[HN Gopher] Amazon activist's firing deemed illegal by labor boa...
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Amazon activist's firing deemed illegal by labor board officials
Author : herbstein
Score : 227 points
Date : 2022-01-22 17:44 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| KarlKemp wrote:
| I am Jeff's complete lack of surprise...
|
| Let's hope the complaint is sustained. It's bad enough that this
| tactic is even tried. The right to unionize is meaningless if
| organizers can be silenced this easily.
|
| It's difficult to balance at-will employment, the right to fire
| people for cause, and the protection of union leaders and
| members. But there have been far too many cases like this in the
| last few months alone to believe these are all justified by
| individuals' behavior and not attempts to stop unionization.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > But there have been far too many cases like this in the last
| few months alone to believe these are all justified by
| individuals' behavior and not attempts to stop unionization.
|
| To play devil's advocate, a sociopath could recognize the PR
| problems it creates for a company to fire someone working
| toward unionization, and therefore start agitating when it
| becomes clear they're about to be fired, or just before they do
| something they know would otherwise be over the line.
|
| That doesn't mean everyone working toward unionization is a
| sociopath, but the population of people fired "while
| unionizing" will contain both sets of people, and therefore be
| larger than you might expect.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| That's not "devil's advocate", that's just an example of the
| meaning of "difficult to balance".
|
| There's this idea in the tech crowd that laws governing
| circumstances that aren't quantifiable or boolean with zero
| doubt or error are either entirely impossible or tantamount
| to just anything-goes subjectivity of judges.
|
| But the entire purpose of a system of laws and the courts is
| to match the ambiguity of the rules to the complexity of
| life.
|
| Because, as it turns out, it's the cases that _can_ be
| captured by a fixed set of algorithms that are almost non-
| existent. Which is sort-of the problem "smart contracts" ran
| into, and that motivated them to create the useless
| simulation of real-world ownership that is NFTs.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > That's not "devil's advocate", that's just an example of
| the meaning of "difficult to balance".
|
| You expressed skepticism that this many people could be
| fired for legitimate reasons while promoting unions.
|
| That makes sense if you assume that misconduct and union
| organizing are independent variables. But since individuals
| engaged in misconduct have the incentive to become union
| organizers to make it more expensive for the company to
| punish them, that isn't true, and the observed result would
| be expected either way.
|
| Your original argument was that the uncertainty was
| resolved.
|
| > But the entire purpose of a system of laws and the courts
| is to match the ambiguity of the rules to the complexity of
| life.
|
| The entire purpose of a system of laws and the courts is to
| let what the law actually says happen unless the balance of
| political power strongly favors something else happening,
| in which case the other thing happens and a justification
| gets retconned by the judge.
|
| We all know how big corporations work. They have a big book
| of rules that nobody reads and therefore everybody violates
| continuously. Then if anybody screws up or becomes
| disfavored, management opens up the book to see which
| rule(s) they violated so they can be punished or fired for
| cause. It's the same thing that happens with laws and
| prosecutors.
|
| It works the same way whether the reason they're getting
| fired was the same as the rule they violated or not. It's
| that way on purpose because it makes it easy for management
| to fire someone for things they're not allowed to prohibit,
| by finding something the target did which they are allowed
| to prohibit.
|
| But that still doesn't tell you which thing it was in a
| particular case, and a judge doesn't have any good way of
| knowing that either. Probably the best you could do is look
| at whether there were a lot of other people breaking the
| rules, but everybody else has the incentive to conceal that
| because anybody who admits to breaking the rules would be
| subject to firing as well, which the company would have the
| incentive to do both to show that they're being consistent
| and to punish anyone who admits that breaking the rules is
| common.
|
| The ambiguity was created on purpose, but that doesn't make
| it easy to resolve.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I don't understand, did you read the article? The
| ambiguity was resolved. The board ruled against Amazon.
| It's just you left arguing some absurd "what if".
