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Comment by noisy_boy | Hacker News Reader

> The ALU may ask you to sign an authorization card or share a QR code to fill out an online authorization card. > This is a legally binding document

Ooh scary ... is the employment contract signed by Amazon's employees not legally binding? How is it Amazon's business what their grown-ass employees can or cannot sign?

> By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form, you are providing the ALU your personal information.

Like Amazon monitoring my spending habits?

> By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form, you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf.

And thats terrible how?

> The ALU is not part of Amazon and does not represent Amazon

Thats the whole point.

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"How can we make the mundane and expected sound eeeeeeevil and dangerous?"

But did they cross state lines?

Ironically, he didn’t even cross state lines (at least not that night), he was there the night before sleeping over at a friend’s house.

What are you taking about?

after gpt-3, i always just assume these sorts of comments are autogenerated. :)

From context, I assume an incident involving someone crossing state lines or not to recruit Union members, which has relevant implications for which laws and legal jurisdictions are applicable.

No, it’s about a recent, popular self-defense case in which many people wanted the victim to be found guilty, and they would talk about how he “crossed state lines” as though crossing state lines was some ominous, evil thing. This “crossed state lines” rhetoric was even parroted by the media, and eventually it became a meme as people used it sarcastically.

Crossing state lines really does have certain jurisdiction / formal legal implications. In particular it upgrades the matter from state to the federal judicial system, which usually entails higher stakes for the defendant. If some group wants to see a particular individual punished for whatever reason, then naturally they would want him to have tripped over the technicality that would make his situation far worse. It has nothing to do with crossing the state line being a heinous act in itself.

I nailed everything from context except the particular crime being alluded to.

Transporting weapons or controlled substances over state lines has legal implications, but not in a murder/self-defense trial. The “crossed state lines” was just a fall-back to make it sound like the victim did something abhorrent or went well out of his way to get into trouble.

They’re transparently trying to exploit people not knowing any better and being horribly afraid about losing their jobs in a recessing economy. It’s despicable.

If ALU gets over 50% of employees to sign the card, they can bypass a vote and declare themselves the union and petition for recognition of such to the NLRB (which will grant it unless Amazon can demonstrate malfeasance somehow). It’s a common tactic by unions and a common response by employers is to carefully but thoroughly explain this tactic to employees—-which they’re allowed to do, but it’s totally illegal to say “DON’T SIGN THE CARD” so it’s a tightrope to walk. When it happened at a facility at which I worked, the HR director read a script, showed a video, took no questions, and videotaped the entire thing to ensure that he could prove it was done legally.

Of course, this is Amazon we’re talking about, so they may just go for it and plan to clean up the mess later. Walmart got away with that approach for decades.

Yeah, if they can get 50% of employees on legal record saying they support the union, it is obvious that they don't need an election.

Your language, IMO, is value-laden. Card-signing is a common "tactic" for unions like the presidential election is a "tactic" for deciding the next president.

I am 100% behind Amazon employees unionizing, and I wish unionization was far more widespread. I wasn’t trying to impugn unions using the legitimate process to achieve legitimate ends.

Election votes are anonymous by nature. Card signing is not.

I'm not opposed to unionizing but I take issue with the idea that getting 50% support means "it is obvious that they don't need an election."

It seems like you’re saying the lack of anonymity will inflate support for a union. I.e. organizers will be able to pressure people who would otherwise vote no on a union. Frankly, I’d be worried about the opposite. Knowing how aggressively amazon is fighting unions, if I worked there i’d hesitate to put my name down on paper - when I wouldn’t hesitate to vote in a secret ballot. If that’s the case, 50% support implies a stronger majority.

Maybe that’s not always the case, but that’s what I’d guess is happening in this case.

Probably both! That's why we shouldn't guess, and votes are secret for a reason.

Ah yes, let’s make a rule that makes a difficult process (unionization) for a vulnerable group (workers) more difficult, based on a vague theory about imagined pressure being applied. Sounds like solid reasoning to me.

Historically, there have been times when intimidation came from the union. There have also been times when intimidation came from management. So, yeah. Secret ballot.

> People call the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election system a secret ballot election—but in fact it's not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. It's really a management-controlled election process because corporations have all the power. They control the information workers can receive and routinely poison the process by intimidating, harassing, coercing and even firing people who try to organize unions.

(via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check)

Without reforming the secret ballot process, you’re just handing power to the companies by advocating against card-checks

(That quote comes from the AFL-CIO, not Wikipedia editors, for the curious.)

Almost put that in, but it seemed like it was clear from the tone that it’s a quote. If that felt misleading I apologize

There have indeed, historically, been cases where a union threw its weight around, bullied, and abused people.

