[HN Gopher] US labor board official orders Amazon to redo union ...
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US labor board official orders Amazon to redo union vote at Alabama
warehouse
Author : haunter
Score : 237 points
Date : 2021-11-30 16:31 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| Their conduct already changed the vote. How does a re-vote change
| their minds?
| marricks wrote:
| It's interesting how a lot of this hinges on a mailbox which was
| placed under Amazon's direction and unclear to employees if
| Amazon could also read the ballots from it. No doubt that is
| shady and weird.
|
| I really wish more would/could be done about how Amazon mandated
| employees watch hours of propaganda and meeting with countless
| managers about how unions are bad. Almost everyone claims
| advertisements don't work on them and that if they were bombarded
| with messaging they wouldn't be affected, but hey advertisement
| isn't a billion dollar industry for nothing, and similarly I'm
| sure trillion dollar companies can pay for the best knowledge on
| union busting.
| grlass wrote:
| > I'm sure trillion dollar companies can pay for the best
| knowledge on union busting.
|
| Indeed, Amazon have used the Pinkerton detective agency [1]
| against their employees to root out union activity. For those
| unfamiliar, the Pinkertons have existed in the US since the
| 1850s, with a history fraught with violence and questionable
| ethics, famously the Homestead strike of 1892 [2].
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-pinkerton-spies-
| worke...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
| malfist wrote:
| I did a research paper back in college on the homestead
| strike and haymarket riots. Strange to see Pinkerton is still
| around and unchanged.
| sjg007 wrote:
| John Oliver has a good episode on union busting on his HBO show
| "Last Week Tonight".
| brightball wrote:
| I used to think well of those John Oliver pieces until he did
| one about a subject I knew deeply. Now I assume everything he
| does is a one sided hit piece that leaves out important
| details that completely change the picture.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Hey, you managed to escape Gell-Mann Amnesia.
| orangejewce wrote:
| The one on the energy grid was wrong on many levels, and
| didn't understand fundamentally the relationship between
| renewables generation and transmission.
| sjg007 wrote:
| What is was specifically wrong? Can you clarify?
| sjg007 wrote:
| What subject do you know deeply and what is your specific
| criticism of his piece?
| joenot443 wrote:
| I wouldn't encourage anyone to learn about complex topics
| from John Oliver in the same way I wouldn't encourage them to
| learn about them from Tucker Carlson. They're both
| entertainers first and foremost and have little to no
| obligation to report on the basis of fact and instead exist
| largely to tell their viewers what they already believe.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Narrowly targeted advertising to a captive audience likely
| works to some extent but it's rare that an advertiser is ever
| able to get that. Something like a sports stadium where almost
| everyone there is a sports fan and can't mute to Jumbotron
| advertising to them is the closest most advertisers get. In
| Amazon's case, they have not only an extremely narrowly
| targeted audience but also one that's extremely captive to
| seeing the message.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Not only that, most advertisers don't have control over their
| target's income and healthcare. When someone in control of
| your life like that tells you they really really don't want
| you to do something, a lot of people tend to listen.
| kyrra wrote:
| Employees there were getting advertisements in both directions
| though, right?
| marricks wrote:
| What a vague way to put it, but of course, sure, there was a
| unionizing effort. I think an interesting example of how
| powerful Amazon is is that changed traffic light timing to
| inhibit the unionizing effort[1]
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287191/amazon-
| alabama-w...
| tedivm wrote:
| There's a difference between putting up a flyer telling
| people their rights, and having them sit through hours of
| video as part of their actual job. Scale matters.
| dhosek wrote:
| The employer can make employees sit through anti-union
| presentations. The union does not have equivalent access to
| the employees. There are also borderline illegal practices
| like saying that unionization might lead the company to shut
| down the facility.1
|
| [?]
|
| 1. Employers are prohibited from saying that they will fire
| people who vote for unionization but they are allowed to say
| that they might shut down a shop that votes for a union.
| Interestingly, while this is a frequent threat, the instances
| of an employer ever actually following through are
| vanishingly small.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Interestingly, while this is a frequent threat, the
| instances of an employer ever actually following through
| are vanishingly small.
|
| The more common occurrence is for the employer to let the
| union go on strike. Then the employer keeps the shop open
| by hiring new workers from outside the union and lets the
| union stay on strike forever. Obviously the effect on the
| union workers is basically the same.
| the-dude wrote:
| There is a Seinfeld about this. Kramer learns from the
| paper that a strike which lasted for like decades has
| been 'resolved'.
|
| He goes back to the diner/bakery to demand his job back.
|
| Also, Colt is famous for doing this and it didn't work
| out so great for them :
| https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/01/nyregion/workers-
| rejoice-...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The difference in that case being that they were skilled
| workers.
|
| They're also a defense contractor, so you're effectively
| talking about a public sector union and the dynamics of
| that are completely different.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Sure, if the company is of the sort that can function
| fine without its workers. This does not really always
| work out in practice, esp. in today's labor market.
|
| If you start hiring permanent replacements, you're
| basically killing any chance of a successful negotiation.
| jjk166 wrote:
| That's sort of the point. Amazon can function just fine
| without these particular employees, the jobs they are
| doing don't require any special skills or training, and
| the already high wages make them very attractive to job
| seekers. For Amazon, having a union in permanent impotent
| limbo would be a best case scenario.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| IF you don't want the union to begin with, you are OK
| will the union negotiation failing.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Wow. Posting antiunion posters throughout the workplace, holding
| mandatory weekly antiunion meetings, and having your boss come to
| the floor and talk about unions is already pretty scummy before
| the new vote was even certain.
|
| And those posters are just absurd. "Your dues will pay for a six
| figure salary for the union president" rings hollow when your
| labor led to Bezos' net worth.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Except the employees don't pay Bezos anything...he pays them.
| Literally the exact opposite where the employees are paying for
| the union president.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The money Bezos uses to pay them comes from selling their
| labor, and without the laborers neither Bezos nor the union
| president would get that money. Pretty similar.
| lghh wrote:
| Employees pay Bezos the surplus value of their labor. Their
| wages are what Bezos allows them to keep, not what Bezos pays
| them.
| frockington1 wrote:
| If this were true wouldn't every employee take their labor
| somewhere more profitable?
| ruined wrote:
| > If this were true wouldn't every employee take their
| labor somewhere more profitable?
|
| Yes, this is what happens when the labor is something
| that can effectively be independent, operate without
| massive capital investment, or be relocated easily. E.g.
| doctors, programmers, lawyers, plumbers.
|
| But many kinds of labor are only useful in a coordinated
| context, requiring capital support and infrastructure,
| perhaps due to economies of scale, natural monopolies,
| regulatory restrictions, and the like. So that kind of
| worker must be embedded in a firm to be effective.
| Currently, policy is written to support corporate firms,
| and suppress cooperative organization and independent
| labor, so there's not really an option for most workers
| to depart. There's no such thing as an independent one-
| man freelance car manufacturer, for instance.
|
| This is the distinction between the marxist concepts of
| petit-bourgeoisie and proletariat.
| nickff wrote:
| This seems to be predicated on the labor theory of value,
| which is wrong.
|
| Put differently, if a company loses money, is it always
| because the employees aren't working hard enough?
| vaidhy wrote:
| Isn't this the reason people put in enormous amount of
| hours in their startup? The idea that more labor equals
| more success seems to be built into our culture. The same
| idea is reflected in the argument that poor people stay
| poor because they are lazy/not willing to work.
|
| I personally think that idea is incorrect (and labor
| theory of value has limited application), but I have been
| seeing arguments where everyone picks and chooses the
| idea when it is applied personally vs applied to someone
| else.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >if a company loses money, is it always because the
| employees aren't working hard enough?
|
| Or a company could be ordering their employees to work in
| an unprofitable way, or the company could be spending the
| money on unnecessary non-labor expenditures...
| nickff wrote:
| So pre-Facebook WhatsApp was the only well-run company,
| and the rest of them are ordering employees to work in
| unprofitable ways, and waste money?
| woodruffw wrote:
| > This seems to be predicated on the labor theory of
| value, which is wrong.
|
| After all, Amazon famously doesn't need the labor of
| their employees to sell the products and services that
| support their value :-)
|
| The LTV doesn't _guarantee_ a direct relationship between
| _real_ labor and _realized_ value (which is a combination
| of market and economic value): it describes a
| relationship between socially necessary labor and
| economic value.
| karmajunkie wrote:
| The delta between what he (Bezos) would have to pay them with
| vs without a union negotiation can be seen as a gift to his
| bottom line. Similarly, the cost of that union president
| spread over union employees is still far less than the
| increase in comp and benefits union shops would get with a
| union negotiation.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It is a matter of semantics... this is like arguing that you
| don't have to pay credit card fees because the merchant pays
| them, when clearly the cost is going to be passed on to the
| customer.
|
| The point is that being in a union will increase wages more
| than the cost of the union dues.
| makomk wrote:
| There's a really obvious difference between those two things:
| every cent of the union's funds is actual money that is taken
| out of employees' paychecks and comes right out their pockets,
| whereas Bezos' net worth isn't. Like, not only does it not come
| out of employee's pay even indirectly, it's not even money -
| it's just shares held times the last price a single share
| traded at. It may be measured in the same units as actual money
| like paychecks and spending, but it's not and cannot be used as
| such. Bluntly, all the populist activists and politicans who
| spin Bezos' wealth as actual cash that could be spent on things
| like food and healthcare if he stopped hoarding it are conning
| people by taking advantage of their desire to have someone to
| blame.
| quitit wrote:
| These discussions neglect a few things: JB has enormous net
| worth outside of public shares. Including over 16B in cash.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-
| be...
|
| To the discussion of public shares: Yes he couldn't cash out
| all 177B for cash, however a significantly large portion (i.e
| many billions) can be over a relatively short span of time,
| additionally shares still possess a barter-like function.
|
| These are not small numbers and indeed such sums could be
| used to resolve some pretty significant issues (see Bill
| Gates who is in a similar public-share-wealthy position.)
|
| As for taking part of their pay for union fees. This is like
| trying to save on toothpaste: The small cost of union fees
| will deliver benefits for these employees that would easily
| outstrip contribution costs. Such an argument would only be
| valid for employees that already have good pay and benefits/
| where a union wouldn't be able to deliver significant change.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Bezos's money might not be cash, but it's still relatively
| liquid: he owns about 10% of Amazon's shares, and could
| liquidate a _very small_ percentage of that to generate
| billions of dollars of cash on hand. And, as a matter of
| fact, that 's precisely what he's being doing[1].
|
| [1]:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/04/jeff-
| bez...
