[HN Gopher] Amazon workers at 100 more facilities want to unioni...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon workers at 100 more facilities want to unionize: Amazon
Labor Union
Author : guerrilla
Score : 283 points
Date : 2022-04-12 15:55 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (finance.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (finance.yahoo.com)
| whiddershins wrote:
| I wonder how all of this will affect the seasonal workers who
| depend on the Amazon work in the fall.
|
| The movie Nomadland is an amazing portrayal of the lifestyle and
| concerns of a community that is connected to Amazon workers, but
| afaict could find themselves losing out if the warehouses are all
| union.
| cumwolf wrote:
| UPS workers are unionized and they never seem to have a
| shortage of seasonal employees
| johnNumen wrote:
| Correct, parent comment is confused. UPS hires many seasonal
| employees, and even pays higher wages during the holiday
| season to all workers (Union and seasonal). After the
| holidays if the facility has need for more workers, some of
| the seasonal workers are offered permanent employment, after
| which time they become part of the Union.
| tibbon wrote:
| Many HVAC employees are unionized too; and rarely have a
| shortage in the winter.
| Wohlf wrote:
| HVAC work isn't that seasonal, emergency repairs are but
| installations happen in the warm months to offset it.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > HVAC work isn't that seasonal
|
| It's not seasonal at all and HVAC shops are far more
| comprehensive than just Heating/Cooling. V is for
| ventilation so any ventilation system consisting of
| blowers, fans and ducting is included. Air Conditioning
| is understood to be cooling but those systems range from
| window units to massive chiller systems. They can also
| service refrigeration systems for commercial and
| industrial use.
|
| At work we had an out of warranty water chiller for a
| laser break down so we called our HVAC guys who found the
| leak, patched it and recharged the system same day.
| [deleted]
| SettembreNero wrote:
| Great for the workers, who seem to want this very much.
|
| One thing tho: according to many comments in this thread, unions
| are obviously and without any doubt bad. I wonder why so much
| money goes to union busting agencies then
| 6510 wrote:
| To save you from the evil union.
| Melatonic wrote:
| There has been a ton of very successful anti-Union propaganda
| done by big corp in the past 40 years
| whatshisface wrote:
| The hard part for these unions still lies ahead: negotiating with
| Amazon and demonstrating their ability to organize strikes if
| necessary.
| nimbius wrote:
| not necessarily. a large enough (100 warehouse) union presence
| would have the same effect that coal unions had in great
| britain in the sixties.
|
| Just the threat of a strike would be enough to send your stock
| to the barbers chair for the week. Suppliers would be reluctant
| to extend long lines of credit to you during a threat, and your
| contract network of logistics would likely concentrate efforts
| to diversify from you in the nearterm.
|
| the very real (and scary) outcome from the unionization of
| Amazon is that it will spill into other sectors that have spent
| the last four decades crushed under boot, namely trucking and
| logistics.
|
| EDIT: the reason i believe unionization of the trucking
| industry is scary is that most logistics companies have
| operated for so long as bath-faith actors with impunity, they
| no longer have any experience or knowledge of how to properly
| negotiate a union contact in the face of a strike. In that they
| have become so divorced from the reality of fair labor
| practices, a strike is almost certain to occur and while labor
| demands may be reasonable, the response from entrenched
| corporate interest is likely to be petulant and childish.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The presence of a union does not threaten anything unless
| everyone believes they could strike if they wanted to. That
| remains to be seen especially when the union is not
| integrated with a giant national network that can ameliorate
| financial hardships in one place with dues in another, and
| the union is new.
| Cerium wrote:
| Why is it scary that people get out from under the boot?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| I assume you mean that this is scary _for Amazon_? Because it
| sure doesn 't sound scary for the workers.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Scary for consumers
| kennywinker wrote:
| There has never been a better time for consumers to show
| solidarity with the workers that provide them with goods
| and services than now. The threat of widespread streaming
| subscription cancellations seems to have been a great
| help to IATSE during their recent negotiations - I hope
| to see more of that type of action / threatened action
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| My answer was in regards to practicalities, not political
| aspirations. Your answer is projecting a political
| struggle unrelated to my comment.
|
| Strikes impact businesses that supply goods and services
| to consumers. They have impact, and it's this impact that
| gives them power.
|
| If there wasn't an impact on businesses and consumers
| then they wouldn't be scary. If your political leanings
| are pro-worker then you probably agree and are happy that
| a strike is a scary prospect for consumers. Otherwise the
| strikes could be ignored.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I think the thing I'm saying is that consumers and
| workers are effectively the same group. Trying to
| separate "consumer" concerns from "worker" concerns is at
| least as political an idea as suggesting they should
| welcome a chance to show solidarity.
| tantalor wrote:
| Isn't the hard part making sure the strike can't be broken?
|
| Amazon can train these workers very quickly (i.e. 1 day) so it
| should not be very hard to restaff a whole warehouse.
| marnett wrote:
| What if the bottleneck of restaffing isn't training time but
| available labor pool? If Middle America Town #4 already has a
| majority of the young, able bodied labor force employed by
| Amazon then Amazon's leverage is heavily reduced; there may
| not be enough people to restaff.
| alistairSH wrote:
| But the fulfillment centers aren't all that remote.
|
| Assuming the list posted here [1] is accurate, they tend to
| be located on the outskirts of cities. Looking at Virginia
| (where I live), the only one that I'd really consider rural
| is Clear Brook, but these days, that's effectively a DC
| suburb, with plenty of potential workers in nearby
| Winchester VA, Hagerstown MD, and the I-81 corridor.
|
| 1 - https://fba.help/list-of-amazon-fulfillment-centers
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Historically companies would bus workers in to break
| strikes.
|
| But anyway these warehouses are near a lot of people
| (because otherwise... why have the warehouse?)
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Amazon is burning through workers like matchsticks. Close to
| no more matches.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Are they though? If Amazon wanted to stick it to the
| Unions, they could offer similar terms to the new scab
| workers and not to the striking union members.
| ddingus wrote:
| I am personally happy to see this. I think it's necessary, and
| we've got a whole lot of people out there that really do need
| better conditions and better compensation.
| willnonya wrote:
| Amazon warehouses are one of the few instances where unionization
| makes sense in the 21st century. The problem with this isn't
| unionization itself but the trend in unions toward damaging their
| employers more than protecting the workers. The common portrayal
| of unions as good and corporations as evil is over simplistic and
| often backwards.
|
| I've seen good unions and I've seen bad ones, I don't know which
| this is yet.
| jollybean wrote:
| For the first little while, almost no matter what, this is a
| 'good union' because the mere existence of it is positive.
|
| But yes, they can go awry quickly enough.
|
| But even if they screw it up, and even if they are dissolved,
| they may very well have succeeded in moving the needle on a
| bunch of critical things.
|
| It'd be great to see them take on Walmart.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > the trend in unions toward damaging their employers more than
| protecting the workers
|
| Is this an established trend? How might I go about observing
| this?
|
| > I've seen good unions and I've seen bad ones, I don't know
| which this is yet.
|
| I've seen good FUD and bad FUD. I don't know which one this is
| yet.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The longshoremen forcing inefficient business practices for
| job protection is one good example. They have policies like
| requiring a three man crew in a crane that has enough
| automation to run on two and refusal to use electronic
| devices to manage containers.
| MisterSandman wrote:
| FUD?
| daverol wrote:
| "fear, uncertainty, and doubt"
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" The common portrayal of unions as good and corporations as
| evil is over simplistic and often backwards."_
|
| The common portrayal (at least in the US) is that unions are
| evil.
