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Comment by robin_reala | Hacker News Reader

Why should you quit when you can organise better working conditions?

Because that takes years, tons of effort and uncertainty, for a mediocre outcome at best?

That and you’ll just be replaced by more amenable immigrant labor. People that are willing to travel around the world potentially risking their lives are going to take that $15 an hour warehouse job in a heartbeat. And it will be a considerably better deal than they’d get back home.

That sounds like an issue with immigration policy, you could stop this at amazon but it will do nothing for everyone else. Ill also point out that amazon only hires legal labor.

Persons who claim asylum can file for a legal work permit 150 days after filing for asylum until their case is adjudicated. Given the backlogs that currently means for years. And of course any children they have in that time are citizens. There are NGOs that help immigrants learn of these rights and exercise them. Amazon themselves even have a program to do so[1].

[1] https://press.aboutamazon.com/2022/3/amazon-launches-employm...

You are right, immigration policy has no bearing in the dramatic rise in asylum requests and how they are honored. If someone from mexico comes to the american border and requests political asylum that makes sense, why are people crossing several countries to come here? Thats not asylum, asylum is escaping a hostile regime.

With this logic, we wouldn't even have democracy and freedom.

Maybe mediocre for tech workers making 6-7 figure. For someone toiling away in Amazon's warehouse it can only get better. If that wasn't true Amazon wouldn't be offering raises and firing people whenever they heard faint whispers of a union.

"it can only get better"

"firing people whenever they heard faint whispers of a union"

Maybe you can organize your life and get a better job.

Because doing something that involves other people requires consent. That's what people 'organising better working conditions' forget. It's not actually within their power, and the conditions they want might not match what the employer wants. Whereas acting for yourself (quiting) requires only your action.

I'm so happy that those people that forgot all this at the turn of the previous century did what they did. Without that you'd have 80 hour workweeks for peanuts.

That seems like an incomplete comparison. We could also look at the inverse, where industry shut down as it couldn't operate and thus those people have zero hour workweeks. Your argument deviates from one around consent back to the worker seeking the upper hand, which isn't that different (just the other way around) to what you counter with - where workers refuted being overworked (the employer having control). Control over the other party - in any direction isn't good. Only consent, that was my original point.

Because you can't: the person was fired, nothing will change, and her friend died.

With that attitude, nothing will change. But it doesn't have to be that way. Unions do affect change.

They had the opposite attitude and actions. Nothing changed.

Unions have their own problems that aren't often spoken about. Just recently, in fact, several hospital unions made concessions on employee safety due to COVID crises.

As for me, personally, I don't plan on working for a company my entire life and see a union as a roadblock to my selfish goal to financial freedom. Nothing would drive me off a job faster than getting my CoL raise after the union rep "fought so hard" for the pay. The reality is in most cases they're in bed with the C-levels and the "fight" was the three martini lunch at the country club. If you actually understand the balance sheet allowing a union almost never makes sense. In some cases it's cheaper to just fire everyone and outsource. In the case of Amazon they are large enough doing this in total is a little hard... but they're still working on it I'm sure.

The proper answer, I think, is if working conditions suck start your own thing and make the working conditions better. If you really do have a solution you will have an eternal wellspring of employees willing to do nearly anything for you. This, of course, would require the person to not go home and play video games or binge netflix. A path that isn't for everyone. Alternatively you could start a union and clear high 7 figures a year as the rep fighting for those "hard-earned" raises. A perfect example of this is the teachers and trade unions. Most of the time - a union is just an inversion of control that's designed to enrich the people running it. The socialist idea of a true trade union can't, and never will, manifest in a reality where humans are selfishly driven to improve their own conditions while sacrificing the comfort of others.

How do you feel about shareholders voting on things to act as one coordinated block? Would they be better off each individually bargaining?

>Just recently, in fact, several hospital unions made concessions on employee safety due to COVID crises.

I don’t think anyone’s going around insisting that unions are always perfect or always produce the most employee-favorable outcome conceivable. Unless they were actively campaigning to have the hospitals worsen working conditions more than they wanted to, making some concessions still gives a better outcome than in the absence of a union.

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