[HN Gopher] Amazon instructs New York workers "don't sign" union...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon instructs New York workers "don't sign" union cards
Author : walterclifford
Score : 281 points
Date : 2022-07-16 12:28 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| oldjavacoder wrote:
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| The union I am a member of more than doubled the wages of its
| members after its first 12 years of existence. Crucially it
| also ensures twice yearly cost of living adjustments.
|
| Turns out if the Union wasn't there I'd have a lot less freedom
| in the form of disposable income. I prefer not living paycheck-
| to-paycheck, thanks.
| slater wrote:
| No, they don't.
| sp332 wrote:
| Amazon has incredibly crappy working conditions and extremely
| high turnover. Even if you don't like unions on average, I
| don't see what they have to lose in this case.
| willyt wrote:
| A union is just a way to make a multilateral contract
| negotiation between one huge party and hundreds of thousands of
| very small parties into a bi-lateral contract negotiation
| between two equals, it's a completely rational negotiating
| tactic in a pure capitalist system and it can only be prevented
| by restricting basic human rights to freedom of speech, freedom
| of assembly, freedom of contract and the right to live without
| fear of violence.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I agree completely as long as we also don't start using state
| police power to enforce closed shops.
| bombcar wrote:
| The union just makes two huge parties, neither of which the
| employee has much choice about.
| coldpie wrote:
| Most unions that have survived 40 years of anti worker
| propaganda are huge, yes. But they don't have to be. One
| thing I'm hoping comes out of this recent union revival is
| an exploration of different union types and sizes, to find
| new models that work well.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's amusing to me that unions complain about outsourcing
| as they themselves outsource all _their work_ to some
| mega-union.
| mhoad wrote:
| You seem to be rather confused about how unions actually
| work, this is one of many comments from you in this thread
| that kind of reads like you got all of your exposure to
| unions from a Ben Shapiro video or something.
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| Freedom to work for less.
|
| Freedom to be exploited by their employer.
|
| Yes, we get it. You're _special_. You 're not like the rest of
| those... those... _workers_. You are capable of deluding
| yourself that your negotiating power is anywhere near that of
| any company you may want to be employed by or otherwise do
| business with. Which, of course is a delusion. Unions give
| workers, including you, power.
| bamboozled wrote:
| If Amazon wasn't such scum, I'd spend a lot more with them...
| stevespang wrote:
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| No doubt that Amazon is being scummy here, but you can't quote
| someone/something and put a phrase ("don't sign") in quotations
| unless it's a direct quote...
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| The article has a photo of a slide with the words "don't sign"
| on it at the top.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| can't believe i missed that after scrolling through all the
| images. how do i downvote myself.
|
| this should be illegal.
| yardie wrote:
| > By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form,
| you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf.
|
| Yeah, they were great at listening before.
|
| Also, where are these unions where the people in it aren't the
| people it represents. Recently, a school board election ad, "we
| have to stop the teachers union and start listening to teachers."
| Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?
| ravel-bar-foo wrote:
| Larger unions sometimes hire staff to represent their interests
| who are do not work in the profession represented: negotiators,
| lawyers, etc. It sets up a bit of a principle/agent problem,
| but it also makes a lot of sense: a professional lawyer may be
| much better at negotiating on your behalf than the people from
| your profession who win the union elections.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| At least in theory unions have the correct incentive
| structure, as they get a fixed percentage of their member's
| incomes, so to get more money from their members, they need
| to negotiate better salaries for them.
| gruez wrote:
| Except unions aren't for-profit, so it's unclear where
| those extra money is going to. Senior leadership perhaps?
| But unions beholden to members, which means there's no
| "fixed percentage", because that's decided by the members
| themselves. We can see a parallel in public sector
| compensation: democratically controlled organizations are
| very reluctant to spend extra money on compensating
| leadership (or any other high paying staff, for that
| matter).