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I worked at the LA Zoo in high school for The Greater Los
| Angeles Zoo Association doing food service. It was a teamsters
| shop. I was making upwards of 22 dollars an hour when minimum
| wage was 4.25 back in 1995 at 16 years old. I don't understand
| how people in lower paying positions are not seeing the value
| here or not jumping at the opportunity to vote.
|
| It is pretty absurd to make the six figure claim when the boss
| is sitting on a 13 figure bag of money.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| Unions help the well-connected get better paying jobs, at the
| expense of less well-connected people who would be willing to
| do the job for less, but still at a rate that makes sense for
| them.
|
| So the question is not "do unions help union members?" (they
| almost certainly do), it's "do unions help workers like me?"
| - maybe the average worker is not confident that they can
| move to their _next_ job if the industry is unionized?
| monetus wrote:
| Organized crime and corruption are what distract. Just the
| word teamster sets off a chain reaction of emotions when I've
| used it. If I had to make a parallel, it would be to
| political corruption. If they view all politicians as
| corrupt, why would they want politicians in their workplace?
| Unions are thrown under a blanket of grift, and not looked at
| in much granularity.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| The average workplace is already full of politicians and
| fiefdoms. Many are actively working against you behind the
| scenes. Entire departments are devoted to it (HR). If they
| choose to have a small world view, they can never be
| helped. As someone living in Los Angeles at the time, many
| union jobs are well respected (e.g. studio, trade, etc).
| dillondoyle wrote:
| And those antiunion meetings and 'direct report check ins'
| aren't even legal. there's a whole industry of anti-union
| consultants who go around giving these captive presentations.
| Throwing 1st amendment issues aside, I think it should be
| illegal. Or else require equal time to the union reps to give
| their pitch.
| willcipriano wrote:
| 100k is close to middle class for someone with a family at this
| point. Homer Simpson makes six figures, Mr. Burns mortgage is
| six figures. Something like quarter million would've landed
| better I suspect. This is the sort of thing people in stuffy
| boardrooms come up with as opposed to a advertising team,
| lacking polish.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 100k is close to middle class
|
| If a large minority of it is derived from capital directly or
| the majority of it is derived from the worker's labor applied
| to their own capital.
|
| If it is derived from wage labor and is the worker's entire
| income, its just relatively high-income working class, and
| isn't "close to" middle class.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Agreed. There is a truly bizarre tendency for people to try
| to reinvent class based on income, realize it doesn't work
| very well, add some sort of interest or social dimension to
| it, and slowly reinvent the classical concept of class with
| the labels shuffled around. We've already had good class
| labels, working class, labor aristocracy, middle class,
| struggling capitalist class (small business owners ie
| petite bourgeoisie), and major capitalist.
|
| I think it should be some kind of law of the internet. Any
| discussion of socioeconomic topics ends up reinventing the
| classic class system on a long enough time scale.
| hpoe wrote:
| That may be true in SV or something like that, but I am
| guessing in Alabama, for someone making $15-$20 an hour six
| figures seems like quite a bit. Heck I'd consider myself
| upper middle class and I make low six figures.
| rytcio wrote:
| Anywhere on the western half of the US requires $100k+ to
| have a place to live that isn't a studio apartment or
| having roommates
| [deleted]
| ma2rten wrote:
| Even in SV someone working at an Amazon warehouse is not
| making more than that.
| acdha wrote:
| According to https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/AL, the
| median income is $50k so it's good but hardly lavish and ht
| tps://statisticalatlas.com/place/Alabama/Mobile/Household-.
| .. has the 80th percentile just under $100k whereas 95th
| percentile is $154k.
|
| I think it's easy to forget just how uneven things have
| become since the middle of the previous century: someone
| making more money than 95 out of every 100 Alabama
| residents is doing quite well compared to most of the
| people in the state and is still nowhere near CEO-level
| compensation.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Household income.
| acdha wrote:
| Thanks for pointing that out but I don't think it
| dramatically changes the broader point: if you're making
| $40-50k/year, someone making $100k is making a good deal
| more than you but their life isn't dramatically different
| -- bigger house, nicer car, etc. but they still have to
| go work every day, don't have servants, etc. and they're
| still going to pay attention to the cost of things like
| daycare or college or fear the financial impact of a
| medical bill.
|
| No question that it's better but it's going from average
| to "highest income person you know who isn't your doctor"
| rather than executive class income.
| adventured wrote:
| You're right about the data the parent is quoting,
| however it's worth pointing out that the national median
| income for a full-time (35+ hours per week) job in the US
| is over $50,000 (excluding benefits and other forms of
| compensation).
| jpatt wrote:
| In the Bay, Seattle, or NY, maybe. In Bessemer, AL where the
| vote is being held, the median family income is $40k.
|
| Still a ridiculous talking point.
| sb057 wrote:
| Warehouse employees in Bessemer are not making $40k. More
| like $20k with minimal benefits if they're lucky. Keep in
| mind that's before a couple grand in income and sales
| taxes.
| [deleted]
| willcipriano wrote:
| Bessemer's middle class are poor in national terms, they
| are aware of other areas in the country and likely don't
| limit themselves to their zip code when making comparisons.
|
| Median Value of owner occupied housing units:
|
| National[0] - $217,500
|
| Bessemer, AL[1] - $86,500
|
| Median household income:
|
| National - $62,843
|
| Bessemer, AL - $32,301
|
| [0]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST04521
| 9
|
| [1]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/bessemercityalabama
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| > "Your dues will pay for a six figure salary for the union
| president" rings hollow when your labor led to Bezos' net
| worth.
|
| This illustrates an important point:
|
| The upper-class is using the lower-class against the middle-
| class.
| kevmo wrote:
| The upper class is destroying the middle class.
| hirundo wrote:
| The US middle class is disappearing...into the upper middle
| class.
|
| https://www.aei.org/economics/the-us-middle-class-is-
| disappe...
| VictorPath wrote:
| If a man was making a real income of $95k in 1980, and
| was then knocked down to $55k, so his wife raises their 1
| kid (as the example given), goes back to work and makes
| $100k - they have moved from middle class to upper middle
| class.
|
| Interesting these charts start in 1980 as well. The
| average real hourly wage went down from 1972 to 1980,
| then began a recovery. So when you don't show things were
| better beforehand, it looks like a constant rise, which
| it was not.
| pydry wrote:
| I had figured since it was the AEI the figures would be
| intended to mislead.
| adventured wrote:
| While that is true to an extent, it drops some very
| important context.
|
| What happened / is happening, is white and asian middle
| class households have continued to climb into the higher
| economic tiers over the last 40-50 years. In their place,
| hispanic households that have rapidly expanded in numbers
| in the US since the late 1970s are taking over an ever
| larger share of the middle class demographic.
|
| When people claim the middle class has seen no economic
| gains in the last 40-50 years, they're either lying or
| painfully ignorant of what's actually occurring: a
| dramatic and rapid demographic shift. It takes a mere few
| minutes to dig up the relevant economic data and see how
| the middle class of ~1980 was nearly entirely white, and
| many of those formerly middle class whites have now
| shifted upward in the economic tiers (which you can spot
| today by looking at the median or average white household
| net worth vs the national median or average).
|
| So what some of that middle class disappearing into the
| upper classes represents is an ongoing bifurcation by
| race among the classes. The US middle class will soon be
| overwhelmingly hispanic, in other words. That's
| tremendous progress in a sense, given the people it
| represents often came from third world countries with
| nothing to their names and speaking little to no English.
| Will they see continued progress or will their position
| ossify there? That's the next issue for the new, vast US
| hispanic middle class for the coming decades.
|
| And what about black households over that time? They're
| being left behind by hispanic household net worth growth
| and are not seeing nearly the same progress in moving
| into the middle class. That is going to cause significant
| political ramifications as hispanic political power in
| the US continues to expand.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The AEI doesn't mention it, but a large part of the
| middle -> upper middle shift is increasing participation
| in the labor force by women[1]. Which is a good thing!
| But it doesn't support the claim that the US, as a whole,
| is moving middle class families into the upper middle
| class through positive socioeconomic shifts. It merely
| demonstrates that more labor means more paychecks.
|
| [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002
| solveit wrote:
| But the women _were_ working before, they were just
| labouring inside the home. Society is realising that
| having all the women become domestic workers by default
| is a massive misallocation of resources and correcting
| course. That _is_ a positive socioeconomic shift.
| mcguire wrote:
| Is it? Or is it an artifact of how economic measures are
| unable to capture important socioeconomic factors?
| Perhaps the only misallocation is the assumption that
| women were domestic workers and domestic workers were
| women.
| jimbokun wrote:
| All of that domestic work is being done, in addition to
| having two full time jobs outside the home. With roughly
| the same standard of living.
|
| Hard to say that's an unalloyed positive.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is an excellent point that I hadn't thought to make.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yep, that's why I tried to distinguish between "workforce
| participation" and "labor." Women have always labored;
| they just haven't been paid for it historically.
|
| And it is indeed a positive socioeconomic shift. But it
| isn't the kind that the AEI means to imply: they're a
| neoconservative foundation that's attempting to post-hoc
| justify deregulation and de-clawing of federal agencies
| under false premises.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Is two income households _truly_ a good thing?
|
| A different perspective is that two income households
| enabled housing costs to rise, rents to rise. And causes
| the cost of having a child increase due to childcare
| costs.
|
| Overall maybe society is better having 1 parent (male or
| female) stay at home to raise the children. Or re think
| our North American living situation ideals of 1 family
| per house.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think it is, at least from the perspective of human
| autonomy: independent income sources means freer choices
| among peoples. However, that opinion of mine is
| immaterial to this conversation.
| snarf21 wrote:
| The Greatest Trick The Rich Ever Pulled Was Convincing The
| Middle Class That The Poor Was To Blame.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I find it is more the 5th to 8th income deciles being
| temporarily embarrassed 9th decilers, and wanting to
| believe they will possibly join the 10th decilers someday.
| The bottom 5 deciles do not have much hope of getting to
| the top in the first place, they are aiming to get to the
| middle deciles.
|
| Everyone wants to believe they are marching upward, so if
| they or their children are trending up (no matter that they
| are probabilistically not likely to get near the very top),
| they still do not want to lower the ceiling.