|
| That's why American unions and union activity have been almost
| completely squashed in the US for decades now.
|
| This sentiment is starting to change a bit as people are
| finally starting to wake up to the massive inequality in this
| country and the enormous wealth and power of corporations and
| the oligarchs who control them vs the barely subsistence
| existence of the ever growing lower classes.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" almost completely squashed in the US for decades now"_
|
| I'm confused by this. There are many notable large workgroups
| in the US with powerful unions. Police, for example. Pilots,
| Teachers, etc.
| brimble wrote:
| Teachers' union power varies a ton state-by-state. In mine,
| both our regional union and the NEA either can't, or choose
| not to, do anything, really, including in cases of blatant
| contract violations. I don't think they're allowed to
| negotiate those contracts in the first place, either.
| robert_foss wrote:
| American laws around unions are very weak compared to other
| countries.
|
| Sympathy / Support strikes by neighboring unions are not
| legal for example. This was what allowed unions to prevail at
| McDonalds in Denmark.
|
| Yes, flipping burgers at McD is a union job Denmark. The
| BigMac index of Denmark is 4.4, compared to 5.67 in America.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well phrased differently, laws around unions are strong but
| they are strong in how they limit the power of unions.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _> Sympathy / Support strikes by neighboring unions are
| not legal for example._
|
| I don't understand why union members just don't break the
| law and strike anyway.
|
| A lot of the protests during the Civil Rights struggle in
| America were illegal (and were met with lethal force, dogs,
| firehoses, etc..) yet the people still protested... and
| prevailed.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| This is not backed up by any data, so I welcome being
| rebuked, but my gut feeling is that those people were
| worse off than the ones who are unionized today, so the
| risks were worth it. Perhaps today the calculus yields a
| different outcome.
| flurie wrote:
| The monumental failure of the PATCO strike[1] has had
| lingering effects that continue through today.
|
| [1] https://libraries.uta.edu/news-
| events/blog/1981-patco-strike
| rayiner wrote:
| It doesn't help that the unions have turned themselves into
| mere adjuncts of the Democratic Party, which now is run by
| the senior executive leadership of those corporations.
| mc32 wrote:
| Wait, where and in what circumstance are they portrayed as
| evil?
|
| The main place I see them presented as backwards and
| unproductive is by common folk dealing with them and some
| business owners who also resent a lot of the inefficiency.
|
| But 'portrayed as evil' seems to try to say that in the media
| and cinema, etc., they are portrayed as evil ... that's not
| my experience. My experience is on the ground common folk
| talk smack about them.
|
| That said, if we get Unions to do the job of the Feds (FTC)
| and contribute to dragging them down via inefficiency a
| couple of notches allowing competition to viably compete, I'm
| all for it.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| There is substantial lobbying and corporate media effort
| that goes into suppressing and silencing talk about unions
| and spreading bad sentiment wherever possible. This happens
| even at schools with young children.
| mc32 wrote:
| No one, well, with exceptions, claims that schools are
| not indoctrinating kids.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > business owners who also resent a lot of the inefficiency
|
| The heirs who do not work but expropiate dividends of
| profits from those who do talking about inefficiency is a
| laugh.
|
| Why should the worker's creating the wealth care what the
| idle class owners think?
| mc32 wrote:
| I'm talking mostly small shops --not generational wealth
| that you imagine.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Thinking of business owners as only wealthy heirs is a
| laugh.
| pempem wrote:
| Small businesses are not usually hiring union busters for
| multiple hundreds/hour.
|
| We could discuss this within for example the restaurant
| industry, and that could be interesting but AMZ does not
| fit the 'no generational wealth, just some business
| owners' rhetoric.
|
| For restaurants what we find is incredibly thin margins
| being covered up by exploitation of the lowest rung
| rather than adjusting of prices, efficiencies in supply
| chain, focused menus, etc.
| akhmatova wrote:
| _My experience is on the ground common folk talk smack
| about them._
|
| You just answered your own question. "Evil" is of course
| overdrawn.
|
| But there is a common perception that they are ineffective,
| outdated and/or just don't do much in exchange for the
| money that goes to them. And in some case outright corrupt.
| Buttressed in some cases by the fact that high-ranking
| union leadership roles come with comparatively very
| comfortable salaries (compared to those they are
| representing).
|
| Which steroetypes nearly all these companies (such as
| Amazon) make aggressive use of in their internal smear
| campaigns (it's the primary tool that they have,
| basically).
| mc32 wrote:
| The common man and woman having a bad opinion about
| something is not a concerted or framed _PORTRAYAL_.
| That's the common take, opinion, the reality, rather than
| a portrayal (as implied). So? lots of common folk think
| of unions as overall having a negative impact --that's
| grass roots.
| vmception wrote:
| At a different time in my career, my view of the available
| unions were that they had the most unambitious people
| desparately co-dependent on their marriage to a job for
| life in the most nepotistic way and it would have been 10%
| of my paycheck for nothing. I was earlier in my career,
| making less and that 10% would have been much more
| consequential compared to when I would theoretically be
| making a comfortable amount due to the union in perhaps 20
| years. Except my timeline of working for someone else
| didn't involve 20 years, or not 20 consecutive years, and
| not out of necessity. So far, this was an accurate
| assessment.
|
| The higher paying jobs I was pursuing didn't have a union
| at all _and_ I wouldn 't have to pay that supposed 10%
| either (or whatever the union dues really are), and I
| didn't plan on being in any particular high paying job for
| more than 1-2 years before hopping for an even higher
| paying job, and there is no such thing as pensions or long
| term benefits from being married to a job, so the
| association for me was blue collar worker unnecessarily
| milking a system. It wasn't relatable to me at all, and not
| relatable or relevant to my perception of the tools
| available to me in the world, or my ambitions. "Ambitions"
| only when looking through the lens of the comfortable-
| enough lifelong 9-5'ers that were surrounding me at the
| time, until I could finally switch up my surroundings. So
| far thats been an accurate assessment of unions as well as
| how my career would go, even though my view is much more
| pro-union now.
|
| The correlation of who joins unions is still _heavily_
| there, but I recognize it doesn 't have to be and can
| include even highly paid software engineers given the size
| of the organizations they work for now (multiple multi-
| _trillion_ dollar company, really?), although even these
| new union pushes are just on the blue collar side. Thats
| just how its panned out, for now.
|
| Regardless that was just on the seemingly desperate-than-
| other worker side, on the "evil union" side, it was also
| reinforced by examples where the union tried something that
| didn't benefit employees at all. Like when the union tried
| to get wages raised at some cereal company but it was too
| much and the company just declared bankruptcy, firing
| 30,000+ people. It was like how out of touch was the union
| on the health of the company, and all the employees were
| also this out of touch too? Or maybe all 30,000 weren't out
| of touch but just had to toe the party line? But even the
| non-union workers were effected in this mass layoff because
| now nobody is employed! Sure, even if it was some vulture
| private equity firm playing all the fiddles, it just
| reinforced how powerless the unions actually were. All
| perceptions leading to the conclusion of "irrelevance of an
| annoying gang".
|
| Anyway, my view has evolved substantially on this. I'm in
| favor of some future form of collective organization and
| collective bargaining of even highly-paid, job-hopping,
| white collar personnel. I feel like there was a time period
| where I wouldn't even need that distinction. I want this
| collective organization to have a board seat or two with
| some forms of employer, by law. But I've basically gone
| from one extreme to another extreme (unless my view catches
| on, of course).
| mc32 wrote:
| This was my experience with Unions as well.
|
| It fomented nepotism and all sorts of other "land grabs"
| where people would be on a wait list and their plan was
| to get in, stay in and coast the rest of the time like
| the other senior Union members.
