[HN Gopher] Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unioni...
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Amazon abruptly fires senior managers tied to unionized warehouse
Author : pseudolus
Score : 231 points
Date : 2022-05-07 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| The correct answer to the Amazon Problem is to create an
| alternate organization that starts as a unionized workplace, and
| goes from there. E.g. Spain's
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
|
| These problems mentioned in this thread are due to the greed of
| Capitalists. Period.
|
| Once the 'age of the Capitalist' is put behind us, and we move
| towards post-capitalism, then bs like OP mentions will be
| history.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| That corporation doesn't seem particularly effective at
| capturing marketshare (a proxy for the combination of price and
| quality). Total revenue of $16B across 4 major industries makes
| it a tiny player. Goldman Sachs had $59B in 2021 revenues
| alone, nevermind all the other big banks. The Wikipedia article
| further says "comparatively low wages [for managers] can make
| it very difficult to recruit managers from investor-owned
| firms". Given the impact that skilled managers have
| historically had on companies (ex: Steve Jobs @ Apple, Lisa Su
| @ AMD, Howard Schultz @ Starbucks, etc), it seems unlikely that
| such an organization could effectively compete against normal
| corporations led by skilled CEOs.
|
| And before you say that competition is not supposed to be the
| point of production, your geopolitical enemies aren't going to
| care about your nice ideals. If they can outcompete your
| inefficient economy and economically dominate you they will.
| You can't beat the market, even under socialism/communism.
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| Are you a Capitalist? I need to know the answer to that
| question before I can produce a good answer. Thank you.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Why is "spending 70 years growing a collective workplace to
| huge scale" more correct than "unionizing a huge ultra-
| capitalist workplace that exists right now"?
|
| Both are laudable goals IMHO.
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| They are, except one is actively being viciously suppressed,
| and the other already exists and is working great.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Guess we'd better hop in the time machine and go back to
| 1950 to start the American equivalent of Mondragon to
| preemptively destroy Amazon before Bezos is even born,
| then.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| What system follows capitalism?
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| That's why I provided the Wikipedia URL. Here's a useful
| quote: "In 2012 Richard D. Wolff, an American professor of
| economics, hailed the Mondragon set of enterprises, including
| the good wages it provides for employees, the empowerment of
| ordinary workers in decision making, and the measure of
| equality for female workers, as a major success and cited it
| as a working model of an alternative to the capitalist mode
| of production."
|
| The other standard source for a critique of Capitalism is in
| the early works of Marx, especially
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital . In Marx' later
| works, he gets a little cranky for my taste.
| [deleted]
| someweirdperson wrote:
| "fired"? don't they have time limited contracts, that include a
| golden parachute in case of early termination?
|
| Does Amazon manage to even treat senior managers badly?
| blamazon wrote:
| Senior warehouse manager =\= Senior corporate manager
| Ekaros wrote:
| Part of middle-management with very little power outside
| following corporate policies. Might be able to do something
| not outright sanctioned, but the position really isn't much
| different from the workers in grand scheme of things.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't think any manager at the warehouse level is senior
| enough to have a golden parachute.
| bostonsre wrote:
| They are just another set of expendable cogs in the logistics
| machine of Amazon. They are incentivized to enact and enforce
| harsh management practices on those cogs further down the line
| while being subject to similar constraints coming from above
| them. Shit rolls down hill so they don't get the worst of it,
| but they are nowhere near the top of the hill and they still
| have to handle a miserable amount of it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Several were_ veterans _of the company, with more than_ six
| years _of experience_
|
| I think it's sad that we have an industry, where someone with six
| years' experience, is considered a "veteran."
|
| But it sounds like Amazon is sending a message to managers of
| other warehouses, to go as low as possible, to fight
| unionization.
|
| Expect things to get ugly.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > to go as low as possible
|
| On the other hand, it could be to not give the workers a reason
| to unionize.
| SrslyJosh wrote:
| LOL, LMAO
| avgcorrection wrote:
| I think the sad part is getting fired over union association.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Both!