| warent wrote:
| > "One day I'm working extra hard and the supervisor just stopped
| me after I took a quick break and kept saying, 'Smith, go back to
| work, go back to work,'" Smith said. "I'm thinking, I'm over
| here, hot, about to faint, working extra hard."
|
| Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and feel
| anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty behavior and
| Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like this. Hope
| Daequan gets a massive settlement.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and
| feel anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty
| behavior and Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like
| this. Hope Daequan gets a massive settlement.
|
| Because from their perspective, things don't look like that.
| From their point of view, it probably goes something like this:
| "The worker is supposed to work extra hard, but now they are
| resting, AGAIN! Now I'm gonna say something so they finally
| start working again" without considering any other perspective
| about situations.
|
| It's really hard to read people without speaking to them, and
| most middle-managers just try to read people even though most
| people are honestly pretty shit at doing that, so they misread
| situations all the time.
|
| In this particular scenario, notice it says "I'm thinking..."
| instead of "I said...". Not sure why they didn't tell their
| supervisor "I'm hot and about to faint", but knowing the
| average supervisor at Amazon, I do understand why you wouldn't
| talk about it.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Sometimes what those kind of managers need is a complete
| unnegotiable refusal. They behave abusive because they think
| it's worth their time, to challenge reality by fighting your
| perception. Make that worth less than nothing. CYA can be
| problematic though.
| vanusa wrote:
| _From their point of view, it probably goes something like
| this: "The worker is supposed to work extra hard, but now
| they are resting, AGAIN! Now I'm gonna say something so they
| finally start working again" without considering any other
| perspective about situations._
|
| "Because Amazon never trained me in the basics of my job as a
| supervisor. Which is to understand obvious the fact in order
| for our workers to be sustainably productive, they need to
| take healthy rest breaks now and then -- especially during
| crunch time. Otherwise Amazon will lose. And because whatever
| natural sense of intuition I may have had about these issues
| was thoroughly beaten out of me by the time I got through all
| that Core Values training they made us do."
| geofft wrote:
| But... isn't that the job of a manager?
|
| As an SRE it's my job to make sure the computers I'm
| responsible for are working properly, and to actively pay
| attention and gather information about whether that's true.
| If there's too much load on the site for our current set of
| servers to handle, even if it's not my job to actually order
| more, it's certainly my job to say something to the people
| who can. If we're okay now but we won't be in a month, that's
| also my job. And if a disk fills up on a server and it stops
| working, "Oh, I wasn't monitoring disk space, and the program
| never logged anything" is no excuse. Nor is it an excuse that
| I'm not good at guessing what problems are likely to happen;
| that, also, is my job and why they look for people with
| experience doing this job successfully.
|
| Isn't there _all the more reason_ that someone whose job is
| looking after people and not computers should figure out if
| they 're overworked or about to be overworked and if they're
| in comfortable, humane conditions?
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| 100%.
|
| And if the manager is competent and actually does this,
| then he probably will end up managing something more
| important than Amazon warehouses. Don't underestimate the
| mediocrity and pettiness of the people who end up in charge
| of petty things.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| I'm not at all surprised that an overworked employee wouldn't
| talk back to their unreasonable boss. They need their next
| paycheck to eat and pay rent, and they don't want to risk
| getting immediately fired for "insubordination", or whatever
| other bullshit a power hungry sociopath might pull out of
| their ass in retaliation.
| trhway wrote:
| I have always told such managers to eat sh1t right there. Never
| had any repercussions, they need us more. We can do the work,
| they can't.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I'm guessing you have some specialised skill and are
| difficult to replace? For someone unskilled, that's a one way
| ticket to never getting a shift again.
| trhway wrote:
| No, i just do my work, whatever it is, starting from summer
| work in collective farm fields after 6th grade back in the
| 1985, construction in 1987, Navy yards in 1988,
| construction during University summers 90-92, and various
| programming gigs starting 90. At any place, including very
| good paying job in Western company in 1999 in Russia with
| the crisis around, any attempts by the management to
| arbitrarily tighten the screws - i'd visibly and
| prominently challenge and object to it, and few times it
| would be i'd really be ready to leave. The management would
| always back down. We are all pretty much aware what things
| are reasonable and what aren't, and taking unreasonable
| position is what makes you already half-lost whatever side
| you're on.