|
| This does not deny that they may be a necessary
| inefficiency in some industries and that in the past they
| did contribute to better labor conditions and are part of
| labor's patrimony, but are in many sectors of the economy
| anachronistic.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Why do you keep repeating the 10% if you admittedly don't
| know how much the union dues are?
|
| The average ANNUAL union dues are $400, or 2 hours of pay
| per month. [1]
|
| 1. https://anh.com/the-cost-of-
| unions/#:~:text=The%20average%20....
| vmception wrote:
| > if you admittedly don't know
|
| I'm repeating what I heard and now know that I don't
| trust hearsay
|
| This is a chronology of my experience, no more no less,
| as some people have a different experience, the person I
| responded to didnt even know some people had a negative
| view of unions, so its worthwhile to break down what
| people experience along with the hearsay they experience.
|
| This hearsay was a factor in my perception and decisions
| at the time.
| Guvante wrote:
| As you can see from this very topic the pros of unions tend
| to be ignored while the pain of them is repeated.
|
| Higher wages tend to be ignored as it is vague. Harder to
| fire is tainted by police unions protecting cops from their
| own actions.
|
| You end up with the benefits being vague and the problems
| being obvious. Dues are frustrating and any bad union
| leaders get tons of attention.
|
| For better or worse everyone tends to assume the things
| unions work for are a given. So the only real talking
| points become the bad things. Not that this is unique to
| unions lol.
| mc32 wrote:
| Not just police, but teachers unions are also well known
| for protecting bad teachers.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Public sector unions (police, teachers, etc) are a whole
| different animal. While they serve the same function for
| employees on paper, the politics and negotiations
| involved are different enough that they really should be
| a separate conversation.
|
| Both categories of unions have problems and benefits, but
| they don't overlap 100%.
| emidln wrote:
| Union protected programmers made me decide against
| pursuing a career doing tech for the Illinois EPA. It was
| impossible to get people who couldn't actually write
| software out of the way.
| mc32 wrote:
| Kind of an aside:
|
| Some time in the past I had a mildly critical system in a
| remote office go down. A technician would have to simply
| replace a part. However, because it required a Union guy
| to go in there to remove a screw first, it had to wait
| over the weekend --meaning the company now had to take
| modest losses over the weekend.
|
| The guy couldn't sneak in a screw driver as that could
| potentially end up costing the company more money.
|
| This is where unions earn some of their great reputation
| among stiffs.
| alistairSH wrote:
| On the flip side, the employer signed the same agreement
| as the union/employees. If the company valued weekend up-
| time, they could have negotiated a higher weekend rate to
| get a union guy in to fix the problem. The company
| prioritized low labor costs over uptime, so they're at
| least 50% to blame here.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| A union shop where no 30-year vet wanted to get a 4-hour
| minimum OT to drive out and unscrew a screw?
|
| Or the company didn't want to pay OT for it?
|
| I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is more
| likely.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Obviously both are true, by definition. The
| ridiculousness of the situation is not about the choices
| made by the technician and the company, but the fact that
| the guy that was already there was prohibited from using
| a screwdriver.
| mc32 wrote:
| The alternative is anyone who knows how to use a
| screwdriver could do it in 30-seconds.
|
| Talk about waste of resources, fuel, etc., etc.
|
| Oh, Oh, Oh! I know, if they let this one time slip HERE
| in THIS INSTANCE is where the SLIPPERY SLOPE applies,
| but, obviously no where else, especially in politics.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Apparently, that's not what the contract says. It says
| just certain job titles can do that work. So it sounds
| like thr alternative is to pay the OT, which is at the
| discretion of management.
| mc32 wrote:
| Ah, job titles... Awesome! Sorry, not my department --I
| could do it, but I'm not allowed to do it (shrug!)
|
| That attitude pervades the public sector an infuriates
| the people they are supposedly serving.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Reminds me of a teacher I know in a small town. Their
| school lost their sole librarian and the library was
| closed. The teacher volunteered to run the library so it
| could stay open. Union says it's not allowed, library
| stays closed.
| kazinator wrote:
| If the librarian was paid, the union's position makes a
| certain amount of sense.
|
| Also, the library is open during school hours, so does
| the teacher not teach during that time? The school has
| replaced the lost librarian but is effectively short a
| teacher now.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| The position was a paid one. I suppose the offer to keep
| it open by volunteering would have been worked around
| their class schedule and be at a reduced level of service
| compared to before. Still, it would have been open.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| >If the librarian was paid, the union's position makes a
| certain amount of sense.
|
| And who makes the hiring and firing decisions at this
| library anyway? The union is to blame for management not
| hiring a replacement?
| mc32 wrote:
| Screw it! Let's outlaw volunteerism, it obviously
| undercuts the labor market and that is not allowed.
| Volunteers are anti-labor capitalists disguised as goody
| two shoes serving the community.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| They're portrayed as evil in conservative media and by
| conservative politicians... which, as we know from Trump's
| election, are a hugely powerful and effective influence on
| American politics.
| mc32 wrote:
| So, not by the mainstream media, right? So in some
| circles they are portrayed in a bad light. I think it's
| an exaggeration to say they are (implied universally)
| portrayed as evil. My experience with regard to negative
| opinion against them is from people who have to interact
| with Union employees.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" So, not by the mainstream media, right?"_
|
| FOX News is the most successful news network in the US.
|
| It's very much in the mainstream.
| rayiner wrote:
| Fox is the single largest one, but all the other ones put
| together are left leaning and bigger combined than Fox.
| You're just making a point about consolidation in
| conservative media (okay?) not about the total impact of
| liberal versus conservative media.
| mc32 wrote:
| Great. And what is the frequency and ratio of their
| mentioning unions and unions _EVIL_?
| parineum wrote:
| > In prime time, Fox averaged 2.3 million viewers,
| including an average of 374,000 within the industry's
| coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic.
|
| Tallest dwarf.
|
| > between the final quarters of 2014 and 2020, paid
| subscribers to The New York Times' digital only news
| product increased from 910 thousand to over five million.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Thats really the wrong metric to look at. Yes they are
| the largest but the median age of their viewer base is 70
| years old. They are mainstream only in a few circles but
| don't really represent the mainstream of America. In fact
| along with MSNBC/CNN(median age 65) they have declining
| viewership numbers. This is why all these networks are
| making a big push(failing) into streaming.
| brimble wrote:
| They're also largely ignored by the supposedly-not-
| conservative parts of the media. You get a very different
| impression of unions (mainly, that they're not very
| active and/or barely exist) listening to NPR, versus
| Democracy Now.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Even MSNBC management made their workers jump through
| extra hoops to recognize their union. I continue to have
| no idea how people criticize the media as being "too
| liberal" with a straight face.