|
| I feel like this quote summarized a lot of tribal conflict,
| whether it be delineated along socioeconomic class or race
| or whatever:
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-
| wh...
|
| Everyone is happy when the tide is lifting all boats, but
| when some are rising more relative to others, implying some
| are moving down relative to others, there is inevitable
| chafing as resources are re-allocated.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| The whole lower/middle class divide is an arbitrary
| distinction that only serves to split the broader working
| class. A white collar programmer has more in common with a
| janitor then with a CEO.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The white collar blue collar divide is much stronger than
| the divide between white collar employees and senior
| management.
|
| Source: lived it
|
| The programmer has far more in common and can relate (both
| culturally and economically) far better to the C suite
| crowd than to the janitor or landscaper.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| In terms of cultural differences, the blue/white collar
| divide is definitely massive. I believe the parent
| comment is looking at it in more economic terms, where
| the worker/employer distinction is more meaningful.
| black_13 wrote:
| I have nothing in common with the C suite class. And I
| have seen how reckless this class has acted given the
| recessions and wars. Nothing.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > The programmer has far more in common and can relate
| far better to the C suite crowd than to the janitor or
| landscaper.
|
| That's a matter of perspective. Yes, both are degreed and
| educated.
|
| But that's where the sameness ends. One may think they're
| like the other, but have you heard the term "coding
| monkey"?
|
| Without fail and by necessity every single company has
| fallen victim to leadership who are less technical and
| more business minded.
|
| Think of Boeing and Google as two recent examples. The
| better ones tend to keep a strong technical person as a
| sidekick, but everyone else is fighting for scraps.
|
| The rarest and "best" individuals possess both technical
| savvy and ruthlessness.
| kube-system wrote:
| That's assuming that someone working as janitor is
| representative of lower class. The median wage for a
| janitor is $29K. It ain't a lot, but the 10th percentile
| wage in the US is $8,500. It's a very different lifestyle
| when someone doesn't have a regular paycheck and the
| accomplishment of a job title.
| diordiderot wrote:
| Yes but they think the opposite
| lowkey_ wrote:
| > A white collar programmer has more in common with a
| janitor than with a CEO.
|
| As someone who grew up lower-class and now makes six
| figures in tech, I don't think this is true.
|
| There's a world of difference between a janitor and a
| white-collar programmer. A janitor worries paycheck-to-
| paycheck and has to consider every purchase, constantly
| lives in stress of a large unexpected expense, and so on,
| it's just vastly different.
|
| A programmer, like a CEO, has none of those concerns. Who
| cares if the CEO has earned enough for a bigger mansion or
| a more prestigious car?
|
| At some point (lower than most expect), money offers
| diminishing returns. A difference of +$100k/year will take
| care of most of Maslow's hierarchy and have you set for
| life unless you're financially irresponsible.
| officeplant wrote:
| I still know six figure programmer friends living
| paycheck to paycheck, but that mostly comes down to the
| market that is California. My $40K a year as an underpaid
| Fire Alarm Tech/Draftsman in Louisiana can't even cover
| his rent.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| I think it's absurd take. How many people here are
| unionised? Not that many but everyone has an opinion what
| some blue collar workers really want and these are unions.
| For Euros - American unions are nothing like in Europe.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The whole lower/middle class divide is an arbitrary
| distinction that only serves to split the broader working
| class. A
|
| The typical drawing of the line in US discussions _within_
| the working class is; the middle class _is_ a distinct
| economic class with distinct interests, but it is a much
| narrower and generally (though not entirely, because
| _economic class_ and _wealth_ are different though
| correlated things) richer group than the usual US
| understanding of "middle class".
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I 100% agree, but even in the 1990s and to a fault the
| degreed programmers were very anti-union.
| black_13 wrote:
| Not this one.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The upper-class is using the lower-class against the
| middle-class.
|
| While true, that is not illustrated by the thing you are
| pointed to, which is the upper class using the working class
| against leadership within the working class.
|
| The middle class ( _petit bourgeoisie_ ) is mostly not
| involved in this instance.
| [deleted]
| busterarm wrote:
| Having been in three different unions for low-payed, unskilled
| labor like being a warehouse picker is, I can tell you that the
| union was never on my side for anything and mostly served to
| help management pay everyone the minimum rather than based on
| performance.
|
| And yes, the union reps got the best positions, the best hours
| and two salaries. The next best positions and best hours went
| to their friends.
|
| The unions only stepped in for the most egregious cases but not
| in the way you might think: When Buffalo NY's Tops
| International Market fired their baker for literally urinating
| in the cake batter used to make the store cakes, the union
| stepped in to defend the employee because as part of the union
| contract employees were not supposed to be on camera to perform
| their duties. They fought hard to get their baker reinstated
| and won.
|
| Outside of federal employment and outside of hollywood, where
| the strongest unions are anyway, the history of union activity
| in the US is quite unremarkable. It is most frequently anti-
| consumer and often works against the long term interests of the
| workers that it's supposed to represent.
|
| Literally 99% of the time I hear somebody shouting support of
| unions here, they've either never been in one or they've always
| been the reps. Voices like mine, of those who've been in unions
| and got the shit end of the stick, get shouted down.
|
| I would rather die than participate in a labor union again, for
| as long as I live.
| andrew_ wrote:
| I had a similar experience in IBEW Local 58 before I left the
| trade to pursue a career in tech. I'm not sure why the
| negative experiences of those who've seen the dark side of
| union orgs, aren't welcome.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| They tend to be "I was overqualified for my temp hustle and
| they didn't specifically cater to my needs." Yet they still
| picked union jobs, likely as it provided them better
| conditions than the alternatives.
| kfoley wrote:
| > When Buffalo NY's Tops International Market fired their
| baker for literally urinating in the cake batter used to make
| the store cakes, the union stepped in to defend the employee
| because as part of the union contract employees were not
| supposed to be on camera to perform their duties. They fought
| hard to get their baker reinstated and won.
|
| Do you have a source for this? It's a rather serious claim to
| make without any evidence and I haven't been able to find
| anything other than your comment when searching.
| busterarm wrote:
| This happened in 2004 or 2005. My memory isn't good enough
| to land on the exact year.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > It's a rather serious claim to make without any evidence
| and I haven't been able to find anything other than your
| comment when searching.
|
| It's also the kind of thing that every party involved would
| try very hard to keep on the down low. I can definitely see
| it not making the news since there's probably only about
| half a dozen people party to it and nobody is a celebrity
| or otherwise public personality.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Then how does this person know about it?
|
| Without evidence, assume it's invented anti-union
| bullshit.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Because it's the kind of thing that makes it around the
| workplace.
|
| Nobody's gonna leak that to the news because "trashy line
| cook does something trashy" isn't really a story worth
| getting a new job over. You just joke about it with your
| coworkers friends and move on.
| busterarm wrote:
| > Then how does this person know about it?
|
| I was there when it happened.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| Why is it "scummy"? If the employer chooses to _pay_ their
| employees to attend meetings where the employer gives their
| point of view about unions, how is that different from a union
| spending their own money holding a union meeting to express
| _their_ views to the employees? Or do you think workers can't
| be trusted to decide what's in their best interests if exposed
| to both sides of an issue?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >If the employer chooses to pay their employees to attend
| meetings where the employer gives their point of view about
| unions, how is that different from a union spending their own
| money holding a union meeting to express their views to the
| employees?
|
| With union meetings, both parties chose to be there. With the
| work meetings, one side is compelled to be there as part if
| their work duties.
|
| And yes, they pay them to be there, but that also implies
| that if they don't listen to what is said at those meetings
| they'll stop paying them. As most work meetings are about
| things employees have to do or they'll be fired.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Honest question (am from Europe). Why are not unions (labor) part
| of the right to free association in the US? Or is it that they
| must comprise the whole labor force?
|
| EDIT: Wow: thanks a lot. Unbelievably complicated to me...
| [deleted]
| fundad wrote:
| Unions lost popular support among the American public when it
| became illegal for them to discriminate by race.
|
| That environment has been great for pro-business interests to
| push laws that weaken union power in many states.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You're downvoted, but this is well-studied. White majority
| shops are at highest risk of labor organizing and increase
| workplace diversity is well correlated with less organization
| risk.
|
| You can bet companies (especially Amazon) are aware of this
| fact.
| fundad wrote:
| If it's real-talk, I expect it will get downvoted.
|
| It's more palatable to back-rationalize things as being the
| way they are for some exceptional reason.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Oh, really?
|
| This is certainly terrible. Man, what a mess.
|
| Thanks.
| fundad wrote:
| Many institutions the US was known for has suffered the
| same fate in the last fifty-something years. "Make America
| Great Again" refers to how beloved our institutions were.
| They see Civil Rights as our nation's weakness, holding us
| back from greatness.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > "Make America Great Again"
|
| That is just patently wrong. It was a reaction to the
| previous administration's foreign policy strategy, which
| was to position America as less of a world leader and
| more of a partner.
|
| Conservatives frequently criticized one of President
| Obama's early trips as an "apology tour", and were
| incensed when he appeared to bow to the Saudi king.
|
| Also, they disliked the domestic policies which had a
| socialized feel.
|
| It literally had nothing to do with the civil rights
| movement.
| ars wrote:
| It's because a European union is NOT the same as a US one. In a
| European union there are many unions and the employee to is
| free to chose whichever he likes.
|
| In the US version there is a single union for a particular
| employer, and the employee is forced to join that particular
| one. (Barring certain laws that complicate this picture a bit.)
|
| This is also why unions work in Europe: There is competition
| among them, and the employee chooses. In contrast in the US
| because there is a single one for an employer the unions are
| frequently corrupt and don't actually do anything helpful for
| the employee.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The employee also does not have to be a union member and
| doesn't pay union dues unless they are a member.
|
| In my experience in the UK and Norway I was treated just the
| same by both my employers and the unions even though I have
| never been a union member.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> part of the right to free association in the US?
|
| Not American but interestingly there is no freedom of
| association defined in the First Amendment but rather
| recognized by the courts as a fundamental right. Part of the
| challenge when it comes to unions is that it goes both ways,
| including the freedom to join AND the freedom to leave. This
| makes something like labour organization tougher to define
| without coming down to heavy on one side or the other. There
| are a bunch of aspects and this is only one; it's incredibly
| complex in any jurisdiction, but especially in one that
| prioritizes the individual.
| beerandt wrote:
| Not quite.