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I think it's sad that we have an industry, where someone with
| six years' experience, is considered a "veteran."
|
| What does it take to be considered a "veteran" in the military?
|
| > The term "veteran" means a person who served in the active
| military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or
| released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.
|
| ( https://www.va.gov/OSDBU/docs/Determining-Veteran-Status.pdf
| )
|
| > Most first-term enlistments require a commitment to four
| years of active duty and two years of inactive
|
| ( https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/making-
| commitment... )
|
| A veteran is someone with experience. Why wouldn't six years of
| experience make you a "veteran"?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Around these parts, "veteran" is usually used to designate
| military servicepeople that served during times of active
| conflict, yet it seems pretty much any soldier that was
| honorably (or, at least, not dishonorably) discharged, is
| able to access the VA health system (we have a VA hospital in
| my town, and I know quite a few veterans). I'm not so sure
| about other benefits, like schooling, loans, and insurance.
|
| My father[0] was a veteran. He's buried in Arlington. Got a
| silver star, a bronze star, and a purple heart. His GI Bill
| benefits got him a Harvard LLB.
|
| I am not even close to a military veteran. I did work for a
| company for almost 27 years though. In this community, that
| elicits a lot more scorn, than it does respect.
|
| [0] http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/MikeMarshall.htm
| whycombagator wrote:
| Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce
| is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been
| around since what, 94? So 6 years is over 20% of the time
| Amazon has existed.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Fair point. I just found it to be an interesting choice of
| words. Whenever they use the same term, in other industries,
| they are talking about double-digit tenures.
|
| The main point is that this is a fairly unambiguous message
| to other managers, that allowing unionization to happen under
| their watch would be a careericidal offense.
|
| That means that they can expect the warehouse managers to get
| pretty desperate, and probably break all kinds of laws and
| whatnot. It's just that the message is being sent in a way
| that allows the company to keep their hands clean, from the
| almost certain results.
|
| The managers will _certainly_ get fired, if unionization
| happens, and _might_ get fired, if they get caught, spiking
| the trees.
|
| Guess which path the managers are likely to take?
| k__ wrote:
| So, if a company exist 1 year and someone worked there for 6
| months, they're a veteran?
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| It's not a technical term, so it's always going to be
| somewhat of a matter of opinion. If I had to guess, you
| could only really be described as a veteran at some company
| if you had been there longer than most other employees. It
| seems like at least 60 or 70% of the employees should be
| newer.
| zoover2020 wrote:
| Relative to the company, yes
| baitedandrated wrote:
| mynameisash wrote:
| When I left Amazon (as an SWE), with about 11mo of tenure, I
| was apparently at about median longevity. Yes, some of it is
| their growth, but a significant reason is also that they churn
| through people unnecessary. It's ridiculous to me that a big
| tech company treats people so terribly and continues to get
| away with it.
| tpmx wrote:
| Curious: Where do you feel the SWE people they churn through
| generally end up?
|
| I'm a bit concerned about this one guy on one of my previous
| teams who moved from Europe to US to work on AWS. I don't
| think he was aware of the company culture.
| vmception wrote:
| they end up at other companies of similar size, its part of
| the circuit, colloquially called FAANGs.
| lamontcg wrote:
| a lot of them head to startups or smaller companies.
| oneepic wrote:
| If one starts in Seattle, I'd expect them to end up at
| Microsoft, Expedia, other FANGs maybe, among other co's.
| Assuming they're not burned out.
| aynsof wrote:
| The CEO of Cloudflare has said that he enjoys taking burned
| out SDEs from Amazon and giving them a happy life at his
| company. It's how, in his words, Cloudflare can compete at
| an engineering level with AWS.
| [deleted]
| nimbius wrote:
| I disagree
|
| Its a common stall tactic for large businesses to fire
| leadership after a Union is formed. It means you cannot
| facilitate a good faith negotiation and places the union in a
| perpetual limbo that can last years.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good point. I was unaware of this tactic, but it makes sense.
|
| Thanks!
| donthellbanme wrote:
| You know those help wanted commercials Amazon floods media
| with, "We pay $15 to start, blah, blah. Start a new career."
|
| I just assumed they were always hiring because of consistent
| growth.
|
| According to the guy (forget his name. Wears a gold chain.)
| representing the union; Amazon fires a lot of employees. Many
| for no reason.
|
| (I once read a restaurant success book. Everything he
| recommended made sence, except one, and it does make sence, but
| it's weaselly.
|
| His recommendation to restaurants was to fire all employees
| every six months. Turn over the semi-skilled completely. His
| reasoning was a new employee didn't complain, didn't steal
| (this was before companies had cams everywhere, gps tracking,
| and wrist movment counters), and worked harder.)