However, a huge percentage of companies today are actively doing these things to their workers, and if you selected 10 companies at random where there were unionization efforts, I'd bet you money that in at least 9 of them, management was doing everything they could legally, and probably some things that are questionable or outright illegal, to try to prevent unionization.

Stop the "both sides"-ism. It's disingenuous and detrimental to genuine understanding of the situation.

The vast majority of union elections result in more votes for the union than cards signed. It is extremely rare for the number of cards signed to be a higher share than the vote.

That is simply not true. That could be the case in the near future (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/how-the-nlr...) but it is simply not true now. Amazon can always force a vote if 50% of members of the unit sign a card.

I mean, yeah. We don’t have to pretend it’s in good faith. This is obviously calibrated to make the union card sound as scary as possible while (they hope) stopping just short of being illegal interference.

obviously amazon doesn't have a real case against unions, but they can try to use scary language to confuse people

"This will go down on your permanent record..."

-- Bezos in helium voice

I remember quitting from Krogers bagging groceries when I was a kid. I forget why, but I did give less than 2 weeks notice. Mr. Manager gravely conveyed that if I did this, I'd be barred from working for them again forever. Pretty sure my poker face then was not what it is now, but in any case I did not find that to be anywhere nearly as distressing as he seemed to think I should.

I wish r/kroger and r/antiwork would intersect more, it's so sad to see the experiences people post in the former

r/antiwork is propaganda and true-believers amplifying that propaganda.

r/Kroger and r/Walmart are real people just trying to deal with life as best they can.

Can you explain why it’s propaganda and who would be behind this? Always interesting in how to better spot these things.

I'm not sure what point they're making, looks like they don't like encouraging workers to organize (or with specific tactics) based on the below

that lifetime ban on working for the Krogers may have represented a much bigger threat to Mr. Manager than it ever would to you

pmc and workers aren't allies

How are private military contractors related to Kroger workers, and why are they expected (or not) to be allies in the first place?

pro managerial class

Professional-managerial class. Basically people with white collar jobs who have more sway than the working class due to professional moats (university degrees, accreditations) and more influence on society due to controlling to some degree how capital is deployed.

The point here is that getting blacklisted is probably a much scarier prospect for the manager. PMC jobs typically have more stringent reference checks and employment history requirements. Meanwhile a low-wage grocery store clerk is going to have no trouble finding another shitty job. Typical minimum wage jobs just want someone who will show up and doesn't have a criminal record.

Ah, makes sense, thanks for clarifying. I was suspecting that it wasn't referring to private military contractors here, but googling didn't net much in terms of an alternative that would fit there.

> pmc and workers aren’t allies

The so-called “professional managerial class” is (1) not a class, and (2) a grouping that cuts across the proletariat and petit bourgeiosie (and is largely contained within the intelligentsia component of those classes.)

(Its basically an American-Left resurrection of the Leninist critique of the behavior of the intelligentsia, divorced from the theory in which that critique was grounded which recognized that the intelligentsia were not a genuine classes because their relation to the economy was predominantly as wage labor hired by capital–and thus proletarian–but occasionally petit bourgeois; its kind of weird that its invocation seemed to fade after the 1970s but has become popular again in the last few years.)

PMC is pretty much exclusively bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie.

The exercise of control over capital/means of production (what defines PMC) isnt exactly the same thing as ownership but it's closer to that than only being able to offer labor.

It's not uncommon for it to be better. PMCs (e.g. C level execs) of major corporations a often make out better than shareholders.

> PMC is pretty much exclusively bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie

As usually defined (where by the 2010s it accounted for more than a third of American jobs), it's not. It's mostly proletarians, a bit of it is in the petit bourgeois, and a numerically irrelevant or even smaller numerically irrelevant slice is in the haut bourgeoisie (it's not clear to me if the upper end of the usual understanding includes the haut bourgeois who incidentally have the kind of job usually ascribed to the “class” but for whom it is not particular job reflects rather than is in any way necessary to the power they exercise over capital, but it makes little difference either way.)

The whole purpose of the designation, within Leftist discourse, is to identify and growing (even at the time first identified) segment of the wage-labor force as class enemies of the proletariat by inventing a new class label to apply to them, so as to justify why they aren't targets for solidarity efforts.

> PMCs (e.g. C level execs) of major corporations a often make out better than shareholders.

C-level execs of major corps aren't typical members of the PMC “class” by a long shot.

this was a pretty interesting recent read on pmc https://www.amazon.ca/Virtue-Hoarders-against-Professional-M...

Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class - University of Minnesota Press

Earlier in my life I nearly died driving 50 miles to get into work as a grocery store clerk on no sleep because a manager called me and in no uncertain terms told me if I didn’t come in that day I’d be fired.