|
| It's an implicit right (whether fundamental or not), and the
| courts recognized freedom of association as being
| _implicitly_ necessary to fully exercise the rights
| _explicitly_ recognized in the first amendment.
|
| It's not freedom to join vs freedom to leave, but whether a
| contractual agreement can limit this right; can a contractual
| agreement exclude a party from associating with other
| parties.
|
| Exclusive labor contracts are one example (presuming the
| company's agreement to exclusivity was truly voluntarily,
| which is debatable), but what about other contracts?
|
| Given that every purchase is a contractual agreement, could
| Sony put a clause in the sales agreement that says the buyer
| can never buy another brand of TV? What if it was only while
| you owned and used the Sony TV? What if your Sony TV
| discovers another brand TV on your home network and bricks
| itself until you get rid of other TV?
|
| The right to a secret vote is equally implicit in the
| constitution, but we wouldn't hold a contract that forfeits
| that right to be valid, just as a contract requiring someone
| to vote a certain way would be illegal.
| bena wrote:
| They are, but corporations also have that right by extension of
| being made up of people.
|
| So the company, being a private entity, can say that you can't
| talk about the union while at work. It can show you "training
| videos" and other anti-union materials without repercussion.
|
| And it's mostly the union that wants it to be all or nothing,
| because that's the only way it really works. If 5 guys are in
| the union, but the other 95 are not, then the company doesn't
| really have to negotiate with the union.
|
| Collective bargaining only has power when it represents the
| entire collective. Or at least most. But if it is in such a
| position that it can start negotiating, I'm sure one of the
| things it will negotiate is that anyone working at the company
| must be a union member. Which is there, yes, to protect the
| union, but also the workers in the union. Because if the
| company can hire non-union members, it can slowly replace the
| entire workforce with non-union labor and eventually soft-
| terminate the union.
|
| The entire situation is complicated and there are lots of
| places where people can be taken advantage of from every angle.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's conventional for American unions to have what we call
| "exclusive representation", where the labor force within a
| determined "bargaining unit" picks them by majority vote and
| they then represent everyone in that unit. Non-exclusive unions
| exist and are protected (you may remember the news that a
| couple hundred Google workers formed one), but they're
| generally not very powerful.
| pfortuny wrote:
| AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
|
| This begins to make much more sense.
| pagibson wrote:
| I worked as a labor organizer in the US and this response
| is closest to the correct understanding of the law. Workers
| have a right to engage in "concerted activity" for the
| purposes of improving working conditions. However, when
| workers organize a union it needs to be certified as having
| a right to negotiate terms and conditions of employment on
| behalf of the workers, which is almost always done through
| a union election.
|
| In the U.S. this is an exclusive right--a "unit" of workers
| can only have one certified bargaining agent, and that
| union must represent all workers in the bargaining unit.
| It's also illegal for the employer to negotiate with any
| party other than the recognized union.
|
| To my understanding, this is different from Europe and can
| seem strange to Europeans. Understanding how this framework
| came about historically can be useful. Before the National
| Labor Relations Act, workers would strike in order to gain
| recognition and the right for the union to negotiate on
| their behalf. The NLRA election framework was an attempt to
| bring about "labor peace" by introducing orderly elections
| instead.
|
| This was generally supported by a certain segment of
| capital who could afford it and saw the cost-benefit as
| worth it, especially finance capital who were much more
| favorable to New Deal politics, and opposed by others. On
| the workers' side, this has undoubtedly made it easier to
| win recognition from the employer, but some see it as
| having sapped workers' militancy over the long run by
| trading away pitched battles that revealed sharp class
| antagonisms for a more orderly bureaucratic process.
| lordalch wrote:
| The employees (or any group of them, even less than half) are
| free to join a union and attempt to negotiate with Amazon.
| However, Amazon would just ignore them.
|
| Union votes like the one described here are about triggering
| protections of US law that will require Amazon to negotiate
| with the union.
| magila wrote:
| Employees are free to form unions under the freedom of
| association, but employers are likewise free to fire those
| employees. These votes are all about forming a union under the
| rules established by the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA")
| which prohibits terminating employees for unionizing.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Employees are free to form unions under the freedom of
| association, but employers are likewise free to fire those
| employees.
|
| It's illegal in the US to fire an employee _chiefly_ for
| attempting to unionize their workplace. That can be difficult
| to prove, but it 's one of the explicit protections provided
| by the NLRA and, when proven, is usually sufficient grounds
| for unconditional reinstatement[1].
|
| So, to be clear: labor rights in the US are more than just
| "free association" rights. You have an _exceptional_ right,
| under federal labor law, to expend time and space within your
| workplace with the goal of unionizing. It is _illegal_ for
| your employer to retaliate against your organization under
| the guise of either "free association" on their behalf or
| at-will employment.
|
| [1]: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/olms/regs/complia
| nce/...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| If you have a pseudo-not law enshrined union and you try to
| go on strike it is legal for your employer to fire you.
|
| That said, this is what unions originally started out as
| and they were still successful. If anything, the post-legal
| enshrinement of unions has coincided with their weakening.
|
| I am curious if this period of tight labor markets will
| bring a new chapter in union history.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yes, because that wouldn't be a union under federal law.
|
| The NLR{A,B} is very precise about what it considers to
| be a legitimate form of organized labor, the fact of
| which does not detract from it being illegal for an
| employer to fire you for _attempting_ to organize in a
| form recognized under the NLRA.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Sure. The NLRB can be as precise as it wishes. My point
| is only that a "union" is not merely what the NLRB deigns
| to be the state-sanctioned form of worker organizing.
| There were clearly recognizable unions in the 19th
| century that were not sanctioned by law. That does not
| make them any less of a union.
|
| It is only illegal to fire an employ for attempting to
| form a union of the NLRB sanctioned structure. An
| organization of workers that undertakes a wildcat strike
| can be legally fired.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Okay, I see what you mean now. Yeah, the protections are
| not as encompassing as a non-NLRB-approved use of the
| word "union" might lead people to believe.
| magila wrote:
| That's precisely the point I was trying to make in my OP.
| In theory freedom of association affords one the ability
| to form a union in any manner they please, but a union
| which does not conform to the requirements of the NLRA is
| not entitled to the special legal protections granted by
| that act.
| woodruffw wrote:
| My apologies, I misread your point!
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| (American here) This is not about a right to unionize - of
| course workers have a right to unionize. This is about laws
| which _force_ employees to join a union if they want to work in
| a particular business or industry. There are many laws in many
| parts of our country which restrict my ability to work in a
| given job or industry unless I join a union.
|
| As an employee, I prefer to have the right to choose whether to
| join a union or not, but many folks don't want me to have that
| choice.
|
| As an example, if this warehouse votes to unionize, will I
| still be able to work there without joining the union if I
| don't want to? No, I will be forced to join or leave.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > This is about laws which force employees to join a union
|
| There are no laws forcing employees to join a union.
|
| Some businesses might enter into contracts with their
| employees. Right-to-work states attempt to put restrictions
| on that freedom of contract by making certain contracts
| illegal for businesses to accept.
|
| There is no right to employment, businesses can fire you for
| reason outside of any explicitly encoded wrongful termination
| reason.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> There are no laws forcing employees to join a union.
|
| There are actually lots of legally binding agreements that
| do just this, so the fact that the law is used to enforce
| an agreement vs. the law directly stating it doesn't really
| have much material difference.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| First - they would only have to pay agency fees.
|
| Second - employment is at-will, if you no longer agree
| with the contract you are free to quit at any time.
|
| The law is not forcing employees to join a union, the
| private business entered into a contract with a security
| clause. "Right-to-work" is around banning businesses from
| entering into certain voluntary agreements. It has
| nothing to do with laws requiring employees to join a
| union, as no such law exists.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| There are also lots of legally binding agreements that
| require that I pay more than $1500 per month in rent. The
| law can be used to enforce these agreements. Even still,
| the claim that "This is about laws which force [tenants
| to pay a minimum rent if they want to live in a
| particular location]" would be silly. I think the
| metaphor holds and GGPs claim is equally silly.
| deelowe wrote:
| > There are no laws forcing employees to join a union.
|
| There absolutely are states where certain trades must be
| performed by union employees. My company almost got into an
| expensive legal battle because the locale we were working
| in required union contractors for electrical work. The
| union claimed our payroll staff (IT) violated local union
| laws because the union saw them running ethernet cables
| which constituted "low voltage" work, something the union
| was supposed to do. This shutdown the jobsite for our staff
| while the union and our company sorted things out.
| hirundo wrote:
| IANAL, but it seems that until Janus V. AFSCME three years
| ago, it was legal to "require bargaining unit employees to
| pay union dues or an agency fee". So while those employees
| could decline to join the union they still had to pay for
| it. They were not forced to join but that just meant that
| they didn't get a vote yet were still bound by the result.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, it is legal for employers to enter into a voluntary
| contract requiring their employees to join a union or pay
| agency fees.
|
| Right-to-work proposes to ban private businesses from
| proposing or entering into such a contract. But there is
| no law requiring employees to join a union.
| pandemicsoul wrote:
| Yes, but you've got the framing wrong: The issue is that
| employees who don't join the union are essentially
| "benefit freeloaders." The union employs people to
| negotiates wages and benefits and manage the union itself
| on behalf of all the employees, even those who aren't
| paying union dues. If everyone can opt out of paying for
| the union, then the union can't sustain itself.
|
| Having a unionized workplace is a bit like having a
| democratic government - in the U.S., we're born and
| become citizens of the U.S. government and all that comes
| with that. We can't "opt out" unless we move out of the
| country and renounce our citizenship. We still have to
| pay taxes and we get all the benefits of our government
| (safety, education, roads, etc.) even if we don't want to
| - you can't just not pay taxes, right?
|
| If you don't want to join a union workplace, just find a
| non-union workplace. If you don't want to join a new
| union, vote against it and find another job if they
| accept the union? That's more choice than you get with
| being a citizen of a country where you pay taxes! (And
| usually, union dues are less than the negotiated
| benefit/wage increases anyway.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > And usually, union dues are less than the negotiated
| benefit/wage increases anyway
|
| Almost always as a rule they are. You are not going to
| get people to vote for a union security clause that
| decreases net pay.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| None of this negates what the parent said.
|
| They are saying that non-union workers are bound by the
| union's decision and have to pay into it.
|
| You are saying that this is a good thing.