|
| I believe this is Amazon strategy.
|
| It's usually a bit harder to fire union workers for no reason.
|
| Fire them before they can see the inequities in the company.
| coliveira wrote:
| You're completely right. Amazon strategy is to maintain
| constant turnover, so that employees never feel they have
| stability and can't complain of anything.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Another benefit of firing workers early is it increases
| churn, which makes forming unions in the first place
| difficult, since it relies on trust between workers.
| oicU00 wrote:
| Same idea seems work in public favor when firing
| politicians frequently: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766
| infiniteL0Op wrote:
| Ekaros wrote:
| Having watched the HVAC videos about restaurants and walking
| freezers with doors left open by new employees causing
| problems for hardware and their operation in general. Maybe
| that isn't best solution. Then again maybe returns on other
| side cover any such issues...
|
| Which I rather doubt that you can train them in all things in
| that timeframe...
| psychlops wrote:
| By industry consideration, you mean the new york times? Seems
| they just reviewed a few linkedin profiles and chose that word.
| thinkling wrote:
| Amazon's workforce has probably doubled twice in the last 6
| years? So even without taking attrition into account (which is
| substantial in the warehouses), after 6 years you're in the 25%
| longest-tenured warehouse employees. With attrition I'd guess
| you're in the "top" 10%?
| coredog64 wrote:
| There's an "old fart" tool that shows you how many people
| were hired before/after you.
| glenngillen wrote:
| It was doubling somewhere between every 12-18mo while I was
| there (circa 2017). The growth was nuts.
| AndyKelley wrote:
| I moved to Seattle from my hometown of Phoenix out of college
| for my "dream job" at Amazon. I started interviewing for other
| employment after just three months. I ended up quitting after
| eight months.
|
| Amazon is a horrible place to work. Six years is a lifetime
| there.
| pkaler wrote:
| Isn't this a good thing? If the workers were fed up enough with
| conditions that they formed a union, doesn't that imply the
| managers were terrible? Shouldn't terrible managers be fired?
|
| For example, my wife is a unionized nurse. The best thing that
| could happen at her work is for her manager to be fired. The
| union has no power in that.
|
| I'm an engineering manager at a software company. I get
| performance reviews twice per year. It's well understood that if
| I'm doing a terrible job that I will be fired.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| Counter-anecdotally, a friend of mine is one of the leaders of
| the Starbucks unionization efforts in Oregon, and they adore
| their store manager. The complaints that are driving those
| union efforts are the result of corporate policies and in no
| way related to specific stores.
|
| I can't say anything well-informed about Amazon specifically,
| but mega-corps tend to build lots of layers of middle
| management, then apply high-pressure incentive structures from
| the top that force middle management to do things that are
| unpopular with lower-level employees. When these policies
| inevitably backfire, it's the middle-management that gets axed
| for it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You don't need a terrible manager to have a union. A union
| isn't an attack, it's a bunch of peers caucusing. That's anti-
| union rhetoric, the idea that if there's good management you
| don't need a union, and that having a union is some kind of
| insult.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's not "anti-union rhetoric," come on.
|
| When is the last time a union has been formed in a workplace
| where everyone is happy, well paid, has great WLB, etc?
| geraltofrivia wrote:
| In my previous job in Germany. Sector: Tech and Research.
| Excellent managers, amazing WLB (worked till 8PM once and
| the manager apologised next day), well paid: earning the
| median income straight out of college.
|
| Had an excellent union and everyone in company hierarchy
| worked cordially and yet deferentially with them.
|
| Unions are not necessarily a form of attack. Unionise.
| pessimizer wrote:
| No, it _is_ anti-union rhetoric. Assembling a union isn 't
| assembling an army. We can start saying that unions are
| only necessary when management is bad right after we start
| saying that management should only have meetings when their
| employees are bad.
|
| edit: They only say three things - 1) unions aren't
| necessary if management are good people, 2) unions are an
| invasion of people from the outside who either don't
| understand how good our management is or are fomenting
| discontent for their own foreign purposes, and 3)
| management is actually fighting against you _for you,_
| because if they gave you everything you wanted the place
| would close down and you would lose your job. You 're
| saying thing number 1.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| vmception wrote:
| that's an assumption. union existence should be tied to the
| perseverance of labor rights and collective bargaining power,
| not dissatisfaction.
