Amazon Must Let Staff Use Workspaces for Organizing, NLRB Says
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I'm not implying there's a right or wrong here, just trying to understand the arguments.
The SC relied on an incorrect interpretation of the Commerce Clause to bless it. The Commerce Clause is well known to be misinterpreted and widely abused by the federal government to do many unconstitutional things. See also Filburn vs Wickard for an example.
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/supreme-cour...
The complaint alleges that Amazon prevented employees from posting union-related material in a non-work area during non-work hours, in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.
Basically, Section 8(a)(1) makes it unlawful for an employer to interfere with or restrain employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights, such as the right to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to engage in collective bargaining, or to engage in other concerted activities for their mutual aid or protection.
He's asking a philosophical question of why employees get the protection of using company resources to do a potentially anti-company or company-undermining activity.
So it's to level the playing field, as least a tiny bit.
Precisely the OP’s point it seems. The company is using the company’s own resources whereas the employees are using someone else’s resources ie the company’s resources. Why is it justifiable to violate the property rights of the company owners to exert influence on jobs that the company also owns?
By that logic, all regulation and legislation restricting the behavior of companies and their interactions with employees on their own property is unjustifiable, including requiring certain safety measures or working conditions or permitting health/safety inspectors access to workspaces without agreement of the property owner. Some libertarians do hold these views, but I think it is important to note that these consequences are what that logic implies.
The argument against absolute deference to property rights is that under the U.S. legal framework employees also have rights, which in some cases (in diminishing number) are given more importance than the company’s property rights. According to legislation, this includes the ability to organize labor unions and communicate with organizers during non-work hours.
Why is that an implication? You haven’t provided a logical justification although taking someone else’s argument and taking it to absurd extremes is a common rhetorical technique. No, to genuinely protect life and limb a reasonable argument can be made to have regulations but we are far from that in this Amazon scenario. These are legally created rights arbitrarily created by the government and they have no guarantee to be justified and in this case do violate the property rights of the company. The workers can organize with widely available communication technology that they own.
> Why is it justifiable to violate the property rights of the company owners to exert influence on jobs that the company also owns?
Health/safety regulations and inspections are examples of things that often “violate the property rights of the company owners to exert influence on jobs that the company also owns”. The original point did not mention any exceptions whatsoever relating to “life and limb”.
Now it seems like you’ve clarified that you do not think property rights are absolute, but the original post did not make that obvious.
Again - to level the playing field.
Because there's also this thing known as "human rights", which are generally more important than property rights.
You’re right that genuine human rights trump property rights but there are no human rights at stake here. It’s not a human right to dispose of someone else’s property to exert control over someone else’s job when there is no threat to life and you can take your labor somewhere else. The situation under contention is far removed from human rights.
Completely disagree - the situation couldn't be more fundamental to human rights. The simple right to earn a decent living, under fair working conditions, without fear of harassment from some so-called company owner, steaming drunk with power based on some gobbledygook about absolute "property rights" that he read on the internet.
And I think we can leave it at that.
No one’s rights to any of that is threatened by having to use your own devices/word of mouth to organize a labor union.
The law is meant to defuse violent labor struggles, responding to actual events that occured. In particular here, the problem of the owners hiring thugs to violently break up union meetings.
There seems to be an underlying assertion embedded in the question. Namely, that both parties in an adversarial relationship should be treated equally under the law. This ignores power dynamics in favor of philosophical cohesion. Practically, though, we know this results in the exploitation of the individuals with less power. That’s why the NLRB was created, in response to worker exploitation. Indeed, creating a framework to settle disputes between individuals of disparate power is one fundamental reason for the existence of governments, the rule of law; it separates societies from anarchy.
“Fair” does not always mean “equal.” There’s a reason that people who are rich pay more both nominally and by percentage of their earnings.
It’s disappointing that this question continues to be raised. The position that the question implies was refuted almost a century ago, at a time when young men died of typhus from poor living conditions, a time when children regularly worked 12 hour shifts in mines and slaughterhouses. It took a massive movement to convince the lucky few who governed the exploited that human life is worth more than economic value that can be extracted from it. Yet here we are —- people who are not more than three generations away from almost certain exploitation questioning why employees should be allowed to hang posters on the cork board and talk about their own interests on the property of a company founded by a man with a private rocket company.
It’s not that I think it’s a moral imperative that you have solidarity with Amazon workers, or even reflect on your own possible complicity in their exploitation. I doubt a person capable of asking this question is interested in such a reflection. You should, however, come to the table with a modicum of historical understanding.