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/media/559028-msnbc-says-it-
| wont...
| mc32 wrote:
| This does not disprove anything.
|
| MSNBC and others look after their own interests. That
| interest can be at odds with their ideology. They do not
| have to be internally consistent.
|
| Bernie Sanders wants millionaires (and billionaires) to
| pay very high taxes after certain cutoff --all well and
| good. He's a millionaire, the IRS allows you to overpay
| or donate to the treasury, but despite his beliefs, he
| personally does not overpay his taxes.
|
| The Soviet Union believed in workers' rights, except when
| it came to strategic state enterprises. Same with regard
| to luxury --yes, they frowned upon luxuries for the
| masses, but they did have dedicated "department stores"
| for the elites.
| brimble wrote:
| > Bernie Sanders wants millionaires (and billionaires) to
| pay very high taxes after certain cutoff --all well and
| good. He's a millionaire, the IRS allows you to overpay
| or donate to the treasury, but despite his beliefs, he
| personally does not overpay his taxes.
|
| This is something folks love to bring up as if it's
| hypocrisy (see also: Warren Buffet, also literally any
| other prominent rich person who's called for higher
| taxes), but it can be completely consistent to think that
| a net benefit can be achieved by a _policy_ or _law_ that
| causes you (and others) a little harm, but to see
| voluntarily causing oneself that same harm _without_ the
| collective action to go along with it, as not doing
| enough good to be worth the harm.
|
| This behavior _could_ be some kind of indication that a
| person 's view is performative and they're in fact
| hypocrites who aren't serious about it-- _or_ it can
| indicate that they 've actually thought this through and
| came to a reasonable position, or that they simply took
| the right class or two in college so they know to look
| out for these kinds of dynamics (where individual action
| does so little it's basically pointless self-sacrifice,
| but collective action with the _exact same_ personal cost
| can be very effective).
| mc32 wrote:
| My point is that MSNBC might actually believe in Unions
| but out of self interest are unwilling to sacrifice
| themselves.
| brimble wrote:
| Ah, good point and basically in-line with what I was
| pointing out in my post. That is possible.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| How many Americans even know what _Democracy Now_ is
| (much less listen to it), compared to the millions of FOX
| News viewers?
|
| Probably next to none.
| brimble wrote:
| Yeah, totally, I'm reinforcing your point. Fox News and
| conservative AM radio (which has _many_ programs with a
| larger listenership than Democracy Now, I 'm sure), not
| to mention places like Breitbart or OAN, portray unions
| negatively or not at all, while other mainstreams sources
| mostly just ignore them. You've gotta go pretty fringe-
| left to find anything that treats labor action outside of
| maybe the AFL-CIO or a few Hollywood unions and guilds,
| as worth _consistently_ covering at all.
| brimble wrote:
| The Wire? A bunch of stuff mentioned here:
|
| https://dismantlemag.com/2018/12/03/sorry-bother-you-pro-
| uni...
|
| They're not portrayed a ton in pop culture to begin with,
| and when they are it's often bad.
| passivate wrote:
| >The common portrayal (at least in the US) is that unions are
| evil.
|
| >That's why American unions and union activity have been
| almost completely squashed in the US for decades now.
|
| But the public favourability hasn't declined (at-least as per
| this poll)
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/241679/labor-union-approval-
| ste...
| hardtke wrote:
| I'm not an expert, but there are several types of unions. The
| biggest distinction is public sector vs. private sector. Public
| sector unions have their own issues, but this would be a
| private sector union. Within private sector unions there are
| "factory" type unions and skilled worker unions (electricians,
| plumbers, etc.). In the case where you have a single "factory"
| in a town, the workers need to bargain together in order for
| wages/working conditions to not have a race to the bottom.
| Workers can't take their specific skills learned at the factory
| across the street and get similar pay since there is only one
| place to work. For skilled worker unions, the unions allow
| workers to float through various companies that have work while
| maintaining their pensions and wages (determined across the
| entire union hall based on seniority). Companies of course hate
| being forced to hire more senior workers at higher pay level
| when their productivity is not that much higher (or even less).
|
| A lot of the "bad" reputation with private sector unions likely
| originated with the corruption associated with the pension
| funds investing in shady deals. And we all have horror stories
| about bad teachers protected by the union or "lazy" workers.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Concerning unions I'm with Churchill, "Democracy is the worst
| form of government, except for all the others."
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| There's was a lot of manipulation of unions in the 20th century
| that I imagine contributed to things like this. I'm no expert
| but I know a huge change was the Taft-Hartley Act. This made a
| lot of significant changes, but one that I can think of is that
| it outlawed wildcat strikes, which are union strikes without
| the authorization of union leadership. This change would have
| the effect of centralizing union power, increasing bureaucracy
| and weakening the very idea of a union.
|
| So yes historically unions have been a mixed bag, but it is
| worth considering how much of the negative aspects of unions
| were created through changes to laws that ultimately destroyed
| unions (in the USA).
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
| legulere wrote:
| > but the trend in unions toward damaging their employers more
| than protecting the workers
|
| It's an American thing because of lax labour laws missing
| protections from being fired and missing social security.
|
| The company wants to close an unprofitable branch? The union
| prevents it, because the workers will fall into a hole when
| their job gets taken away.
|
| Currently in Germany Nordex is closing down a plant and the
| union is demanding that the plant is sold faster, so there will
| be new jobs for the workers.
| taeric wrote:
| This does feed in my odd weak union position. I feel that it
| is too close to folks not wanting to support local
| government. That is, I'd rather just have higher taxes and
| better social nets than some trades locking in dues to a
| national org.
|
| I don't know how to get that. So, I'm more likely to support
| unions. But I fear it moves further from the better answer.
| brundolf wrote:
| Unions are a mechanism for power, and anywhere there's power
| there will be those who would abuse it.
|
| _But_ , without unions the employer has a near-monopoly on the
| power in the relationship. I think it's generally an
| improvement to have two sources of power competing with each
| other - even if both are imperfect - instead of one source of
| power that's unilateral and unchecked.
| chernevik wrote:
| Until the management co-opts the union leadership, and then
| it's just another layer of bureaucracy
| VictorPath wrote:
| > damaging their employers
|
| How about corporations damaging unions?
|
| > The common portrayal of unions as good and corporations as
| evil is over simplistic and often backwards
|
| One has the workers who created the wealth keep the wealth they
| created, the other expropriates surplus labor time from
| workers, sending it off to the idle class heirs who inherited
| shares in the corporation.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| I agree amazon warehouses are one of the best use cases for
| unionization, but I also believe there is almost nowhere
| unionization doesn't make sense. Collective bargaining makes
| sense wherever there is a collective that is being exploited
| AKA wherever employment is happening in which the means of
| production aren't entirely controlled by the workforce.
| ryan93 wrote:
| I wonder if amazon will spin out AWS so that warehouse workers
| wont have access to its profits.
| satsuma wrote:
| probably not unless they're forced to. retail lost money for
| amazon until very recently -- aws was the only thing keeping
| amazon afloat for years and years
| mter wrote:
| Retail reinvests money into fcs so that the amazon moat grows
| bigger. Anyone wanting to challenge amazon for delivery has
| to spend tens/hundreds of billions and years to replicate the
| fc/delivery systems.
|
| AWS doesn't grow fast enough so they have revenue
|
| Turning a profit is a failure. The market loves the forever
| growth strategy.
| ejb999 wrote:
| which, I think, is the OP's point - if they spin off AWS,
| when they need to negotiate with the union then amazon won't
| look nearly as profitable as Amazon plus AWS: "hey we lost a
| billion dollars last year, we can't afford this contract".
|
| Wouldn't put it past them.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "put it past them"? Why wouldn't the right reference be
| "what portion of the company operations would be disrupted
| if the unionized labor went on strike?"
|
| If the warehouse workers go on strike and the profitable
| part of the business continues unimpeded, it seems like the
| retail/FC part of the business is the one that's at risk.
| paxys wrote:
| Would Amazon even be able to afford its AWS bills then?