|
| its mere coincidence that there is a correlation to
| workplace/compensation satisfaction and interest in a union.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| fyrn- wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220506173540/https://www.nytim...
| Dreako wrote:
| As they should!
| humanistbot wrote:
| So you think corporations should break the law? Workers have
| the right to organize a union, firing workers in retaliation
| for organizing has long been illegal:
|
| https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
| noncoml wrote:
| Not the OP and not supporting his opinion, but these where
| not workers they fired, they were senior managers, and I
| believe it's not illegal.
|
| I guess the OP means that they should be fired for failing to
| do their job, ie. "convince" the workers to not unionize.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| that's an old argument though, where does it stops?
|
| If someone put those managers in charge of "convincing"
| workers to not unionize, aren't they responsible as well?
|
| And who gave the order to put someone to "convince" them,
| haven't they failed too?
| Aperocky wrote:
| I don't think senior managers of the warehouse are the ones
| organizing..
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| Care to explain your reasoning?
| dylan604 wrote:
| In Amazon's view, they woefully performed in their functions.
| They failed in a very high profile task. Their (in)actions
| are going to cost the company lots of money. Leaving aside
| the exact task, these sound like typical reasons for
| dismissal.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It boggles the mind how many people are opposed to collective
| bargaining, of all things. Give the least powerful in society a
| fraction of an ounce of power and it makes some people
| completely irrational.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Especially in the face of apparent aggressive anti-union
| behavior by the company.
| Sevii wrote:
| A lot of people blame unions for killing the American
| dominance of car manufacturing worldwide. And the general de-
| industrialization of the US.
|
| It was a big hit to peoples conceptualization of the country.
| jollybean wrote:
| That's odd because Union membership has dropped off of a
| cliff.
|
| Worth noting that Unions can be good and bad - and
| entrenched union that takes control of the workforce, the
| kind of place where they don't pick up a hammer unless it's
| in their job spec, or where hiring/layoffs are 100%
| controlled by Union ... that can be a problem.
|
| But typically where Unions are formed there's probably a
| reason.
|
| Walmart, AWS, and probably all of Fast Food / Service and
| Retail in the US need to pay more.
|
| Sadly - it's not a ware between the 0.1% and the rest of us
| - though that is a war - the big war is between the upper
| middle class and everyone else.
|
| At just past the median point in the US people are doing
| 'great' but below that it drops off a cliff. Most wages
| just don't enable anyone to live the American dream: own a
| flat/house, a car, a few appliances, healthcare, stable
| job, raise your kids and be happy.
|
| America is turning itself in to a snapshot of the globe
| i.e. 'steep pyramid' instead of having a proper middle
| class.
|
| It's obviously more complicated than that - a kind of break
| down in social structure esp. in the bottom layers etc..
|
| Rule of thumb: where unions are forming there is probably a
| reason. Where unions are entrenched there might be a way to
| move past that.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| How do they explain VAG being the biggest or nearly the
| biggest car manufacturer in the world then? Strong unions
| are a big feature of the German industrial landscape.
|
| It's not unions that killed America dominance of car
| manufacturing it's the them versus us zero-sum attitude
| that pervades US life. Both the manufacturers and the
| unions in the US seem guilty in this respect.
| coliveira wrote:
| The US is incapable of thinking outside of the "us versus
| them" box. For example, they don't see other countries as
| independent, they only see them as alies or enemies. It
| is a fifth grade mentality that permeates the whole
| country.
| adra wrote:
| And yet countries the world over turfed the one protection
| against the race to the bottom, which are tariffs. The auto
| industry still exists in North America because tariffs are
| still in place. Any time there's a significant economic
| imbalance of incentives, only tariffs will 'level' out the
| desire to offshore.
|
| Unions may have been presented as the scapegoat and clearly
| they made raw profitability worse (by what margin is
| certainly open for debate), the large reason that blue
| collar wages have been deteriorating in real dollars since
| the 80s can largely be attributed to globalization and the
| elimination of tariffs. Argue about the net benefits to the
| world, maybe. But your loss of dollars probably wasn't the
| union bugaboo but globalization.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| "Amazon reportedly left police in Spain 'dumbfounded' by
| asking them to intervene in a mass warehouse strike and
| patrol worker productivity"[1]
|
| I wonder what will take for anti-union companies-can-do-
| nothing-wrong people to consider that maybe companies can
| be authoritarian and bad.
|
| [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-asked-police-
| in-spain...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I wonder what will take for anti-union companies-can-
| do-nothing-wrong people to consider that maybe companies
| can be authoritarian and bad.
|
| It will take an ideological inversion. Those people
| already recognize that companies can be authoritarian,
| but they see this as a positive thing (and often have a
| strong financial interest in it.)