| it_does_follow wrote:
| I once lead a team through a massive layoff during the
| pandemic, fought with leadership to save their jobs (and
| succeeded), and focused on making sure their work was balanced
| enough to keep them distracted from what was going on but not a
| source of stress. My top priority was to ensure that they did
| not suffer undue stress during the incredibly difficult period
| of early pandemic coupled with layoffs, focused on making their
| work as meaningful as possible for them. We still posted some
| record revenue months.
|
| I was fired for this, ultimately because I was not aggressive
| enough with the team.
|
| You get toxic managers like this in toxic companies because it
| is the only way to not only get promoted but to survive. I
| recognized early in the pandemic that I could either be the
| person I wanted to be, the leader I wanted to be, or have a job
| in 6 months. I chose the former, but don't blame people who are
| forced to choose the latter.
|
| edit: I should clarify that I do mean _forced_ to choose the
| latter in that last sentence. There is a difference between a
| 30k /year worker being moved to a 45k/year manager role and
| needing to keep that job to survive and a 200k/year software
| engineer choosing to behave this way for a 250k/year job.
| luckydata wrote:
| I do blame them. Until we have stronger labor movement in
| this country we'll be at the mercy of this stuff, no matter
| how "special" or irreplaceable you think you are.
| pg_1234 wrote:
| This ... and as to blame ... at some point you have to
| admit the managers are just being evil for the money.
| [deleted]
| MilnerRoute wrote:
| Here's a URL for the quote. (It's from an article headlined "A
| Homeless Amazon Worker Tried to Organize a Union. Then Amazon
| Fired Him.")
|
| https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker...
| to11mtm wrote:
| I worked for a guy like that once.
|
| I was already under so much stress from work that I had part of
| my intestines bind up for a week, the doctors couldn't figure
| out what was wrong with me so they decided to give me
| predinsone... I felt sick so I went home on a Saturday, after
| 'only' hitting 50 hours for the week. My boss called to yell at
| me and tell me to come back to work, the next thing I clearly
| remember was being in a hospital.
|
| I still had to work for that POS for 2 years after that
| happened. For a long time I blamed myself, until a year and
| half later when my mother was within an inch of life in the
| hospital and I wanted to leave early and see her, he said
| "Didn't I already give you a day off for that?"
|
| As for what kind of person that is? Narccists. And they can be
| very damaging to their employees if they aren't rooted out from
| management quickly.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "And they can be very damaging to their employees if they
| aren't rooted out from management quickly."
|
| But they can be very useful to burn through people to get
| shit done and raise profits short term. A timemachine would
| be interesting, to compare different times and see whether
| narcism is deep rooted in our genetics, or if it is our
| culture that promotes them .
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| A deliberate strategy of employee burnout and high turnover
| isn't necessarily only viable in the short term, especially
| if the work is menial such that there's little time
| invested in onboarding.
| biohax2015 wrote:
| Narcissists make excellent executives but terrible
| managers.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I had a fairly similar physical reaction to overwork,
| interestingly. Thankfully an ER tech took a bit of extra time
| to ask me if my stress levels had changed recently. This led
| to rapid re-evaluation of my life choices, and me quitting
| shortly afterwards.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| AFAIC, there is almost no condition for which the right
| treatment is "prednisone." If you want to get terrified,
| search on "side effects of prednisone"
|
| The vet gave me that once for my dog's itchy paws. I refused
| to give it to him.
| kwantam wrote:
| Are you a doctor? Are you a veterinarian? If no, how likely
| do you believe it is that you are better informed than a
| trained professional after a web search for side effects?
|
| Prednisone is on the WHO's list of essential medicines. It
| a vital drug for, among other things, cases where immune
| activity needs to be modified. The fact that it can be
| dangerous when misused is not in any way evidence that it
| should never be used.