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| I've seen the numbers while I worked at Amazon. Its
| interestingly AWS that can't lose Retail as a customer.
|
| Retail can very easily afford the AWS bill and is actually
| currently still getting ripped off by AWS. Retail really
| should build its own infra again (or at least use it as a
| negotiations tactic with AWS). It could easily save 90% of
| its infra spend if not stuck on AWS (including the internal
| rates it gets) right now.
| paxys wrote:
| Could get a better rate - maybe. Could save 90%? I don't
| believe that.
| kennywinker wrote:
| That sounds like they are manipulating the numbers to make
| retail seem less successful, and AWS more successful.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Why build their own, I bet GCP or Azure would give them a
| crazy good rate :P
| simulate-me wrote:
| Then Amazon the retail company also won't have access to the
| profits. Growing a retail business can be capital intensive.
| I'm not sure it makes sense to load up the retail portion of
| the business with debt just to avoid paying the workers.
| ProAm wrote:
| They can become a wholly owned subsidiary and still have
| access to profits.
| simulate-me wrote:
| AWS is already a wholly-owned subsidiary.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I really hope they do I'd much rather be invested in just AWS
| vs AWS and a logistics network.
| charcircuit wrote:
| It would be good for AWS employees because you don't have
| factory workers ruining your benefits due to nondiscrimination
| rules. Factory workers not paying into a 401k screws up
| everyone else in the company.
| kennywinker wrote:
| This is an expression of some terrible worker solidarity.
| Factory workers are not paying into the 401k because they're
| underpaid and living paycheck to paycheck. As a non-warehouse
| worker, you could be advocating for them to be lifted out of
| poverty so they can also participate in retirement savings
| like you, instead of advocating for severing the company into
| two classes of workers. You have more in common with a
| warehouse worker than with a major shareholder.
| Melatonic wrote:
| It's almost like people have realized that politicians may not
| stand up for us against these large mega corporations and we need
| to form some type of group of workers or something in order to
| have any real power. Like a club or maybe a ........ ?
|
| :-D
| fivecar wrote:
| tomohawk wrote:
| What a crappy position to be in. Stuck between a Big Monopoly and
| Big Union.
| kennywinker wrote:
| One union representing the 8000 workers at a single warehouse
| is not "big union". Amazon has about 800,000 employees, so
| we're talking about a union representing 1% of their workforce.
| I don't know you, I don't know your history, but from that
| statement alone I think now might be a good time to re-examine
| some of the anti-union narrative you've been passively
| absorbing your whole life.
| samuelizdat wrote:
| Is it true that they got people to show up to the union meetings
| by offering baked ziti and weed? Is it that easy? What other
| collective goals can be accomplished this way?
| usr1106 wrote:
| I have tried to avoid shopping from Amazon for many years. It
| just feels bad to support ultra-capitalists that show no respect
| for their employees. Last year I spent less than 50 EUR, this
| year still zero. Living in a small country it's sometimes hard to
| avoid them completely because many businesses don't ship here or
| at least not for a reasonable rate.
| usr1106 wrote:
| At work we used to buy computer equipment from them. After
| repeatedly receiving RAM chips with 50% of the capacity we had
| ordered and paid for we don't longer use them.
|
| I can't really imagine how that happenend. I'd assume they scan
| whatever they pack. Bad processes or intentional fraud by
| Amazon did not seem like likely explanations. A poor employee
| trying to improve their income? Not really sure how that scheme
| would work.
|
| Either way, personally I am glad we switched to other
| suppliers. Too big market share for one is never a good idea.
| striking wrote:
| Inventory can be commingled at the Amazon warehouse.
| Additionally, sellers have been engaging in some pretty wild
| fraud to retain their position in the listings.
|
| I don't trust them anymore either, except _maybe_ for cables
| or something.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Even for cables it's pretty iffy
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11021665
|
| I seem to have better luck with tech that is bought from
| Newegg or Target or Walmart and using:
|
| Newegg: "Seller - Newegg"
|
| Target: "Filter - Sold By - Target"
|
| Walmart: "All Filters - Retailer - Walmart"
|
| I think 'cause they actually check their supply chains...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| All these places are doing their best to make me dread
| buying from them
|
| Newegg: Make it as annoying as possible to filter out all
| non-newegg sales, make it harder to verify if something
| is in stock unless I click on the item itself, and those
| damn ads they insert into the top of the page 1 SECOND
| after the page has rendered. I start scrolling and all of
| a sudden everything gets pushed down. This happens every
| time I load a new page!
|
| Target: No realistic indicator of stock whatsoever. I
| have verified this with multiple employees and stores,
| the number of items at a particular store is just a pure
| guess. The search by store is so poorly designed its
| laughable, I have to select a different store location if
| I want to view stock and finally still gotta filter out
| non target sold items.
|
| Walmart: Similar issues as Target except this time, the
| search bar resets your store location every time you
| begin a new search. I am also creeped out when I was
| suggested items I bought before in a non logged in
| account just because I used the same credit card. (I
| don't know if they still do this)
|
| I still prefer to buy from these places but man I really
| wish there was a store that didn't suck as much as these
| places. All these please are built by monkey developers.
|
| I am thankful these guys still check their supply chains
| though so maybe I should shut up and stop complaining
| that America hasn't completely turned into a Chinese
| bazaar yet(although its getting there).
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Newegg's filter seems pretty straightforward actually.
| It's Target and Walmart that hide it a bit more. Newegg's
| is visible by default on a search.
|
| Store stock is pretty hit or miss with most any store.
| They try to keep stock in-store to a razor thin margin
| these days I think to maximise selection. They also don't
| seem to do full store inventories as often (short-
| staffed?). Result is that misplaced items or theft only
| get picked up when someone tries to purchase the thing,
| and then, only if the employee bothers to update the
| database (doesn't always happen). I've had this happen
| with all the major retailers repeatedly, even on common
| items.
|
| That said, that really only matters if you're wanting to
| do a same-day in-store pickup. General inventory is
| reliable for all the stores. If the local store doesn't
| have it in stock, they just flag it and it goes to
| Target's general warehouses I guess, and you get (usually
| modest) delivery delay.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Newegg used to be straightforward. Have you used it
| recently? They are pulling all sorts of tricks now.
|
| I understand stock can't be 100% accurate due to shrink
| and inventory not yet sold but the reality is that
| currently there is almost no basis in reality for their
| numbers it seems. All they need to do is track what items
| are delivered to the store and connect their POS systems
| to their inventory counters and then expose this to the
| site. They MUST be tracking it correctly internally or
| else they would have a lot bigger problem.
|
| >General inventory is reliable for all the stores.
|
| Unless the item is in demand like antibacterial wipes or
| a game console. Then they start to play all sorts of
| games and there is little hope of getting the item online
| or offline. You just have to be there at the right time.
| ejb999 wrote:
| I've pretty much stopped shopping from amazon, based solely on
| the fact they are almost never the lowest cost place to buy
| things anymore - used to be for most things I buy, now I think
| they are counting on people not checking prices anymore so they
| charge more, sometimes a lot more, than other places.
| 2ion wrote:
| Hereabouts, unfortunately, for certain things, they are the
| only option. Because they excel at logistics and customer
| service.
|
| It's the same reason I buy my nongreat nonoffice furniture
| from IKEA --- because they have the product and the
| logistics.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| Amazon set a min hourly wage of $15 in 2018 and has benefits
| like $100 worth of annual Amazon discounts. The federal minimum
| wage in 2022 is $7.25. Amazon probably pays a lot more than
| $15/hr in 2022. How is paying more than 2x min wage
| disrespectful to their employees?
| uoaei wrote:
| How is min wage the only thing that you are comparing against
| here?
| usr1106 wrote:
| I'm not so sure about the wage, but the working conditions
| are inhumane according to all what I read (obviously I
| haven't worked there myself). The dirty tricks they use to
| hinder unionization just confirm my impression.
| saddd wrote:
| I'm going to use an extreme & contrived example here.