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| A strange view. Did management have no say in this?
| rapht wrote:
| More often than not, the problem is not "collective
| bargaining" per se. It's that unions are known to play the
| dumb game -- in France for example, the demands from unions
| are in general so far from anything reasonable that any union
| representative is viewed by anyone who ever so slightly
| understand how the economy works as a band of nonsensical
| fools who just need to be bypassed by whatever means.
| tyingq wrote:
| My guess is that they didn't fire them for _" letting it happen"_
| exactly. They probably fired them because the employees would
| view those managers as someone they recently defeated over a
| major issue. Which changes the power dynamic in a way that's
| distinct from the presence of the union itself. It's a weak
| attempt to get some of that back.
| syshum wrote:
| "letting it happen" could be many contexts as well, letting is
| happen could mean that the managers were soo terrible at their
| jobs that they allowed issues to fester to the point where the
| employees were disgruntles enough to vote in a union.
|
| Happy employees do not vote to unionize. The "hot take" here is
| that Amazon management wanted to the managers to some how play
| hardball with the union, in my experience with issues like this
| normally management does the opposite and trys to "kill it with
| kindness" and attempts to stave off unionization by trying to
| resolve the complaints of the work force while balancing the
| needs of the company.
|
| Sometimes the workforce is just too far apart from where
| management wants to be then I union is likely to form, but my
| guess is upper management at amazon feels these middle managers
| did not do enough to address the workforce's concerns.
| tyingq wrote:
| That would make sense to me if this particular
| warehouse/region/whatever was characterized as having notably
| worse conditions than others. Reading about Amazon
| warehouses, it seems like a pretty universally bad working
| environment, regardless of which one.
| syshum wrote:
| My feelings are bit of a mix bag, some of the complaints I
| would agree, but some of them seem to be either employee or
| more likely media exaggeration.
|
| I have no respect or trust of "main stream" media so the
| reporting on the issue has me questioning what the reality
| on the ground really is, and the reality from people
| experienced in working at other warehouses.
| mola wrote:
| Or maybe as an example for other managers? Basically it's "no
| union" or your head...
|
| Disgusting anyway.
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm skeptical, because it seems like most of the anti-union
| activities are either dictated or run from HDQ. It doesn't
| feel like something where the local leadership was free to
| make their own plays.
| bostonsre wrote:
| The fact that a unionization vote was happening would have
| been more than enough to start an investigation into
| management and firing management before the vote due to bad
| practices could have prevented the unionization vote from
| being passed. I'm not sure it matters much how much leeway
| the managers actually had in preventing unionization from
| happening. Amazon has been extremely cold hearted and
| calculating with the management of their logistics
| infrastructure. They are managing (ruling) by fear, not
| love. They could easily have prevented unionization by
| treating their employees like human beings and not robots,
| but they chose to go the dystopian route of extreme
| monitoring and pushing their employees to work as hard as
| possible. It almost feels like a move that Putin and other
| dictators would pull. They shift blame to those that are
| relatively powerless in middle management and make an
| example of them even though the fault lies with those at
| the top.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It doesn't feel like something where the local leadership
| was free to make their own plays.
|
| Firing managers where unionization happens encourages
| managers where unionization efforts are under way to make
| their own plays, whether this is formally allowed or not,
| whether by company policy or the law.
|
| Obviously, _getting caught_ on independent, policy /law-
| forbidden, efforts would also have adverse consequences, so
| the incentive also is to not get caught.
| sitkack wrote:
| If only those managers had joined the union.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Unfortunately those in a " supervisor" role are explicitly
| excluded from the main US labor protection [1]. Amazon could
| fire them anyway.
|
| [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-
| right...
| stevenbedrick wrote:
| That NLRB page does say that "supervisors who have been
| discriminated against for refusing to violate the NLRA may be
| covered", so I wonder if that might apply in this case? I
| suppose there's no way to tell from the outside, but if _I_
| were one of those fired managers, I would be looking into
| it...