|
| Put simply, your stance is anti-science. I hope that you
| will reconsider it. Whether or not you do, I hope that no
| one reading your comment puts any weight on your opinion,
| which is not grounded in fact or knowledge.
| twofornone wrote:
| >how likely do you believe it is that you are better
| informed than a trained professional after a web search
| for side effects
|
| How much "training" do you think doctors get with respect
| to the thousands of drugs that they may prescribe?
| Doctors are almost all specialists, and read the same
| side effects labels (or google them these days) that you
| do. You are not required to rely exclusively on your
| doctor's risk/benefit analysis for a given prescription.
| Furthermore, as the commenter pointed out in his example,
| often times doctors simply do not know what is causing a
| problem and will throw drugs at it - a lot of medicine is
| guesswork.
|
| >Prednisone is on the WHO's list of essential medicines
|
| Which says nothing about its side effect profile
|
| >The fact that it can be dangerous when misused is not in
| any way evidence that it should never be used.
|
| Drugs have side effects even when not misused.
|
| >Put simply, your stance is anti-science. I hope that you
| will reconsider it. Whether or not you do, I hope that no
| one reading your comment puts any weight on your opinion,
| which is not grounded in fact or knowledge.
|
| Not treating a doctor's word as gospel truth is hardly
| "anti-science" - on the contrary, blind faith is anti-
| science. And what is researching a drug's side effect
| profile if not grounding oneself in "fact or knowledge"?
|
| Doctors make mistakes. Not proactively sanity checking
| their treatments is irresponsible when you have the same
| resources that they do.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Pred is a pretty amazing drug, it has helped my kid through
| an allergic reaction and my pets survive years past when
| they would've otherwise expired.
|
| Try getting medical care for someone allergic to pred and
| watch how confounded the doctors are how to proceed.
| tylersmith wrote:
| I avoided back surgery and regained the ability to stand
| without pain after 2 prednisone epidurals. There certainly
| were some unpleasant side effects, but I was warned about
| the potential for them and they were far more mild than the
| condition that was relieved.
| keyanp wrote:
| It's often used as a short term medication for aggressive
| gastrointestinal inflammation:
| https://www.massgeneral.org/children/inflammatory-bowel-
| dise...
| Animats wrote:
| "Unprecedented wave of activism", right. Workers have been kept
| down so long that nobody knows labor history any more.[1]
|
| [1] https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-
| history/februa...
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| Just like how most people think we always worked 40 hours per
| week throughout human history.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| well relative to the past 10 years not what happened many many
| decades ago
| [deleted]
| qualifiedai wrote:
| do not hire activists in the first place
| idop wrote:
| He wasn't an "activist" before joining Amazon. He was homeless.
| Cort3z wrote:
| The amount of popups and overlays on this webpage is out of
| control to a degrees that I simply left before ever getting to
| the content.
| mef wrote:
| https://archive.ph/GjnfJ
| jtbayly wrote:
| Thanks. Any idea why sometimes these links just put me on a
| reCaptcha loop? It's not me failing the reCaptcha. I get
| accepted as a human and then get the same "One more step" page
| again.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Ironic that a scraper bot doesn't want bots accessing its
| site.
| dundarious wrote:
| Apple Private Relay always leads to a loop for me. Mozilla
| VPN (presumably Mullvad as well) does not.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Thanks, that seems like the most likely, as I have it
| turned on.
| e4e78a06 wrote:
| I've had these problems when I have uBlock Origin + a news
| paywall bypass plugin enabled. I'm guessing something to do
| with cookies being wiped or scripts being blocked is the
| issue.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| It's almost certainly a broken implementation.
|
| I have no idea here but, as an example, I'd expect the
| behaviour you describe if someone tried to mix Recaptcha V2
| and Recaptcha V3. They might get a score from V3 and, if that
| score is low, they challenge with V2 as an "escape hatch" to
| prove you're not a bot. But then they might have messed it up
| and redirect you back to a V3 check which still gets a low
| score. Cycle repeats.