|
| How would you feel about a company that pays $200 an hour,
| but 90% of each new batch of hires are fired by that company
| within a week? And the 10% who don't get fired have to
| physically exert themselves through things like holding it in
| when they need to use a restroom, and operating with less
| sleep than is necessary. By the end of the first month, that
| 10% is reduced to 1%.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You're setting the bar at the federal minimum wage, which
| hasn't kept up with inflation for some time (not much good if
| it's raised if the cost of living rises faster). One can look
| at the federal minimum wage with disdain (I encourage folks
| here to try to live on ~$1200/month), and also observe that
| how Amazon treats its retail workers is still exploitative
| (both at fulfillment centers and the delivery network).
|
| Regardless, a union is likely the solution for workers to
| improve their experience at Amazon at scale until there is
| enough political will (legislation/labor regulation) to stop
| treating these people as disposable.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Most of their revenue comes from AWS anyway. Physical shipping
| is peanuts to them.
| giarc wrote:
| popilewiz wrote:
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It seems pretty unlikely that things would get worse! The
| potential upside (higher wages, better hours, bathroom breaks)
| is significant and people are struggling to survive. So waiting
| a year seems overly cautious to me.
| willnonya wrote:
| it is possible, if wages dont increase to cover the dues theyll
| end up making less. whether this is good or bad for them will
| end up dependong on whether the union is focused on the success
| of the employees, whoch depends on the wuccess of the company
| or if yheyre just thete to fill their own coffers.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| This is just something you've made up. There's literally no
| reason to think wages won't go up, nor that they will somehow
| make less than they do today. Why do you think this? What
| source are you looking at? I cannot fathom how you would come
| to these conclusions without you mostly ignoring evidence
| (I'd be happy to be wrong).
| miguelazo wrote:
| Is this a serious question or a Concern Troll? All of the data
| shows unionized working conditions and benefits are far better
| than the alternative in our neoliberal hellscape.
| nickff wrote:
| Please don't accuse people of being trolls, it goes against
| the HN Guidelines:
|
| > _" Please don 't post insinuations about astroturfing,
| shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It
| degrades discussion and is usually mistaken."_
| brimble wrote:
| HN desperately needs personal block lists.
|
| [EDIT] OK, some explanation is in order: because it's very
| bad at curbing posters who are _either_ trolling _or_ just
| very bad posters but it 's not clear which (which is,
| precisely, what a classic troll is, when this is achieved
| on purpose), and its anti-poster-recognition design makes
| that even worse. Just let me block the ones who I find
| consistently posting what are either super-ignorant takes
| _or_ are trolling, because it doesn 't really matter to me
| which is the truth.
| renewiltord wrote:
| A friend made a trivial extension like this
| https://www.overmod.org/
|
| No promises that it still works since he abandoned it to
| go work on other things.
|
| I wrote some of the code so I could probably port it if
| it's broken.
| giarc wrote:
| Not a troll, a serious question. As I understand, the
| starting wage for Amazon workers is $18/hr, way higher than
| minimum wage in the US. They also offer education credits and
| healthcare from day 1 (if I understand correctly). Could
| Amazon not roll back a bunch of these perks prior to
| unionization, therefore making working conditions worse? The
| physical demands will still be there, although the union
| could push for better training or sick time.
| fckgw wrote:
| Nothing is preventing them from rolling them back now. A
| union would make it MORE DIFFICULT to roll back any
| benefits.
| phphphphp wrote:
| turnover at Amazon is so high that nobody* will still be there
| in 12 months, unionising is zero risk: either the job becomes
| tolerable or it remains intolerable and they quit as they would
| have anyway
|
| * ok a few
| jimbob45 wrote:
| It's weird that you're getting so much pushback against the
| highly reasonable idea of waiting a bit to see how things shake
| out. This feels like a high school boyfriend trying to push you
| into doing more than you're comfortable doing.
|
| It's fun for us to look down from our ivory towers and be
| pleased that unions are cruising along but it's less fun when
| you're in a factory that gets shut down because Amazon doesn't
| want to deal with unions. That's to say nothing of the myriad
| of other problems pro-union advocates like to pretend don't
| exist.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| On average, unionized workplaces are much safer with higher-
| paid and happier workers. It is also illegal to close down a
| facility to prevent or in response to workers forming a
| union. Workers in labor unions have reported being happier
| than non-union counterparts for years now.
| brimble wrote:
| I occasionally get insight into what unions are and are not
| doing for some of my friends and their co-workers. A strong
| union seems to be _great_. For-sure various abusive or
| simply needlessly-shitty practices in their workplaces
| would carry on without the workers knowing the union has
| their back when they challenge them, to pick just one
| thing.
|
| Weak unions seem to be pretty bad, but that's mostly
| because they don't/can't do anything. The active unions
| seem awesome.
| shmatt wrote:
| The bigger the union the more power they have to collectively
| bargain
|
| It makes sense for as much factories as possible to join before
| the first contract is signed
|
| What would hurt Amazon worse: 0.001% of their workforce on
| strike, or 10%
| kirykl wrote:
| Amazon will offer Union as a Service and somehow monetize the
| management overhead
| ddingus wrote:
| You know I kind of chuckled, but I bet the conversation is
| likely.
| pempem wrote:
| Or we could just build it and remove the possibility?
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| I've thought about this. DemocraTech: disrupting workplace
| democracy.
|
| Imagine an app that holds all the forms for your jurisdiction
| and allows signing similar to docusign via text message. Would
| make union formation much more discreet and asynchronous.
|
| I'm sure there's applications for dues, collective agreements
| etc.
| alexashka wrote:
| They'll call it Union Prime.
| zer0faith wrote:
| You forgot hosted in the cloud, fully automated deployment and
| secure.
| notum wrote:
| AWS Unicorn(r) - Virtualized Distributed Cloud Unions.
| Pricing, AWS East - ingress: free, union acts: varies.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| And they'll promise not to peak, but with AWS-managed keys ;)
| koolba wrote:
| You joke but I bet whatever software unions use to track member
| dues and involvement is in dire need of a 2022 upgrade.
| Everything from soliciting donations, text chains, to
| coordinating work stoppages. And charging SaaS-style per member
| makes perfect sense.
| after_care wrote:
| Maybe we can encourage unionizing by generating a quality
| union management software package.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You'll have to take a union vote to decide what framework
| to use
| dylan604 wrote:
| Hey! There's nothing wrong with that spreadsheet created way
| back in the 80s that keeps track of dues payments. It was
| probably even created by Hoffa's executive assistant.
| readams wrote:
| rapind wrote:
| > These workers should have many options for similar work. The
| fact that they choose to stay at Amazon seems to imply that
| working for Amazon is better than any of the alternatives.
|
| Or they are smart enough to realize they have the necessary
| leverage to unionize. Or both. Or more reasons.
| etchalon wrote:
| The Labor shortages aren't perfectly distributed.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| There is a labor shortage for fast food, retail, warehouse,
| and similar jobs. So the people working in Amazon warehouses
| have options.
| uoaei wrote:
| Humans are more than mere capital stock, carted and
| shuffled about to keep McDonald's open.
| MisterSandman wrote:
| Distributed in terms of location, too. You can't expect
| people to move just because there is another low-wage job
| open 4 hours away.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| Ah, I was thinking they meant distributed by industry,
| not location.
| etchalon wrote:
| I'm not sure what you think the word "distributed" means.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| Ah, I was thinking they meant distributed by industry,
| not location.
| jahlove wrote:
| The Daily podcast released an interview with the Amazon Labor
| Union guys yesterday, it's pretty good:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/podcasts/the-daily/new-yo...
