Africa etc. As I indicated above in a more detailed post, I am 100% supportive of unions in general, and have had 100% negative experience in North American unions in particular.
In germany, the union does not directly determine the pay rate. Membership in a union at a very fundamental level allows you to participate in the union activities, access to their resources (+) and the right to strike for work-related reasons (++). Unions can participate in the organization of the work place when there are sufficient union members in a company by forming a workers council (Betriebsrat), which must be involved in certain kinds of decisions, for example firing people. Forming a workers council is a deliberate act - union membership is required, but there’s not automatism. None of this limits the ability of each union members or employee to negotiate pay rates.
On the employers side, you optionally (+++) can negotiate (or join a pre-negotiated) Tarifvertrag which covers topics such as pay grades, work time etc. There’s for example the TvÖD (Tarifvetrag öffentlicher Dienst) which covers all employees of the state/local governments, teachers etc. There‘s the option to join a Arbeitgeberverband (employers union), which then can negotiate that contract with the unions, so that the employers side gets a better negotiating position. A Tarifvertrag can be declared as „allgemeingültig“ which means that it covers all employees in a certain sector and the employer must conform to it, whether they like it or not.
But even the Tarifvertrag only sets a minimum bar - every employee can negotiate better rates. Whether that succeeds is a question of its own - for example teachers usually can‘t negotiate a higher salary since their individual negotiating power against the state is veeeery limited. But that’s not a legal requirement or limit - übertariflich (above Tarif) is a common word found in job descriptions where the employees have more leverage.
That said, there’s still problem you can have in unions - nepotism, people using a union job to slack off, protecting employees that should be fired are things that happen. But those happen in every power structure - I’ve seen the same thing happen where „favorite“ employees have been shielded by their boss from negative consequences. So that’s a fairly unspecific point to hold against unions - at least the representatives are elected by the workers and egregious examples are usually purged sooner or later.
(+) for example legal advice and also legal services - my mother fought their employer over employment-related matters and the union sent their lawyer.
(++) only unions are allowed to organize a strike https://www.personalwissen.de/arbeitsrecht/mitbestimmung/gew...
(+++) optionally can include „my workers forced me by striking“
Not correct for any union job I've held, or even heard of.
> You are a top performer - go the exact route you've described - nobody will stop you.
I mean, I guess you could try this - or just go to a non-union shop and make real money if you are a top performer. Unions in the US are not made for top performers capable of advancing their careers rapidly. I think you will find plenty of people stopping you in this scenario.
If the subject in question somehow did manage to follow your advice and somehow get paid above their peers - from my direct personal experience I'd expect a very toxic workplace up to and including physical violence once the other members find out. You would be seen as a scab.
I still didn't hear how it prevents you from switching employers.
For example I worked with a school where the area management and the union set salaries and individual teachers could not negotiate on their own. I'd say that's pretty typical in unions. It's also the case in for example the NHS and British railways (topical at the moment.)
> I still didn't hear how it prevents you from switching employers.
Because I never said it did.
You definitely can try to ride all of the ups and downs your life has in store for you but if you’re unlucky, your life will have something that you can’t handle on your own.
For example, say you're a talented younger worker and the majority of the union votes for pay by seniority, that's going against your interests.
Right now there's thirteen top level comments on this story, and only one of them isn't heavily downvoted, flagged, or dead.
At least some of the comments on this story objectively shouldn't be flagged, because they're made in good faith by reputable accounts, while most comments could be taken straight from Facebook.
On a five hour old submission with 200 votes you'd normally expect some worthwhile discussion, but the few people who try are struggling.
Just when I thought my eyes couldn't roll any harder.
Offtopic, but sometimes a witty (at best), or just butty (at worst), joke is made only for it's own sake, sometimes it's for other's amusement and sometimes it's for upvotes as well.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
This is just a general answer—I haven't looked at this particular article.
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