I was raised to believe that a job is more important than just about anything, so I decided to try to go in as I was out of town. I crashed my car as I fell asleep at the wheel. It shouldn’t take that to get someone to realize the relative unimportance of a job, but the US culture (as channeled through my conservative parents, at least) doesn’t value anything higher than work and productivity in the service of capital as this deified virtue.

thanks for sharing, I'm glad you survived to learn that lesson

What employment contract? They’re at will

You would still be likey to have a contract, it would specify at-will and a slew of other clauses.

It would not guarantee a term of employment, in the standard form (but could, if it were so modified).

> What employment contract? They’re at will

Despite the colloquial use of the word "contract," there is generally always going to be an employment contract (agreement) in place.

Similarly, people colloquially talk about having a "contract" for things like cellphones meaning a fixed term, but there is always an actual "contract" (agreement) with the terms of the service regardless of whether the plan has a fixed term or not and regardless of whether it's prepaid or not.

Contract and agreement are not synonyms. Contracts require consideration.

I inserted "agreement" in parentheses to clarify the meaning of contract as a type of legally binding agreement here as opposed to other usages of the word.

I don't think this is a controversial definition of the word contract (for example Wikipedia's entry for "contract" states, "A contract is a legally enforceable agreement...").

I did not say that contract and agreement are synonyms that can be replaced with each other in all circumstances, so I'm not really sure that your comment is relevant to what I wrote.

I was also trying to clarify that the employment contract might be titled "Employment Agreement" or something like that but is still a "contract."

Sure, but the larger point, that employees have employment contracts in at-will states, is still true.

Some employees have contracts.

My workplace doesn't have them except for employees that are part of bargaining units (ie, the ones represented by unions). Sadly, I am not one of these; my employment is contract-free.

But employment minus consideration is either:

If the worker isn't receiving consideration: Slavery, which is illegal in the civilised world (Americans still enslave convicted criminals...)

If the employer isn't receiving consideration: Some sort of payroll error? Are you mistakenly still paying people you fired? Call HR now.

At-will employees have an employment contract, just one that does not restrict causes of termination beyond those that are not impermissible under generally applicable employment law.

“But they didn't sign anything like a contract,” one might object.

They accepted an offer to do work of some specification for pay of some specification. Even if there was nothing in writing and no other explicit terms, that's sufficient to have a contract.

>> By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form, you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf. > And thats terrible how?

You really can't see the issue with authorising a group you have little to no control over, speak on your behalf ? I can totally understand that people share some views with what unions are currently defending.

But the requirement on signing a paper that says "whatever the union currently says and will say in the future 100% represents my point of view" is a fair criticism of the union model.

> "whatever the union currently says and will say in the future 100% represents my point of view"

Is that what it says? It says that you have to agree to be legally responsible for the union's opinions on netflix shows, or of your cousin's marriage?

No, it says that you're agreeing for them to represent you with the company, not some made-up all-encompassing scaremongering paraphrasing of that.

The same criticism still works, though. I can like their position for negotiating with Amazon today, without necessarily having to agree that I'm going to like it forever.

Mind you, I'm not necessarily on Amazon's side here. Their scare-mongering is pretty slimy, to say no more. But IMTDb's objection is valid, even adjusted for your criticism.

That's true of any system based on democratic rule. It's not much of a criticism because it's still better than anything else that we've come up with.

At least in Poland there can be multiple unions in same company. Then, you can choose one that represents your views best

A union authorization card does not “join” someone to a union, nor is it an irrevocable endorsement of “whatever the union will say in the future.”

A union authorization card is simply a means of demonstrating the 30% employee support required for the NLRB to order an election. That’s it. Unions will generally not hold elections until 60% of employees have signed cards, because a majority vote is required.

From the anti-union National Right to Work Foundation:

“You have a legal right to revoke any union authorization card that you have signed. It is illegal for a union to restrict your right to revoke a union authorization card that you signed.”

https://www.nrtw.org/rights-card-check-private/

Unions are kind of like electing congressional representatives. You and your peers elect someone to represent their interests. Its democratic representation. When it comes to a company making changes benefiting workers, collective bargaining is far more powerful than a single worker voice.

Unions are democratically controlled by the membership. When was the last time your employer gave you a vote on anything?

It's a bad thing if the people signing the card or filling out the form do no, in fact, want the union to represent them. In fact, if you look at those signs they pretty much all have one thing in common: the people they'd convince not to sign up to a legally-binding agreement that the union will represent them are those who are not aware this is in fact what they're signing up for, and in the case of the last one specifically people who aren't aware this isn't something Amazon is requring of them as a normal part of the job. Make of that what you will.

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