| Frondo wrote:
| In the US, you are _never_ forced to join a union. The Taft-
| Hartley act of 1947 banned so-called "closed shops" at the
| federal level.
|
| > The Taft-Hartley Act outlawed the closed shop in the United
| States in 1947. The union shop was ruled illegal by the
| Supreme Court.
|
| From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop#United_States
| busterarm wrote:
| They might be banned but they certainly exist.
|
| As a supermarket cashier I was told in no uncertain terms
| that I had to join the union as a condition of employment.
| No union, no job.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Because the supermarket decided to contract with the
| union and the two sides negotiated that provision. The
| company made that decision. Not the legislature.
| johntb86 wrote:
| The legislature made the decision that the supermarket is
| required to bargain (in good faith) with the union. Not
| doing so would be "unfair labor practices". This includes
| a lot of practices, including not being able to "Lock out
| employees over a permissive subject of bargaining" or
| "[...] require agreement on a permissive subject as a
| precondition to further bargaining" -
| https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-
| law/ba...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| With the important caveat that you can be charged agency
| fees.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| In some states.
| singlow wrote:
| So you can be forced to pay dues but you don't have to be
| approved by the union.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > There are many laws in many parts of our country which
| restrict my ability to work in a given job or industry unless
| I join a union.
|
| This law is called basic contract law. A company can agree to
| only hire via a union just like a university can agree to
| only sell Pepsi products.
|
| > I prefer to have the right to choose whether to join a
| union or not
|
| I prefer to have the right to choose whether I am under my
| management structure or not. I suppose someone could say one
| can go somewhere else, but that would apply to a company with
| an exclusive union contract as well.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why are not unions (labor) part of the right to free
| association in the US?
|
| They are - you can already form a union whenever you want with
| whoever you want (some exceptions like armed forces.)
|
| This vote is about forcing the employer to talk to your union.
| trynewideas wrote:
| I'll just copy this section of the right-to-work article on
| Wikipedia,[1] because I've sat here trying to explain it to
| myself for a while and realized there isn't a better
| encapsulation of it:
|
| -
|
| Besides the U.S. Supreme Court, other proponents of right-to-
| work laws also point to the Constitution and the right to
| freedom of association. They argue that workers should both be
| free to join unions or to refrain, and thus, sometimes refer to
| states without right-to-work laws as forced unionism states.
| These proponents argue that by being forced into a collective
| bargain, what the majoritarian unions call a fair share of
| collective bargaining costs, is actually financial coercion and
| a violation of freedom of choice. An opponent to the union
| bargain is forced to financially support an organization for
| which they did not vote in order to receive monopoly
| representation for which they have no choice.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, right to work states limit the freedom of association by
| making it illegal for private businesses to agree to certain
| contracts that are legal in the rest of the US.
|
| I'm downvoted, but that is literally what right-to-work is.
| andrew_ wrote:
| _Former IBEW Local 58 member here_
|
| That take seems very myopic and lacks nuance. There were
| entire jobsites (which had multiple crews from different
| companies) that we couldn't work on unless we were members.
| That's illegal in right-to-work states. It doesn't limit
| the freedom of association - I suggest it prevents
| discrimination by association.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, entering into a contract limiting a jobsite to union
| workers is prohibited by right-to-work, ie. an
| abridgement of freedom of contract.
|
| I am curious how this works with agency fees though - it
| shouldn't be legal to require union membership, but it
| might be legal to require agency fees paid to a union.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Freedom of association broadly implies both the freedom
| to associate with whom you choose, and the freedom to
| refuse to associate with whom you choose. If the law
| requires you to associate with people, that's a
| restriction on freedom (and yes, this argument extends to
| things like civil rights and anti-discrimination laws,
| but the consensus seems to be that discrimination based
| on protected classes trumps freedom of association,
| although this can get murky in some situations, e.g.
| private golf clubs or where religious freedom gets
| involved).
|
| So it absolutely limits freedom of association by
| preventing organizations from choosing whom they
| associate with. Requiring you to employ someone can
| hardly be seen as a "freedom". Whether such a restriction
| is ethical or not, and whether such a restriction is
| constitutional or not are two different questions (and
| those two questions, and the question of whether it is a
| restriction on freedom of association may have different
| answers!).
| jjk166 wrote:
| Right to work laws in no way limit who can or can not be
| hired. Everyone is still free to associate, or not
| associate, with whomever they want. All it means is that
| non-union members can't be forced to pay union fees as
| part of their employment contract. An organization can
| still restrict its association to only union members, but
| if it chooses to associate with non-union members, it
| can't penalize them by charging them a fee to remain non-
| union members.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Right to work laws in no way limit who can or can not
| be hired.
|
| I don't think I said they did.
|
| > Everyone is still free to associate, or not associate,
| with whomever they want.
|
| But are limited in the ways they can associate: certain
| contract terms are prohibited. Again, whether or not this
| is _good_ is a distinct question. Minimum wage laws
| prohibit certain contract terms that I consider predatory
| (but in a sense the government is simply collectively
| bargaining on behalf of all workers in setting a minimum
| wage). Conversely, a government setting a maximum wage
| would probably be considered problematic. But all three,
| a minimum wage, a maximum wage, and "right to work"
| laws, limit how you can associate.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Well no one is arguing that freedom of association gives
| you the right to do whatever you want while associated. I
| can go to the bank with whomever I want, but I can't rob
| a bank with whomever I want. Forbidding me from being a
| getaway driver doesn't impinge on my freedom of
| association.
|
| Freedom of association is the right to join or to leave
| groups voluntarily. You still need to respect peoples
| other rights, and follow other applicable laws while
| associated. There are some laws like child labor laws
| which do restrict people from being able to voluntarily
| join or leave a group, but right to work and minimum wage
| laws are not such cases.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| It literally is a restriction on the ways in which you
| can associate with other groups or individuals.
|
| You can sign an agreement to use only a particular
| supplier for a product, unless that product is labor and
| the supplier is a union.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Whereas Canada's decision on this topic is almost the exact
| opposite, using almost the same logic. "Fascinating".
|
| >In Canadian labour law, the Rand formula (also referred to
| as automatic check-off and compulsory checkoff)[1] is a
| workplace compromise arising from jurisprudence struck
| between organized labour (trade unions) and employers that
| guarantees employers industrial stability by requiring all
| workers affected by a collective agreement to pay dues to the
| union by mandatory deduction in exchange for the union
| agreement to "work now, grieve later." Historically, in some
| workplaces, some workers refused to pay dues to the union
| even after benefiting from wage and benefit improvements
| negotiated by the union representatives, resulting in
| friction and violence as they were seen as 'free-loaders;' at
| the same time, absence of a peaceful grievance settlement
| mechanism created industrial instability as union members
| often walked off the job. The compromise was designed to
| ensure that no employee will opt out of the union simply to
| avoid dues yet reap the benefits of collective bargaining,
| such as higher wages or health insurance.
|
| from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_formula
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _using almost the same logic_
|
| This appears to be completely separate logic? A balance of
| interests, in the Canadian case, and an inaliable right, in
| the U.S. one.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| The situations seem to me to be literally identical,
| which is why I brought it up in the first place -- if
| merely most of a workplace joins a union, those who do
| not don't have to pay dues yet reap the benefits of
| unionization anyway. Stripped of euphemism, the American
| response is "yes, that's a good thing" whereas the
| Canadian one is "no, that's a bad thing". It's a
| completely different _justification_ , sure.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _situations seem to me to be literally identical_
|
| The situations are similar, but the logic used and
| conclusions reached are quite separate. Understanding the
| different paths taken exposes it as far from euphemism.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| There is no inalienable right to be hired. Freedom of
| contract is a stronger right in the US and one that
| "right-to-work" states put restrictions on.
| brightball wrote:
| How so? One of the big perks of right to work states is
| that non-compete agreements are virtually unenforceable
| because no agreement can prevent you from earning a
| living to provide for yourself and your family.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| "Right to work" has absolutely nothing to do with
| noncompetes.
|
| Edited for precision in response to whimsicalism's reply:
|
| The extent of right to work laws is that union contracts
| (or I guess any contract) cannot require all employees to
| pay union fees as part of the union contract. That's it.
| There's no further restrictions on employers, only this
| particular restriction on employer-union contracts.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| There is a restriction on employers - they are prohibited
| from entering into such a contract.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| You're saying because an employer is not able to enter
| into a contract with a union that requires a 3rd party
| (the worker) to pay dues to the union, this is a
| violation of freedom of association? That doesn't even
| really sound like a contract, more like a coercive
| scheme.
|
| Right to work laws do not prevent union members from
| entering a contract with the union to pay it dues because
| they think it will benefit them. That's how contracts
| should work. I think you're just trying to play leftist
| word games to confuse the issue.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, the actions of two unrelated third parties can
| impact your job. For instance, if the company you work at
| is bought by a private equity firm that fires all of the
| workers, the sale of the company was still legal - even
| if it infringes on your "right to work." Likewise,
| employers can enter into contracts with other third
| parties that require them to change their contract with
| other employees. This is basic freedom of contract &
| association. Right-to-work laws make it so that companies
| are banned from voluntarily agreeing to such contracts
| with unions. The contract with the private equity firm
| remains legal.
|
| In my view, the word games are around the phrase "right
| to work." Freedom of contract and association is quite
| unambiguous.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There is a restriction on employers - they are
| prohibited from entering into such a contract_
|
| No, they are not.
|
| Employers are prohibited from altering employment
| contracts _ex post facto_. But employers are free to make
| offers conditional on joining a union. Given most
| employers have wide latitude to alter terms of employment
| under threat of termination, practically any employer who
| wants to unionize can trivially do so.
|
| But that is a straw man. In practice, a fraction of
| employees want to unionize and the employer (with some
| employees) does not. The argument against unionization is
| that the first group can't force the second groups into a
| union contract. The argument for is that they can,
| provided they represent a majority of the employees.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > But employers are free to make offers conditional on
| joining a union.
|
| Here's Alabama's Right to Work amendment, which is
| broadly representative: https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_R
| ight_to_Work,_Amendment_8_(...
|
| Key passages are
|
| > (c) No person shall be required by an employer to
| become or remain a member of any labor union or labor
| organization as a condition of employment or continuation
| of employment.
|
| > (e) An employer may not require a person, as a
| condition of employment or continuation of employment, to
| pay dues, fees, or other charges of any kind to any labor
| union or labor organization.
|
| The employer is not allowed to make union membership or
| dues a condition of employment, whether due to a union
| contract or out of their own volition.