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Sounds like US labour legislation needs to be scrapped and
| restarted.
| klyrs wrote:
| Problem being that the ones interested in scrapping them
| aren't interested in replacing them.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Why do we need legislation? Formation of unions is
| protected by freedom of association in the 1st amendment.
| Not sure why we need another federal bureaucracy to
| intervene in the negotiating process. Not sure why we
| need the whole all or nothing union voting process. What
| if 33% of employees want to join the union? What if
| managers want to join? Why can't they just join?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Because after WWII, when the US workforce had a lot of
| leverage and the power of unions was high, the US
| criminalized a bunch of things that unions do in exchange
| for a few token concessions.
|
| Freedom of association isn't a serious right in the US.
| Every town has "gang member" registries. At least we
| don't criminalize political parties like the UK or the
| rest of Europe.
| CPLX wrote:
| Because ever since the industrial era began corporate
| power has been the largest threat to individual liberty.
|
| We need a mechanism to restrain corporate power over
| labor just as much as we need courts to retrain police
| powers.
| [deleted]
| hammock wrote:
| Probably were ineligible
| [deleted]
| faangiq wrote:
| They're reaching a market cap where it would make sense to fire
| everyone but AWS.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It's confusing why investors haven't pushed harder for AWS to
| be spun-off into its own entity.
| syshum wrote:
| Elon should buy it and take it Private ;)
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Why would they do that when one entity's losses can be used
| as a tax write-off for the other entity's profits.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Investors like profit and they like growth. The moment a
| business unit isn't growing or profitable, you need to
| start justifying why you're keeping it around.
|
| On the topic of write offs, losing money isn't great unless
| it's used to fuel obscene growth. You don't spend $2 to
| save $1. The "we lose money on every sale, but make up for
| it on volume" model doesn't work in the long run. More
| simply, a business is worth the value of all future cash
| flow, and it's that simple.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Why would they do that when one entity's losses can be
| used as a tax write-off for the other entity's profits.
|
| Because it's better to not have losses than to use them as
| tax write-offs (also, because basically every use of funds
| _other than_ retaining profits is already a tax write-off
| for business, and the ones that aren 't losses contribute
| to future profits.)
| Ekaros wrote:
| Losing and investing money are different things. It's all
| fine for future to spend money on new warehouses,
| distribution hubs and better software. But there is
| expectation that this will at least increase revenue if not
| the profits. If it does not it is just waste that any
| company is better off with.
| di4na wrote:
| because an option on a basket is worth less that a basket
| of options
| tyrfing wrote:
| Massive company, so an activist would need a lot of capital
| for any noticeable stake. Overall reasonable and relatively
| consistently increasing valuation, so there is little
| incentive. If the stock does very poorly while AWS keeps
| growing, so the company value diverges further from the value
| of individual divisions added together (sum of the parts
| value), you could expect pressure on this.
| hiddencost wrote:
| The largest customer of AWS is Amazon. AWS would not be
| profitable without Amazon.
| influx wrote:
| AWS was making money well before retail moved onto it.
| Please show your source.
| notRobot wrote:
| 1. I seriously doubt that this is true
|
| 2. Amazon can be a customer of AWS's, even if the latter is
| spun out
| franczesko wrote:
| I don't see any benefits for Amazon as a whole of doing so.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| For real. Amazon's retail side is nothing but bad pr and other
| messy human entanglements. AWS is clean, profitable, and nearly
| ubiquitous. I definitely know which business I would rather be
| in
| thinkling wrote:
| The guy who used to run AWS now runs the whole show, so maybe
| it'll get better on the retail side over time?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's not about management. One business has many low paid
| workers as part of how things have to work; the other has
| fewer, high skilled workers.
| joshe wrote:
| To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is
| that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and
| decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the
| situation worse. This could have been that the rsi injury
| complaints were true and unaddressed promptly. Or that the
| managers came off as cold in communications. Or 5 other things
| they could have done better.
| jollybean wrote:
| In Amazon's purview, 'the problem' is that the 'union was
| formed'.
|
| It's a signal to the managers of the other warehouses that if a
| union is formed on their watch, they are toast.
| rolandog wrote:
| Wouldn't it be ironic that this makes Senior Managers realize
| it's in their best interest to join a union?