|
| In fact, they may well be testing an upgrade from V2 to V3
| which could behave the same if they test both at once instead
| of A/B test.
|
| This is pure speculation. Probably 100 other ways they can
| mess it up.
| kepler1 wrote:
| Does anyone else find scant/zero information in this article
| about what exactly the circumstances of this worker's case is?
|
| The story goes on and on about the general topic on other Amazon-
| related labor recent news, but I find that the total information
| about this specific case in this article is approximately 1
| sentence.
|
| What did the worker do, what did Amazon do? 0 information. Not a
| lot of journalistic content for a "Bloomberg Equality" desk.
| avs733 wrote:
| two reasons...
|
| 1) It's a bloomberg article, their style is short and to the
| point, their goal is the outcome. They would rather be first
| and concise than thorough.
|
| 2) The bloomberg article is about the finding about the
| complaint not the details of the complaint.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| The details aren't important. You just need to know the
| narrative: "Amazon = bad because capitalism = bad."
| deltree7 wrote:
| It's just another hit piece to stay in relevance.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| A very long time ago, someone said something that's stuck with
| me:
|
| Some companies are good to invest in. Some are good to be a
| customer of. Some are good to work for. But very few companies
| are all three.
|
| Amazon's definitely not the last of those three.
| biohax2015 wrote:
| Costco is all three!
| kortilla wrote:
| Not so much on the investment side. https://www.google.com/fi
| nance/quote/COST:NASDAQ?comparison=...
| tyingq wrote:
| Apparently the activist is homeless:
| https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker...
|
| And _"[NLRB] will issue a complaint if the case does not settle"_
| sounds like some nice leverage to have.
| worker767424 wrote:
| I get that employees have the right to organize, but this guy
| was recently out of prison, living in a shelter, and his last
| job was a transitional job cleaning up trash by the freeway.
| You have to understand that when you organize, you're painting
| a target on your back. The guy just finished a prison sentence
| for robbery. Shut up and keep your head down. Let the middle
| class kids without police records do the organizing. Not saying
| this is OK or right, but it's the reality of the situation.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I'll even go a step further and say that if you've made a
| number of objectively bad major decisions in your life, I
| think it's worth spending a _long while_ reflecting on your
| decision making process, rather than just keep taking swings
| like this guy seems to be doing.
| luma wrote:
| What have all those other good decision makers done to
| improve this man's lot? What exactly should he be waiting
| for?
|
| Reasonable people acting reasonably is how we got to where
| we are, and there are a lot of people who aren't happy with
| the results. I'm sure you would like those people to remain
| calm, but I don't know that it's wise to expect that they
| will continue doing so forever.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I don't want anyone to remain calm or wait, I've read MLK
| too much to think that's a good idea, but I do I want
| this specific convicted felon to reflect on his decision
| making for a while before continuing to react as he does,
| because he's clearly not getting the outcomes he wants
| for himself.
| tyingq wrote:
| An alternative view is that a guy recently out of prison
| still found Amazon's working conditions bad enough to
| become an activist.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I think he would have found something to be upset about
| regardless of what he did.
| worker767424 wrote:
| It's really hard to say because the article limited it to
| this:
|
| > During his second week at Amazon, Smith was approached
| by workers involved in organizing the Amazon Labor Union.
| Although Smith loved his job, he thought there were
| things that could be improved. In particular, he said, he
| was concerned about the warehouse's extremely rapid pace
| of work and lack of breaks.
| tyingq wrote:
| The article I linked to has lots more detail and direct
| quotes from Smith.
|
| https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-
| worker...
| worker767424 wrote:
| Not many others from him on his issues with work
| conditions (there were others from other people about
| Amazon). He actually contradicts himself. This is him
| describing alleged intimidation after he because active
| in the union (emphasis added):
|
| > _Everyone else working around me was working at their
| own pace_ and he was just on me sending me more carts to
| sort and telling me to work faster
|
| One reason he gave for joining the union was "the
| warehouse's extremely rapid pace of work."