|
| Interestingly, if you want to look at my other post where
| I discuss noncompetes vs. Right to Work, you'll find that
| a number of states, when dealing with noncompetes,
| consider continued employment "sufficient consideration"
| for the noncompete. This means that in practice, they're
| allowed to change your employment contract (w.r.t. a
| noncompete, and presumably other things), and continuing
| to employ you is enough to make the contract valid, they
| don't need to offer you anything additional.
|
| Georgia and Florida are two (but there are more) "right
| to work" states, where the employer is fully within their
| rights to change your employment contract ex-post-facto,
| except in regards to union membership.
| brightball wrote:
| The attorneys I've spoken to would disagree with you.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Note, I'm not an attorney, but you should talk to better
| attorney than the ones you've been talking to, because
| they're flatly wrong.
|
| Here's the right to work laws by state:
| https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-
| to-...
|
| Here's a (pdf warning) list of noncompete laws by state:
| https://faircompetitionlaw.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/06/No...
|
| Note that only 3 states (California, Oklahoma, and North
| Dakota) ban non-competes (and I'd quibble with this,
| California and ND afaik ban noncompetes about poaching
| customers/clients, while Oklahoma allows you ban
| employees from poaching client, so CA and ND have the
| strongest noncompete protection, and one is right to work
| and one isn't). Of these, North and South Dakota are
| Right-to-Work, and California is not. It's also hard to
| draw particular conclusions about trends among (I think
| the only real one I see is that non-right to work states
| have salary minimums before you can be subject to a
| noncompete, but so much of the specifics comes down to
| how courts have interpreted things). What is pretty clear
| is that there isn't a strong correlation between right to
| work laws and noncompete laws.
|
| And further, if you look at the right to work statues
| (for example Alabama's constitutional amendment: https://
| ballotpedia.org/Alabama_Right_to_Work,_Amendment_8_(...,
| or Oklahoma's : https://www.findlaw.com/state/oklahoma-
| law/oklahoma-right-to... as examples), you'll find that
| they're tailed specifically to prohibit requirements
| about union dues. They have nothing to do with
| noncompetes.
|
| So the text of the statutes are unrelated, and its not
| even clear that there's a general trend of states with
| right to work laws having more noncompete protection.
|
| I sort of expect you or your lawyer is extrapolating from
| one state (probably North Dakota, if I had to guess).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| No? In fact, the correlation goes the other way - most
| states which ban unions security clauses in contracts
| have legally enforceable non-competes whereas California
| (for instance) which has no such ban on voluntary
| contract does not allow for non-competes.
|
| Regardless, "right to work" is more about banning certain
| union contracts than about providing some "right" to have
| a job or anything like that.
| [deleted]
| Supermancho wrote:
| It's not enough to say they are allowed, but determining what
| constitutes sabotage or impeding this right when voting to
| unionize with a company, is the issue the USLB addressed.
|
| How do you ensure that your unionizing vote (which includes
| details of how the union will operate, since they each have
| their own charter), is fair? You have to get the parent company
| involved, otherwise you might be disenfranchising eligible
| voters/members and/or involving outside parties.
|
| This is where it gets ugly because the company (usually) has a
| vested interest in observing that the vote fails.
| VictorPath wrote:
| The historical answer to that is it was restricted in Europe
| originally, and by the 1948 eastern Europe was under control of
| communist parties and western Europe was on the verge of
| communists being elected to power in Italy and France with
| militant labor unions existing (with the Labour government in
| the UK nationalizing much of the country). Compromise on wages,
| organization etc. was the watchword.
|
| The US history was separated and a little different. The New
| Deal compromise was from 1933 to the 1970s, and has been
| somewhat rolled back since then. The average inflation-adjusted
| hourly wage has fallen in the US since the early 70s, so the
| average US worker is worse off in that respect than they were a
| half century ago.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Duplicate with a different source:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29391641
| mjfl wrote:
| Aren't unions why the USA has no auto industry?
| dhosek wrote:
| No.
|
| Worth noting that (a) The USA does have an auto industry and
| (2) the decline of union membership correlates perfectly to the
| stagnation of middle-class wages and the increase of corporate
| revenues going to the wealthy.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Unions didn't waste 20 years designing fins on big-block
| engines that broke down on the regular.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No auto industry? Who is producing the ~10M cars a year, then?
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/198518/us-motor-vehicle-...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| For comparison with other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_veh...
|
| Literally only China makes more cars that the US. US beats
| Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Germany...
| bushbaba wrote:
| Cars are made in the us due to import tariffs on non
| domestic cars.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| In that case we can probably include the cars made in
| Canada and Mexico as counting towards the US total.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| It's a pity that chart doesn't also show per capita
| production.
|
| Japan, South Korea, and Germany make more per capita than
| both the US and China. Even Canada does.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Per capita seems mostly irrelevant? And of course the
| auto workers in Canada, Germany, South Korea and Japan
| are all unionized...
| voidfunc wrote:
| Keep re-voting until you get the results you want lol.
| granzymes wrote:
| .
| woodruffw wrote:
| The presumable use is in having the NLRB officially state that
| it considers the previous election to be irregular.
| granzymes wrote:
| .
| woodruffw wrote:
| The media coverage _is_ certainly a benefit! But I don 't
| know if it's the "real" one: the NLRB seemingly agrees that
| Amazon's manipulation efforts had a real effect on the
| previous vote. Even if the vote fails again, a change in
| the percentages is an important outcome.
| granzymes wrote:
| .
| woodruffw wrote:
| I agree that it isn't an especially big punishment. But I
| don't think it's intended to be one: the NLRB is charged
| with issuing a decision regarding the validity of the
| previous election, not determining the viability of any
| future election. In other words, _if_ it 's a mistake to
| perform the election again, it's the union's mistake to
| make. But I, for one, think it's a sound strategy on
| their part.
| slownews45 wrote:
| A bit of background. Biden moved Robb (former GC) out, is going
| for the more explicit pro-union approach in NLRB.
|
| Obama did same thing in being explicitly pro-union.
|
| Basically the GC's then took pretty aggressive positions
|
| " Solomon pushed a case against Boeing in 2011 for trying to open
| a factory in right-to-work South Carolina. He argued this was
| retaliation against unionized workers in Washington state even
| though none had been laid off. He demanded Boeing abandon a $2
| billion investment and move all production to Washington state."
|
| Here's the letter from the Former GC - who was forcefully removed
| - so the agency is a bit less independent from the administration
| than one would think from the act itself.
|
| https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aboutbl...
|
| What is interesting is that even Trump allowed the (dem) GC to
| serve out their term, so this Biden approach is a bit new.
|
| I mention just because a lot of posts are mention the NLRB is a
| "neutral" govt agency. Biden has promised that it will be the
| most "pro-union" ever, and has taken steps to make that happen.
| seibelj wrote:
| Continually redoing votes erodes trust in the voting process. How
| can anyone buy the left's haranguing of Trump's lies about voter
| fraud when they so forcefully say Stacy Abrams had her vote
| stolen? When you claim fraud you destroy more trust in the whole
| system.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The NLRB is not related to the FEC or any other entities
| responsible for managing federal elections in the United
| States.
|
| Apart from both managing (completely different types of)
| elections, it's not clear why the NLRB's order to redo a union
| vote would or wouldn't erode trust in the general electoral
| process in the US.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > The decision pointed to moves by the company encouraging staff
| to vote via a mailbox it had the Postal Service install at its
| warehouse, surrounding the mailbox with its campaign slogan and
| locating it where workers may have thought Amazon was surveilling
| them.
|
| I do not understand this, and also don't understand why this is
| just glossed over in a single sentence in this article and not
| unpacked more.
|
| Generic cynicism aside, since when can a private company just
| "have the Postal Service" install a mailbox on its property? This
| makes it sound like the USPS is at corporate beck and call.
|
| This makes it sound like a company can call up the postal
| service, say 'setup an official mailbox on our private property',
| and the post office responds with 'sure, we'll be right over'.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| This is amazon. They also had the red light on the public road
| you turn off to enter the warehouse shortened so that Union
| advocates would have less time to speak to workers stuck in
| traffic.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Source?
| iudqnolq wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287191/amazon-
| alabama-w...
| Ansil849 wrote:
| This just says:
|
| > More Perfect Union confirmed with Jefferson County
| officials that last year, Amazon notified the county of
| traffic delays during shift changes and asked for the
| light to be changed.
|
| And then the unsubstantiated speculation is that this was
| done as a form of union busting, but there doesn't seem
| to be any evidence presented (like internal meeting
| notes, emails, any kind of evidence, really) that this
| was actually the case.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Correct. Amazon did not literally admit in writing to
| violating the law.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| I mean...then it's just speculation. That's the
| difference between a smoking gun and opinion. Far be it
| for me to come off as defending Amazon, but claiming that
| light patterns were altered to shave seconds off
| organizers engaging with cars at a traffic light seems
| like a reach. It's nothing I'd put past Amazon goons
| doing, sure, but it's also not something I'd believe
| without any actual proof.
|
| Your original post was:
|
| > They also had the red light on the public road you turn
| off to enter the warehouse shortened so that Union
| advocates would have less time to speak to workers stuck
| in traffic.
|
| But the only available evidence is that the former
| happened, not the latter 'so that..'.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I think you need to consider it within the whole context.
| There's evidence of Amazon doing many other similar
| things to restrict unionizing, as the nrlb found. Given
| all that, I don't think it's reasonable to give them the
| benefit of the doubt in this sort of situation.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| I get it, which is why I said I definitely wouldn't put
| it past Amazon to do something like that. But I also
| think that this kind of talk can actively hurt organizing
| efforts.
|
| If I were someone on the fence about unionizing, and
| someone told me "you know Amazon changed the stoplight to
| prevent us from being able to talk to you", and I were to
| then look into it and find that while Amazon did change
| the stoplight speed, there's no evidence that they did it
| specifically to mess with organizing efforts, then I'd be
| pretty annoyed and write off the organizer as being full
| of shit. We need to stick to verifiable acts of union
| busting, especially because as you said, there are plenty
| of them to choose from, without rattling off speculation
| that can't be substantiated as if it were fact.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Generic cynicism aside, since when can a private company just
| "have the Postal Service" install a mailbox on its property?.
|
| Is this drastically different from apartment buildings paying
| to have mailboxes installed? I bet if you called them and said
| you had some reason to expect a massive increase in letters
| sent from your front lawn they'd quote you a price to install a
| mailbox.