| stormbrew wrote:
| Most unions don't allow managers to join, as they're
| generally considered to be part of capital's collective
| bargaining side, if not part of capital themselves. I think
| most modern labor theory includes a "professional-
| managerial class" to account for this.
|
| There's an argument to be had about where this line makes
| sense in modern megacorps but local managers in blue collar
| work tend to hold a lot of power over their employees in
| particular regardless of the shape of the corporation
| they're under, so it would be surprising if they could.
|
| Edit: fair points in the replies about management unions
| and that I was focused on a North American perspective. I
| was interpreting the post I replied to as saying the
| managers would join _the_ union (as in the same one), but
| they didn 't actually say that.
|
| I can definitely believe that things would be different in
| a less union-adversarial environment. But it's still pretty
| unlikely that warehouse bosses at amazon would be welcome
| in the same union as the workers, or be likely to manage to
| unionize themselves successfully. The incentives just don't
| really align well in this context: corporate has too many
| carrots and sticks.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| tokai wrote:
| Every group can organize. There's no magical barrier.
| Dunno about the US but unions for management does exist
| in other countries.
| syshum wrote:
| This is one of the ongoing problems with discussion about
| "unions"
|
| "Unions" in the US are very very very very very different
| legally than "unions" in EU and other nations, personally
| i think they are so different we need a different term
| for them...
|
| The closest we have to a EU style union would be
| something like SAG, or the other entertainment unions,
| which often referr to themselves as Guilds.
|
| The employment unions like being formed at amazon are
| different animals all together which have ALOT of
| downside for even the workers in them.
| happymellon wrote:
| > which have ALOT of downside for even the workers in
| them.
|
| Do you have examples?
|
| As someone in the UK I don't see anything different
| between the Amazon workers Union and the unions here
| except for age and experience. They all just want to not
| be treated like dirt.
| syshum wrote:
| The big difference (and please correct me if I get UK
| info wrong, I am not an expert in UK Labor, I am versed
| in US Labor) that in the UK you have sector unions, not
| enterprise unions. A company may have employee's working
| under several unions, and I believe there are even
| competiting Sector unions that an employee can choose to
| join finding the union that best suites them
|
| In the US, typically, the is a 1:1 union, enterprise
| relationship. If you want to work at company X, you must
| join Union Y with no options to join a competing union,
| no options to opt out, and no regress if you do not feel
| the union is representing your interests.
|
| referred to as "closed shops" there is large amounts of
| corruption, favoritism, and other negative quality to
| many US Unions.
| ryoshu wrote:
| You haven't been forced to join a union in the US - or
| pay dues if you don't join - since 2018 when the SCOTUS
| ruled against the practice
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME). You
| could potentially start a competing union for, say,
| pipefitting, but the NLRB needs to approve it (federal
| agency). But now you are fighting management and a
| national union that already absorbed local ones over the
| last 150 years. Unions tend to consolidate over time
| because it gives more negotiating power for the members.
| Avshalom wrote:
| closed shops have been illegal since Taft-Hartley in
| 1947.
| syshum wrote:
| That is a technically in terms only. So apologies for
| using "closed" [1] instead of "union"[1] shop which are
| functionally the same thing, and Union Shops still very
| much exist which is clear from my description of what I
| was talking about in my comment, (i.e I clearly stated
| employees were required to join the union post hire)
|
| Right to Work states are a counter to Union Shops, which
| there is active efforts to do away with Right to Work
| laws
|
| [1]Closed Shop A company that only employs union members
| and requires them to secure and maintain union membership
| as a condition of employment.
|
| [2]Union Shop A company that doesn't require employees to
| join a union in order to be hired, but they must join
| within 30 days of employment.
| SilasX wrote:
| > Most unions don't allow managers to join,
|
| That would be a really daft rule for a union of Amazon
| managers to have.
|
| Or maybe I misunderstood you and you were replying to
| some uncharitable interpretation of the parent's
| suggestion that managers join a Union?
| jollybean wrote:
| To be like Lukashenko and read the winds of change and to
| get with the winning team. They have no power otherwise,
| they're just cogs in the system.
|
| Influence to avoid having the union, but if one is going to
| form ... then beg to join it.
|
| Bend like a reed in the wind, it's all they can hope to do.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Senior managers (heck, even line managers) do not have the
| right to unionize.