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I also enjoyed this episode of the Marianne Williamson podcast
| about the recent trends in unionization with Max Alvarez from 5
| days ago:
|
| https://youtu.be/SHed96HYC8I.
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marianne-williamson-po...
| rjbwork wrote:
| Smalls was on Chapo Trap House last Thursday. Good interview
| IMO, if you're into that format.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I don't see any obvious inherent disadvantages to a union, so...
| unionize away!
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Unions can sometimes prevent an employer from firing a bad
| employee. Other times, they can get in the way of getting work
| done by saying "It's not their job", even when the employee was
| perfectly willing to do it.
| navbaker wrote:
| I ran into this (on a very minor scale) while working at a
| grocery store part time during my early community college
| days. The store was unionized, but there were at least three
| different unions, depending on which department of the store
| you worked in. I ended up in the bakery working evenings, the
| only one manning the counter there, right across from the
| deli. There were times when I couldn't run to the restroom
| all evening because the three deli employees were in a
| different union and couldn't come over and watch the bakery
| counter for five minutes.
| pydry wrote:
| >Unions can sometimes prevent an employer from firing a bad
| employee.
|
| Bad managers routinely do the same thing except they come
| with none of the upsides of unions.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| Unions can also block career paths because of seniority
| preference, a newer guy won't be considered for promotions
| even if he is more than capable and has showed dedication if
| the older one are given preference just by longevity. I'm not
| against unions in general for blue collar jobs but I do
| believe that they shouldn't have more power than the company,
| it's all about balance. I come from a country where the lefty
| populist government used unions to destroy all the private
| sector by giving them all the power.
| endisneigh wrote:
| This is not an inherent problem with unions tho
| coredog64 wrote:
| It's an inherent problem with American unions and how they
| navigate the law.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Where does it say that a union must do those things?
| agentdrtran wrote:
| The former is an unavoidable and, considering the benefits,
| worthwhile outcome of unionization. The latter is to protect
| bosses from slowly overloading one person/role and using that
| to increase work for everyone or split the union.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| I've seen lots of complaints and propaganda about unions over
| the years, but at the end of the day "The only thing worse than
| a bad union is no union."
| basedgod wrote:
| I never understand Amazon's uncompromising stance on efficiency.
| They'll immediately fire a worker who is a few percentage points
| below target efficiency. Surely the grind in turnover has to cost
| them something.
|
| What if they moved towards a more incentive based system. Workers
| who do 60% efficiency targets get minimum wage. 70% gets minimum
| wage + $X.YY and hour. 100% gets typical wage rate.
|
| Adjust hourly wages up and down for the next day, based on the
| previous days productivity. Then nobody has to get fired for only
| being at 96% productivity that day.
|
| Perhaps the increased job security would offset the somewhat
| dystopian productivity tracking this would result in. Workers
| might prefer to work a day at 85% wages to get back up to 100%,
| than to be fired?
|
| Though, I suspect treating their workers better and giving them
| more benefits, security, and humanity would be about cost neutral
| compared to their intense current system of treating workers like
| cogs. You can only squeeze someone for so long.
| ars wrote:
| That's not that different from doing piecework.
|
| > Though, I suspect treating their workers better and giving
| them more benefits, security, and humanity would be about cost
| neutral compared to their intense current system of treating
| workers like cogs. You can only squeeze someone for so long.
|
| I only see stories of bad treatment from activists, interviews
| I've seen with actual employees say they are happy with the
| work, and "people who complain have never done warehouse work".
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| 150% annual attrition is not a sign of a healthy workplace.
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-
| wor...
| fraserharris wrote:
| Is that attrition rate inclusive of seasonal employees?
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| The NYT article I linked to accounts for seasonal
| workforce differences and has a lengthy methodology
| section at the bottom.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| It's a warehouse job that demands real physical labour each
| day of course people leave if they get a better offer or
| even a worse offer that requires less work.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| It's 3 times the rates reported by BLS though they group
| "Transportation, warehousing, and utilities" into a
| single category.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t16.htm
| eptcyka wrote:
| It's also a job that will be there until it can be
| automated or until Amazon closes, and I think it's the
| latter that's the closest to happening. Until that
| happens, it'd be better for everyone involved if the
| tasks that need doing can be arranged so that long-term
| employment is viable. A job shouldn't be as exploitative
| as it can be just because there will be someone who's in
| a rough enough spot in their life that they will take it.
| eptcyka wrote:
| hemloc_io wrote:
| I have some small insight into this.
|
| Often at Amazon you have the "Frugality" principal taking the
| wheel for short term savings, even with long term massive
| costs. They're notoriously cheap, think like no free coffee
| cheap.
|
| One of Jeff's guiding principals that he infused the company
| with, is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any
| moment to not be productive if you let them. If you're nice to
| your workforce they'll take advantage of your kindness to do
| nothing. This happens on the corporate side too with all the
| PIP stuff.
|
| In the long term I don't think this is going to work at all,
| either they need to change their policy and attitude or
| literally no-one will work there given the choice lol. (This is
| more on the SWE/Corporate side and less on the warehouse side,
| often Amazon is the only/best game in town on the warehouse
| side which makes things more tricky.)
|
| E.g. At their current attrition rate they will run out of
| workers in the whole country in a couple of years assuming they
| keep it up.
| Uily wrote:
| We get free coffee in the offices but it sucks and you have
| to pay for everything else (including good coffee).
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" One of Jeff's guiding principals that he infused the
| company with, is that workers are lazy and will take
| advantage of any moment to not be productive if you let them.
| If you're nice to your workforce they'll take advantage of
| your kindness to do nothing."_
|
| The guy sounds like a total jerk.
|
| Zuckerberg seems like a complete jerk too.
|
| Bill Gates was reportedly a real jerk while at Microsoft too.
|
| Steve Jobs was supposedly a huge asshole.
|
| What is it about assholes running the world? Do nice guys
| really finish last? How many truly nice people ever make it
| very far in business (not to mention politics)? Do you really
| have to walk over a mountain of other people's backs to make
| it to the top?
| saxman001 wrote:
| Mark Zuckerburg addressed this question very well on the
| Lex Friedman podcast. He pointed out that facebook did some
| science around this and discovered that many top level
| decisions are lose-lose from a public perception
| standpoint. On key policy questions the losing interest
| group almost always manages to create a stink that
| outweighs the happiness of the winning group.
|
| Couple this with the well documented negative bias of the
| news, and it's not surprising that most corporate public
| figures have bleak reputations.
|
| Note that I'm not actually defending these men. I'm simply
| pointing out that there are some structural reasons for the
| strong negative perceptions of these executives.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Let me get this strait. A billionaire funds a study to
| find out why they are considered an asshole and the
| answer is conveniently "the plebs and the big bad media".
| Riiiiiiiight
| ssully wrote:
| I mean there absolutely is truth to it. When you get to
| the size of Facebook, you are going to be pissing people
| off with almost any decision you make.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Reminds me of when I worked at a grocery store, during
| training it was drilled that one angry customer would
| outweigh ten happy customers.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| or it could be that the only reasons to go for a billion
| when you already have a hundred million are pathological?
|
| I know this is extremely simplistic and insufficient as a
| _complete_ explanation, but I truly think it 's a major
| component.
| beeboop wrote:
| I don't think it necessitates pathological, though I am
| sure there are higher rates of it among the wealthy. I
| don't think someone worth $100 million keeps working
| because they're incentivized by the money as much as
| they're incentivized by "success". They enjoy the power
| and prestige and reputation and having people work for
| them. They enjoy getting to make big, powerful decisions.
| They like having their big ego.