| brightball wrote:
| I'm not sure that people in other parts of the country realize
| how much anti union sentiment there is in the southeast.
|
| One of the biggest things that attracts businesses to setup shop
| in the south is low cost of living and lower salary requirements
| as a result. The same things that cause businesses to setup shop
| overseas.
|
| When unions get involved with promises of higher wages, it
| disincentivizes the business from growing in that area because it
| has effectively no benefit over the higher cost areas.
|
| I've witnessed this first hand in South Carolina ever since
| Boeing opened a location here. The union tactics have been crazy.
| Everybody down here is thrilled to have Boeing and all of the
| peripheral benefits to the area that come with them. Great jobs,
| supply chain effects, etc. Then union officials show up when it's
| time for a new vote and start telling people how bad everything
| is. Around every vote there are always crazy news articles and
| sensationalized events that try to drum up union support and
| paint Boeing in a bad light. And then it stops until it's time
| for a new vote.
|
| Down here, people want businesses. They want jobs. The want
| corporate customers to sell services to. They want economic
| development and they want practices to incentivize that.
|
| What people don't want are practices that will slow that down,
| especially when the non-union work pays better than most
| everything else in the area already.
|
| It gives the appearance to everyone, somewhat obviously, that the
| union is only interested is strengthening itself.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| ah yes, the anti-union astroturfer has entered the chat. Just
| so you know, this was an article about Amazon, not Boeing. Is
| your algorithm working correctly?
| xg15 wrote:
| Those kinds of arguments talk a lot about "jobs" but seldomly
| about the quality or compensation of those jobs.
|
| A job is not a goal in itself (except in some puritan morality
| I guess) but a mean to several ends: Security, income,
| participation, etc.
|
| How much of that does a business bring to the region and what
| guarantees that it will do so in the future?
|
| > _Down here, people want businesses. They want jobs. They want
| corporate customers to sell services to._
|
| What kind of "people" are you talking about? This sounds as if
| the whole region consists exclusively of solo entrepreneurs.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| This sounds like an odd negotiating tactic in business (or
| anything): 'I'll take whatever you say, just please don't
| leave!'
|
| People want to better pay and benefits, more power over what
| they do with their lives 40+ hours per week. You can't be
| afraid to push for yourself in any negotiations, and you need
| leverage to get as much as you can. Without a union, you have
| all the leverage of a lone individual.
|
| What's crazy to me is seeing Boeing treated like a god coming
| down to bless the land with their beneficence, whom we must
| please and obey. They are a business who will use whatever
| leverage they have to get what they can; you need leverage too.
| Aunche wrote:
| The workers simply have a lot less leverage than you think.
| Globalization and automation has made work less scarce than
| labor. The pandemic reduced the supply of labor, and
| accordingly, wages for low-skill workers have skyrocketed,
| which proves that the market is working as intended.
|
| Unions don't magically create leverage out of thin air. They
| steal it from those outside the union by constraining the the
| supply of labor. The most effective unions are those that do
| this to the greatest extent. For example, SAG-AFTRA forces
| productions to give speaking roles to union members and also
| restricts union eligibility to those that receive these
| speaking roles.
| yardie wrote:
| > SAG-AFTRA forces productions to give speaking roles to
| union members and also restricts union eligibility
|
| SAG does not force productions to do anything. The
| production can either use union or not use union. What they
| can't do is use cherry pick talent. Your best talent is
| going to be a SAG member. And since it's a union you either
| get all or none.
| Aunche wrote:
| >SAG does not force productions to do anything
|
| I'm merely applying the same language people use here to
| attack corporations.
|
| >And since it's a union you either get all or none.
|
| Everywhere else this would be a clear violation to
| antitrust.
| yladiz wrote:
| > Everywhere else this would be a clear violation to
| antitrust
|
| What?
| dls2016 wrote:
| > This sounds like an odd negotiating tactic in business (or
| anything): 'I'll take whatever you say, just please don't
| leave!'
|
| Remember the Amazon HQ2 race to the bottom?
| neltnerb wrote:
| If it weren't Bezos I'd say it were intended as an art
| piece to demonstrate how bad the problem is, even between
| states inside a single country. That said, Virginia ended
| up paying about $27k per job generated while the second
| office in NYC was given about $75k per job generated.
|
| So a taxpayer subsidy from everyone in the region in order
| to produce 25,000 jobs at the above prices. Worth it? Not
| really sure, it seems to me like Virginia might end up
| fairly well off but I have a harder time imagining that
| creating another 25,000 jobs in NYC is worth $75k a piece
| to the city given that they are already out of housing.
| Kind of seems like it might be better put into other things
| on balance.
|
| Pitching it all as a public auction really accentuates the
| point that this is a race to the bottom with competition
| between people that should instead be natural allies. It
| would be brilliant if it were an intentional commentary on
| how much harm we are doing to ourselves by letting
| companies pit entire states against each other for profit.
| srj wrote:
| Many regions in the US have been hit hard by globalization
| and manufacturing job loss. The choice isn't necessarily
| viewed as union vs non-union, but unemployment vs non-union.
| It seems they are choosing the jobs.
|
| They are competing against other parts of the world in terms
| of labor supply. I don't know how you overcome that without
| either demonstrably higher productivity or protectionism.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Where does it end? This capital flight problem has been
| discussed since Smith (well, at least). The reality is that
| there will always be somewhere labor-cheaper for capital to
| move to. Meanwhile laborers (being physical beings) can't be
| globetrotting wizards like digital money can be.
|
| The South-East might be cheap enough today. Until somewhere
| else bids lower...
| p0wn wrote:
| The US labor situation is changing on a cultural level big time
| and rapidly. The working force is taking back the control.
| Companies are going to have a tougher time exploiting people
| for cheap labor with no/shitty benefits.
|
| I love it. Unions are going to be a major driving force again
| and it's gonna be good for the work force. As a country we have
| to make it tougher for companies to exploit labor unfairly. The
| government has failed. The people know it and are finally
| taking action.
|
| A true democracy would have strict regulations on companies
| which guarantee good living conditions for the people that live
| in it. The game of capitalism must be regulated, because it's a
| sociopathic construct. It's only goal is to make more money...
| as soon as possible. Left unregulated it exploits people.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > The US labor situation is changing on a cultural level big
| time and rapidly. The working force is taking back the
| control. Companies are going to have a tougher time
| exploiting people for cheap labor with no/shitty benefits.
|
| > Unions are going to be a major driving force again
|
| All of those positive changes and benefits you cited are
| happening without an increased union presence, though. What
| makes you think unions are going to be a compelling option
| when the non-union alternatives are rapidly changing in
| response to market conditions without any need for union
| bargaining?
| DrewRWx wrote:
| Perfect time to double-down, go union, and strike for
| jugular instead of relying on a rising tide to lift all
| boats.
| 8note wrote:
| The change is only on a cultural level though. companies
| have a very easy time exploiting people today, ad the
| people are getting unhappy.
|
| No actual change has happened yet
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This year has already seen an increased union presence and
| several high profile strikes.
|
| I think it is far-fetched to say that all of this has
| occurred without unions whatsoever.
|
| Just like Lenin's "reserve army" of the unemployed keeping
| workers motivated to keep working, so too does the "reserve
| threat" from labor organization motivate many of the 20th
| century improvements in labor conditions.
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's not surprising that those who directly benefit from the
| lack of unionization are not in support of it.
| seneca wrote:
| > It's not surprising that those who directly benefit from
| the lack of unionization are not in support of it.
|
| Right. But what people are missing is that "those who
| directly benefit from the lack of unionization" is most
| people who actually live in the region. The jobs are there
| because the unions aren't, and people want jobs.
| iterati wrote:
| I don't think people want jobs. I think people NEED jobs
| because they need to eat and a roof over their head. That's
| not really a good justification for fleecing your workers
| and paying them as little as possible - that they'd starve
| without you.
| seneca wrote:
| Paying your employees an agreed upon wage, which is
| higher than market rate for the region, is not really
| "fleecing your workers". People are glad to have these
| jobs.
| some_furry wrote:
| People are glad to have the income and extant economical
| benefits of these jobs*, not the jobs themselves.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I'm not exactly sure what the pedant in you is getting at
| here. Unionizing isn't going to suddenly give the workers
| their "income and extant economical benefits of these
| jobs" without working the job.
|
| Obviously people would rather get paid and not have to
| work, but that's not relevant to the context.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| >I don't think people want jobs. I think people NEED jobs
| because they need to eat and a roof over their head.
|
| Which is why they are anti-union. Ideology aside they
| lack sufficient leverage (aka they are getting a good
| deal sans union.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It's north vs south cultural conflict again - New England
| is very pro-union and are losing out as jobs have flown to
| the south and gloablly.
| xibalba wrote:
| Lots of "Amazon Bad, Union Good" sentiment in these comments.
|
| How is it that HN'ers look at entities like the UAW or various
| state teachers' unions and think, "Yeah, let me get some of
| that."?
|
| Is there an example of increased union-ization of a U.S. company
| leading to better outcomes for customers?
| onion2k wrote:
| _Lots of "Amazon Bad, Union Good" sentiment in these comments._
|
| I think there's a difference between saying "Amazon is bad to
| intimidate its workers" and "Unions are good". It's totally
| fair to agree that Amazon have been acting very poorly
| intimidating its warehouse workers while also thinking those
| workers would be better off voting no to joining a union.
|
| Ultimately the workers should have a free vote to determine
| what they want for themselves. You don't need to be pro- or
| anti-union to believe that.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| better outcomes for customers...how about better outcomes for
| workers? I think you have missed the whole point of a union.
| Unions exist so that workers are not exploited for their labor.
| Fair wages and benefits should be a per-requisite to even HAVE
| customers. Otherwise, you are not a viable business in the
| moral or ethical sense.
| scotu wrote:
| the point of the union is better outcomes for the workers, not
| for the customers
| thereisnospork wrote:
| And that there is a problem:
|
| Even if you are in _a_ union, you are undoubtedly the
| customer of many unions or would-be unions.
|
| edit: clarification 'a' refers to a singular union and isn't
| a comment on the quality/nature of said union(s).
| scotu wrote:
| ok, so what is the problem? Participate in it if it needs
| to change direction or join a different one if that option
| is available.