| shlurpy wrote:
| Historically, no group has a right to unionize until they
| fight to earn it, usually through unionization.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Could be many reasons I guess. But maybe we should apply the
| Labor-Capital Razor: what signal does this send to the
| remaining managers? And what are they likely to do in response?
| ISL wrote:
| If GP is correct, then that signal would be, "Treat everyone
| who works here more-fairly and address their concerns in a
| timely manner. It is in everyone's best interest."
| vkou wrote:
| Management culture flows from the top. If the managers are
| pressured by corporate to be utter assholes, and then they
| get fired because that resulted in unionization, the
| fault's not just with them, but also further up the tree.
|
| This seems like CYA from someone further up. Bad thing
| happened, someone must pay for it, we found someone, they
| are paying for it.
| xmprt wrote:
| > If GP is correct
|
| Only the Amazon higher ups will know this. Managers will
| see the correlation between unionizing and getting fired
| and connect the dots.
| darkerside wrote:
| This seems like one of those optical illusions that can
| look either way. Duck or rabbit? What color is the dress?
| Young lady or old hag?
|
| Managers are obviously fired because the union was
| formed. They shouldn't let another form. Are they
| expected to respond by creating a trustful and inclusive
| environment, or by ruling through fear?
| kqr wrote:
| I see your point except a "truthful and inclusive
| environment" would be positive (or at least neutral) to
| unionization.
|
| So, clearly the latter.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Their mandate would be to avoid unionization. So
| obviously the "ruling through fear" option.
|
| I don't see how optical illusions have anything to do
| with it except muddying the waters.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| You should try reading the news about Amazon's blatantly
| illegal union busting efforts instead of pretending like
| we can't tell what this is.
| runarberg wrote:
| I mean if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and
| quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
|
| If the union busters then tell you it's a rabbit, they
| are probably lying. The only illusion is the lie.
| Angostura wrote:
| Or ... "you better join a union quick"
| avgcorrection wrote:
| In that case then the concerns of the workers could have
| been addressed by going over the heads of the senior
| managers to the higher-ups. Which provokes two questions:
|
| - Why did it get to the point of a strike if this was just
| a case of bad internal communication?
|
| - Does this theory really _gel_ with how aggressive Amazon
| has been against unionization activity? Apparently they
| could have just met the concerns of the workers
| immediately.
|
| EDIT:
|
| > If GP is correct, then that signal would be,
|
| On second thought: I am talking about the likely signal
| that they want to send to other managers, i.e. how they
| will interpret it. And to just spell it out: I think they
| will be more wary of associating with unions.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article
| is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse
| and decided part of the problem was that the managers were
| making the situation worse.
|
| You'd think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the
| apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of
| addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the
| actual labor conditions driving the desire to unionize and not
| the failure of worksite union-busting efforts leading up to the
| vote.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what happened in Alabama?
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each
| warehouse where the issues lie?
|
| They're not omniscient.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each
| warehouse where the issues lie?
|
| So, you think that they managed to systemically cover up
| their misdeeds from higher management _before_ the
| election, but conveniently failed to continue that coverup
| after the union election.
|
| I mean, sure, you concoct a strained narrative which makes
| this a noble move by Amazon's higher management, but...why
| strain to do that?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| It's the Amazon senior manager cabal which manages to
| coordinate better and have better information across the
| whole company compared to the Amazon executives. You have
| not heard of it?
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I don't find that a strained narrative at all.
|
| -- I once wrote a status report where I reported that I
| thought something would be a problem blocking my progress
| if it weren't resolved.
|
| My manager's status report said that there might be a
| issue.
|
| His managers report said everything was on track. --
|
| If you don't think that the upper management got into hot
| water and then started paying a lot more attention to
| their on-site managers after the Union vote, you and I
| live in different worlds.
| Zamaamiro wrote:
| Yup. You need to make a lot of assumptions arrive at this
| strained conclusion. Why not apply Occam's razor?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Seems weird to just fire a bunch of managers instead of working
| on fixing the problem with them.
| Zamaamiro wrote:
| I'm curious why this strikes you as a more reasonable
| explanation. It seems to me that you would need to make more
| assumptions to arrive at this conclusion than to arrive at
| other alternative conclusions.
| coliveira wrote:
| No, this is just the beginning of their counterstrike. I fully
| expect Amazon to close that warehouse as soon as they legally
| can.
| noizejoy wrote:
| Related:
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wal-mart-to-close-
| unionized...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-
| wal...
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