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Yes, exactly, People need to know their place in society.
| Who knows what would happen if we give everyone a voice and
| allow all these freedoms to roam around. This guy should be
| kissing Bezos's feet for giving him the OPPORTUNITY to
| work. Tired of reading about all these 'bad major
| decisions' people getting involved in activism. Please let
| me know when the lacoste prep school bros organize, none of
| this deplorables bullshit.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Nowhere did I say _this_ was a major bad decision in his
| life, I was, of course, referring to the robbery he was
| convicted of...
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Are you hoping that he'll read this and somehow see the light
| or are you trying to paint the picture that he has fewer
| rights than someone without a beat up past?
| worker767424 wrote:
| He has the same rights on paper, but that's not how it
| works. Say "it's not fair" all you want, but if you screw
| over society, society isn't going to trust you the same way
| as someone with a clear record, and you're going to have to
| prove yourself. I obviously know he's not going to read
| this, but he doesn't strike me as a reliable source of
| information either, so I'm just not too concerned with what
| happened.
| jkestner wrote:
| Think he did more than say "It's not fair." The law was
| on his side and he had it enforced. May we all be so
| brave.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Do these complaints have any kind of teeth? I feel bad for the
| workers, especially the one mentioned. It's of little comfort
| to a homeless person to have their complaints upheld if it
| doesn't result in a change in their material circumstances.
| tyingq wrote:
| They can force compliance with an order, but no power for
| punitive awards, fines, etc. So basically they can force
| giving the job back with back pay.
|
| If I were this particular worker, knowing the NLRB will force
| at least that, I would ask for something much higher to
| settle. Though I suppose if you're homeless, you may not have
| that option to wait.
| kadoban wrote:
| They have some teeth, yeah. Not enough that Amazon won't do
| similar things again though, I'm sure.
|
| Back pay and reinstatement are possible outcomes (in general
| for complaints, tbh I have no idea for this one), so it could
| have a real effect on the wronged.
| pandemicsoul wrote:
| It always amazes me, in situations like this, that people just
| end up suffering even though the machine is "working on their
| behalf." Like, I used to have this idea - I have no idea where
| it came from - that if a crime happened to you, the government
| would step in and help you. Like, if your family member is
| murdered in your home, they'd come in and clean it up and help
| you fix the door since you'll be inconsolable. Or, if you get
| fired for something like this that the government would help
| you get back on your feet and make sure you have a place to
| stay and pay your bills. How utterly childish and naive that
| was.
|
| This country has no safety net and that's terrifying.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| selestify wrote:
| I grew up with that sort of trust in authority too. Somewhere
| along the line -- I'm not sure exactly where -- that trust
| evaporated.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > How utterly childish and naive that was.
|
| It's not childish. It's a totally reasonable expectation of
| how the world should work. Don't pass that off as childish,
| instead ask why the government is failing to meet its most
| basic obligations.
|
| It's only naive because the government has totally failed the
| people. There's no reason (other than a system designed to
| protect the interests of the wealthy instead of the needy)
| that it works this way. We should forge a world where such
| expectations aren't naive.
| [deleted]
| codewithcheese wrote:
| In some countries there is victim of crime compensation. I
| don't know if it's timely enough to stop one becoming
| homeless.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > This country has no safety net and that's terrifying.
|
| No safety net whatsoever?
| macintux wrote:
| A thin one with gaping holes and a pile of corpses beneath
| it.
| nightski wrote:
| Many people have a pretty strong safety net in their family
| and friends. I've been there for family members in tough
| spots and take a lot of comfort in knowing my immediate
| family would be there for me if I was in dire straights.
|
| It is terrifying and unfortunate for those who do not have
| that luxury though, and strong local communities can help
| there. We need to do a more. But I think in all cases where I
| have the option I'd prefer to rely on those close to me than
| the government.
|
| But it also emphasizes how much impact one can have just
| helping those in need directly instead of complaining about
| how crappy the government is.
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