|
| The problem at hand is that 100 people are forced to fend
| for themselves against a company when they could act as a
| block and have leverage. One problem at a time
| busterarm wrote:
| collective bargaining certainly isn't better than
| compensation and terms that I have been able to negotiate.
| scotu wrote:
| what a boring argument. Also wrong. I would put a lot of
| money on "you didn't a/b test collective bargaining with
| your own negotiation" because it's simply impossible, so
| you don't really know if that's true.
|
| Also most workers are not in a job with a candidate
| shortage (and candidate shortages don't last forever,
| better have a union while you have the power to make it
| happen then when you become a throwaway widget for your
| company)
| busterarm wrote:
| I've negotiated salaries that are 2 or 3 times what my
| peers have made in the same position.
|
| I've also negotiated in non-standard vacation packages,
| like a fixed 2 months off every year.
|
| That simply doesn't happen in collective bargaining.
|
| I've hardly ever been a throwaway widget in any job and
| even when I was working shitty jobs I was the type to get
| promoted quickly. The only places this never happened
| were my 3 union jobs. And in each case I was forced to
| work for the union -- I wasn't seeking it.
| scotu wrote:
| yeah, collective bargaining never does any good /s
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargaining
|
| Last week tonight on union busting:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8
|
| When a union does not work or is corrupt, we fix the
| union, we don't give away the collective power to the
| opposing side of the negotiation: oh no, my lawyer is not
| doing my best interest he's only trying to rake up the
| fees! you know what? I'll let my opponent's lawyer
| represent me in court instead!
| ausbah wrote:
| only because tech is one of the few industries where demand
| is greater than supply
| maccolgan wrote:
| >state teachers' unions
|
| I'd say yes to that.
| t-writescode wrote:
| I know that I look at how big box stores, like Office Depot,
| and restaurants treat their workers and go "Wow, those
| employees deserve LOTS of protections and a better experience",
| and I'm willing to consider unions as an option for that.
|
| The poor are the most exploited people because they literally
| can't accept anything else for fear of death, and I want better
| for them. If a union can bring that, then I rejoice for their
| chance to try out a union and get their deserved wages.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| On what legal grounds? (The article requires you to register to
| read the whole thing)
| TOGoS wrote:
| Indeed, Amazon very clearly used their weight to unfairly
| influence the vote. But unionizing that warehouse would be an
| uphill battle in any case due to the high turnover rate (150% per
| year according to first google result). Why bother with a union
| and risk marring the facade of friendliness with management when
| you'll be gone in a few months anyway? Getting this to work will
| probably require a broader effort involving not just current
| employees, but getting the entire workforce in Bessamir
| inoculated against Amazon's anti-union propaganda. I hope RWDSU
| leadership understands this.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| The elections will continue until the Party wins. Then, they will
| end.
| DrewRWx wrote:
| Please stop with the re-heated McCarthyism. It isn't helping
| the discussion.
| shkkmo wrote:
| ...or atleast they will continue until independent observers
| view them as fairly conducted.
| echelon wrote:
| Kind of like Amazon forcing a redo of the JEDI government cloud
| computing contract that they lost. Or Blue Origin trying to
| force a redo of the NASA lunar lander contract.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Yes, exactly. These are all examples of organizations acting
| in bad faith - including the union here in this case.
|
| Such things should not be allowed.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The order here is from the NLRB, which is an independent
| agency of the US Government, not the union. You can grumble
| as much as you'd like about their order, but it's not clear
| where the "bad faith" on the NLRB's part is.
| mikestew wrote:
| I know the HN guidelines recommend against asking about
| one's reading of the article, but how about the headline at
| the top of the page? Can we at least expect _that_ much to
| have been read? Hell, I 'm in the reply box, and I can
| still see at the top: _" US labor board official
| orders..."_, with no mention of union action at all. I
| don't think it's the union making the bad faith argument
| here.
| seneca wrote:
| The NLRB order is in response to requests from the union.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Requests that, under federal law, the union is perfectly
| entitled to make. The NLRB is neither an arm of nor
| subservient to the union; it's discharging its
| responsibilities as required by law.
| DrewRWx wrote:
| The point is that it is not acting in bad faith to take a
| grievance to a government agency and have it rule in
| their favor.
| seneca wrote:
| Sure, not saying it is. I was just disagreeing with the
| assertion that there was no union action involved.
| mikestew wrote:
| The assertion was, and I quote myself, "with no _mention_
| of union action at all ". (referring to the headline, and
| emphasis mine) Of course, at some point in the process
| there was "union action"; kinda thought that would go
| with saying, but...
| jjk166 wrote:
| Your statement reads like you're saying:
|
| 'I can still see at the top: "US labor board official
| orders...", with no mention of union action at all [and
| the omission implies there was none]. I don't think it's
| the union [because they are unmentioned, rather I think
| it is some other entity] making the bad faith argument
| here'
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > In Monday's decision, the NLRB regional director said that
| Amazon "engaged in objectionable conduct that warrants setting
| aside the election."
|
| Is there a public written NLRB decision? The OP didn't link to it
| or mention the specifics. Not a great article.
|
| Or is there another way to see the specifics on what the NLRB
| considered to be the "objectionable conduct that warrants setting
| aside the election"?
|
| It would be good to have the specifics of what the NLRB actually
| decided was this before diving into arguing about it, wouldn't
| it?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Can any company randomly decide they want the USPS to install an
| official mailbox where ever the company wants one?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They can ask, and if they have a good reason, the USPS should
| comply. Seems pretty straight forward.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Yes, you don't need to be nearly Amazon's size. USPS mail drop
| box locations are the responsibility of the local postmaster.
| It's basically a matter of asking politely and there being
| enough mail to somewhat justify it. It's not uncommon for large
| commercial real estate developments (like a new strip mall or
| an office park) to arrange to have one installed when the
| facility opens.
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| Only 16% voted for it the first time. Even if I consider Amazon
| meddling, I'm guessing there won't be enough support for it this
| time either. Probably just people weighing the dues versus what a
| union could potentially do for them. It's hard to convince
| someone making $15/hour that their $500/year will pan out. I
| personally think it would, but selling that idea is another
| thing.
| cmh89 wrote:
| It's not hard if you've ever been in a union. I'm in a union
| and while wages are important, its the peace of mind knowing my
| boss can't fire because she's having a bad day or force me to
| work unpaid overtime that I really value.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| In the US overtime pay is already guaranteed by law, unless
| you're salaried.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Enforcement of said law is another matter entirely. The
| union tends to have enough negotiating power to keep the
| employer _honest_ about overtime.
| tyingq wrote:
| Filing a union grievance for overtime violations is a much
| simpler process than what you would have to do in a non-
| union shop. And comes with a fair amount of protection
| against retaliation.
| Frondo wrote:
| While true, this ignores how widespread wage theft is,
| especially among lower-paid workers.
|
| Here's one example of unpaid overtime wages, nearly a
| million dollars worth, being stolen from workers:
|
| > After receiving a wage complaint from a worker who failed
| to receive any money for his work, California Labor
| Commissioner Julie Su's office began investigating
| contractor Tadros & Youssef Construction's work on the
| Highland Oaks Elementary School construction project. Su's
| office discovered that nine other employees earned below
| the prevailing wage and were not paid for overtime hours on
| this same project. The resulting settlement forced Tadros &
| Youssef to pay $877,876.64 restitution to the 10 workers.
| The contracting firm is no longer in business.
|
| From: https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-
| costing-...
| karmajunkie wrote:
| Right, but as with many things guaranteed by law,
| _enforcing_ the law is another matter.
| cmh89 wrote:
| Unfortunately the US has comically weak enforcement of
| labor laws. I've experienced and heard many examples of
| this from over the years including managers asking
| employees to clock-out and finish their work. While that is
| illegal, the State is completely ineffective in protecting
| workers who file complaints.
|
| Amazon itself is currently being sued for failing to
| provide required breaks. They are infamous for making it
| hard to even go to the bathroom. That would never fly at my
| shop.
|
| Of course, that's just one example. I also love that
| management can't just shift more and more responsibility
| onto me to save money or arbitrarily increase the
| complexity of my work without an increase in pay.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > While that is illegal, the State is completely
| ineffective in protecting workers who file complaints.
|
| I don't know which state you're in, but this is
| absolutely not true where I grew up. A complaint to the
| state labor board brought the hammer down ASAP.
|
| The people who enforce these things absolutely love to
| have something to track down.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Pushing it to a second vote is a key (and unethical) strategy
| for companies avoiding a union because the second vote almost
| always goes in management's favor.
| tyingq wrote:
| The first vote went in management's favor though.
| driverdan wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. The first vote went in management's
| favor. There is no reason for them to want a second vote.
| vanusa wrote:
| _Only 16% voted for it the first time._
|
| The vote, as such, as 1798 to 738, or 29 percent pro-union.
|
| How do you get 16 percent from that?
| tyingq wrote:
| Ah, yes, pulled from an article. 16% of all employees, 29% of
| those who voted...many did not vote. Seems I missed a clever
| Amazon spokesperson representation of the vote :)
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| Or maybe people are considering things other than their
| personal wallet when deciding whether to support unionization
| or not. Some folks just don't want to be part of a union, even
| if there weren't any dues.
| tyingq wrote:
| That's fair, though if I had a $15/hour job and had to pee in
| a jug to keep up with work quotas, I would at least be
| interested to hear the sales pitch.
| lelandfe wrote:
| This time Amazon will be sure not to engage in intimidation. That
| you can prove.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Amazon is _certain_ to engage in the kinds of intimidation that
| they 're legally allowed to perform: anti-union agitprop and
| vague gesticulation about economic uncertainty. But hopefully
| the threat of continued elections will make them a little more
| hesitant when it comes to cheeky things like "the ballot box
| will be in a room controlled by Amazon, with Amazon-monitored
| cameras pointing at you as you arrive[1]."
|
| But only time will tell.
|
| [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/19/amazon-prevented-free-and-
| fa...
| sjg007 wrote:
| Amazon would be able to actually infer the votes from this
| type of scheme.
| vadfa wrote:
| Both sides engage in the same information war.
| jjar wrote:
| Only one side is worth literal billions, and has no qualms
| about spending those billions to win.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Of course they do, it's a labor dispute. What's the point
| of this comment, other than a vague "both sides, therefore
| bad" statement?
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| If they did already engage in intimidation, there's no undoing
| it.
| newfonewhodis wrote:
| Remember when Amazon stole delivery workers' tips?
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22262294/amazon-flex-wage-...
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