|
| Of course many do genuinely just want that $400 million
| yacht and won't get there unless they make a few billion
| first.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Just because you are conscientious and don't take advantage
| of your employer doesn't mean that others (many others)
| don't, especially in a large organization where it's easier
| to feel anonymous and disconnected.
|
| > Do nice guys really finish last?
|
| Generally, yes.
| twhb wrote:
| Who achieves more power, the guy who dedicates his life and
| soul to it, or the guy who wants it, but only if it's ok
| with everybody, and only when his family doesn't need him?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > What is it about assholes running the world?
|
| They understand how to exploit the existing system for
| profit and power (which in some cases are synonymous).
|
| > Do nice guys really finish last? How many truly nice
| people ever make it very far in business (not to mention
| politics)? Do you really have to walk over a mountain of
| other people's backs to make it to the top?
|
| Consider your perspective if you're unhappy coming in last
| in the same competition where these folks succeed. If these
| people are "winning", do you really want to win?
| alexashka wrote:
| Top of a mountain that rewards exploitation? Yeah, you have
| to do some exploitation along the way :)
|
| There are plenty of other mountains to climb.
|
| It's just not very sexy to write articles about people who
| run a 10 person plumbing company and treat everyone fairly.
| There are millions of those types of mountains people have
| been climbing for a long time.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| on the warehouse side, Amazon is only the best game in town
| when it is the only game in town.
|
| Other warehouses have higher wages, better hours, many are
| unionized, etc.
| tclancy wrote:
| >is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any
| moment to not be productive if you let them
|
| Some times I think the biggest villain of the Twentieth
| Century (ok, 19th-20th) was actually Fredrick Winslow Taylor.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Actually, at the Amazon office in NYC, the one thing we did
| get was free coffee :) But it wasn't one of those fancy
| machines at other FANGs where you press cappuccino and you
| get a cappuccino. It was more like one salvaged from an old
| diner, where you would load a couple cups of grinds into a
| filter and it would percolate down into a gallon jug.
| hemloc_io wrote:
| Haha same for us in the West Coast offices.
|
| I was working with a senior engineer who was shocked we had
| one of those big machines when we came in to the office.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >In the long term I don't think this is going to work at all,
| either they need to change their policy and attitude or
| literally no-one will work there given the choice lol.
|
| I wanna see what happens when they cross this threshold. I
| don't think any company in modern US history has had to deal
| with this scenario?
|
| I suspect they know this and are running out the clock before
| they are forced to raise wages to compensate. Essentially
| squeeze as much margin as they can now until they are force
| to dispense a few more crumbs.
|
| Its insane how crazy they are getting with the recruiters. I
| am a loser who spends too much time on HN. A terrible
| mediocre dev with no really outstanding roles, yet these
| people are now finding my internal company email and reaching
| out. They somehow found my private phone number and are
| texting me. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe they will
| knock on my window in the dead of night lol.
| lovich wrote:
| That's just the recruiters trying not to get fired. As a
| fellow mediocre dev who also gets contacted by Amazon
| recruiters I won't believe they are interested in changing
| their ways until they either let up on the mandatory
| firings or they lower their standards. At the moment they
| are acting like the corporate equivalent of when you keep
| opening your fridge even though you decided you don't want
| to eat anything in there
| nebula8804 wrote:
| The recruiters still won't be getting those conversions
| so yeah they can get more desperate but in reality its an
| extension of the company getting more desperate. Thats
| why I think they will exhaust every possible lead and
| only then raise wages to attract people who will tolerate
| their conditions.
| delecti wrote:
| I had to get pretty stern with their recruiters to get it
| to stop. I was getting contacted at least once a month for
| a while, and it was getting close to once a week. I had to
| ask several different recruiters to get put on their "no
| contact" list, but what finally worked was mentioning the
| email alias of the previous recruiter who I had asked. My
| email ended with this:
|
| > The recruiter who contacted me last week (John Doe, jdoe
| [not the actual name, obviously]) said he would do that,
| and that is clearly not the case. I'm finding these
| persistent emails rather obnoxious.
|
| It's now been almost 3 months, and I'm very glad for the
| reduced spam.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I think the mindset that explains amazon's decisions here is
| that their warehouse workers are only there because they
| haven't figured out how to automate them yet. Amazon's long
| term goal is to figure out how to make a robot that can grab
| items and put them into boxes quickly, but until then they're
| going to have people who they treat like robots do the work
| instead. One of the consequences of this mindset is they've
| made extremely easy to plug new hires in with minimal
| orientation. Everything is standardized and the computer is
| organizing everything, no thinking required means no training
| required.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I feel like the whole company may one day go this route.
| Imagine a company run by an AI thats plugged into the market.
| No CEO needed, any jobs that haven't been automated will have
| tasks directly dispensed and monitored by this AI. Its
| primary goal will be to maximize shareholder value and it
| will do it with an efficiency and ruthlessness that even Elon
| Musk can't match. The coming end state of Amazon makes me
| appreciate my current boring CEO very much.
| ben7799 wrote:
| AKA Phillip K. Dick's Autofac.. eventually manufacturing
| more consumers for itself to sell to.
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| We're gonna build a paperclip maximizer _on purpose_?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Why wouldn't we? Ironically the CEO may lose their job
| before the coders lol
| netsharc wrote:
| It'd make a great movie to watch (but a weird thing to
| experience in real life). The AI should also figure out how
| to influence people to consume even more, maybe by
| buying/creating social media companies so it can deliver
| more ads.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| It would be a miserable existence but I can't see any
| other direction for our current unchecked capitalism to
| move towards. The capital class also write the laws in
| this country so this sort of company is inevitable
| whether or not it ends up being Amazon.
| Decabytes wrote:
| It would sure be something if Amazon went from one of the worst
| places to work, to one of the best through the creation of
| unions. If they can do this, then I think it will be held up as
| an example for other people to unionize. I'm rooting for them
| Melatonic wrote:
| I am not as hopeful as you but that would definitely be
| something
|
| Unions do seem to be making a big comeback
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think there's something to be said in favor of company-
| specific unions vs. industry-wide unions. The optimal situation
| would be one in which Amazon workers form an Amazon-wide union
| and end up with voting seats on the corporate board, to which
| they'd elect representatives. As I understand it, this is a bit
| how VW works in Germany.
|
| The notion that a corporation's employees should have the same
| 'stakeholder' role as a corporation's shareholders might seem
| to be a radical notion. It would require re-imagining the
| corporate board's role: worker value and shareholder value
| would have to be balanced. This seems like a much fairer system
| of governance, and also has the benefit of partially
| democratizing corporations.
| matt_s wrote:
| I feel the same. Next should be Walmart.
| anm89 wrote:
| There are many studies showing the workers at unionized
| employers report lower job satisfaction (there are also many
| studies showing the opposite conclusion) but it is far from a
| given that unionizing makes things betters for workers and this
| at a minimum seems to be a crap shoot based on the quality of
| the individual union.
|
| https://hbr.org/2017/08/research-shows-unionized-workers-are...
| jollybean wrote:
| This is good. I believe unions have less value in mature
| industries where the things the unions generally wanted are baked
| in, and they drive inefficiency in hiring and have fundamental
| control over some operational aspects. Auto industry is a bit of
| an example, likewise the public sector.
|
| But where there are 'new games', with no historical labour power,
| they are often desperately needed.
|
| Amazon, Walmart and the entire 'gig economy', fast food / service
| workers need unions.
|
| In 20 years, when regulatory issues have caught up around the
| 'gig economy' they may be less needed.
|
| A lot of the food / service economy issues could be resolved just
| with a good minimum wage and some basic regulations around
| scheduling, healthcare etc. but the US isn't there yet. So
| 'unions'.
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