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The extra money goes to more union staff and union
| facilities; lobbying; and grants - overwhelming the
| former. Also, it's not like non-profits have to balance
| their budgets every year; the UAW added $60M to its net
| assets in 2021.
| ByteJockey wrote:
| It's slightly more complicated in practice. The US has this
| weird system where you can opt out of full union membership
| and become what's called an "objector". You opt out of
| union membership but still pay a portion of dues (those
| directly around contract negotiation and the like), and
| you're still covered by the collective bargaining
| agreement. The downside being that, as you're not a union
| member, you generally don't get voting rights.
|
| To quote the NLRB's website directly:
|
| > Federal law allows unions and employers to enter into
| "union-security" agreements which require all employees in
| a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying
| union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired.
| Employees may choose not to become union members and pay
| dues, or opt to pay only that share of dues used directly
| for representation, such as collective bargaining and
| contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no
| longer union members, but are still protected by the
| contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered
| employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme
| Court ruling and is known as the Beck right.
|
| This usually works well enough, but in certain
| circumstances, you can have a small minority control the
| entire operation and the vast majority are "represented" by
| an institution they have no voice in. This seems to be the
| case in lower paid unions (e.g. grocery baggers) because
| the majority can't afford the extra dues.
| f7fg_u-_h wrote:
| Unions are compensated proportional to N*S where N is
| number of workers and S is average salary. Workers care
| about increasing S, but unions sometimes focus on
| increasing N because it is easier. But then the individual
| worker doesn't see their life improve.
| mhoad wrote:
| N is also the power to negotiate in that equation in
| order to improve S. Increasing N makes total sense in
| that scenario.
| koolba wrote:
| > Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?
|
| Professional bureaucrats.
|
| Teachers unions in public schools are the worst. They hold our
| childrens' futures hostage and get paid out by politicians
| buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.
| coldpie wrote:
| My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a
| decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled
| students, for about 20 years. You should try talking with the
| people you are making claims about. I bet they're very
| different from what you think.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I suspect your Mom is an extra-ordinary super-hero sort,
| and more power to her. However, here in the Western USA,
| urban public schools are a disaster -- the bigger the
| district, the bigger the disaster -- and the union is not
| innocent in continuing that. no easy answers
| coldpie wrote:
| 100 percent agreed there are no easy answers. I was
| arguing against the pointless emotional rhetorical
| garbage like "professional bureaucrats" and "holding
| children hostage". No, not everything is perfect, but the
| solution to that is to find and address real problems,
| not scream stupid insults until everything falls apart.
| gruez wrote:
| >>Professional bureaucrats.
|
| >My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about
| a decade. She was a para-professional, working with
| disabled students, for about 20 years.
|
| Nothing you said really contradicts the parent post's claim
| that the people working in unions are "Professional
| bureaucrats". If your mom was working with disabled
| students for 20 years, then switched to being a bureaucrat
| for the next 10 years, she's still arguably a "Professional
| bureaucrat".
| coldpie wrote:
| That's not how it worked. The union role took a few hours
| a month, in addition to her para job. A handful of
| meetings, usually in evenings after a normal workday. It
| would never have been considered her primary job, more
| like a task within her job at the school.
| verall wrote:
| States where teacher's unions are allowed to collectively
| bargain have better teacher pay, less teacher shortages, and
| better average outcomes. To me this sounds like a lot of
| privilege from someone that doesn't understand how bad
| schools can get in areas with very little funding or
| oversight.
| yardie wrote:
| > They hold our childrens' futures hostage and get paid out
| by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next
| generation.
|
| Are you confusing the school board with the teachers union?
| One sets curriculum, class size, and budget. The later really
| only influences salary, benefits, and working hours.
| briHass wrote:
| Not to mention that most state/local teachers unions are
| branches of the NEA/AFT, two of the largest unions in the
| country. Also, two of the largest political contributors, to
| strictly left-leaning politicians. Neither are shy about
| admitting that they support Democrat policies exclusively.
| mhoad wrote:
| To be fair have you seen republican policies towards
| teachers and education in general. Of course nobody would
| ever intentionally pick that for themselves and their
| profession.
| Anderkent wrote:
| > Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?
|
| well, union higher-ups are basically politicians, they're not
| usually working in the job by that point
| tomohawk wrote:
| Unions love card check instead of secret ballots. It's a great
| intimidation tool.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| alexnewman wrote:
| I'm amazed , with the history, lack of progress, and violence
| committed by unions, that anyone would ever join one. This ain't
| Germany
| ervine wrote:
| Why is stevespang's comment flagged as dead?
| tjoff wrote:
| Shadowbanned, seemed excessive to me. I vouched for it at
| least.
| capableweb wrote:
| I agree with the comment that Amazon is fucking nasty, but I
| don't think a comment just stating that is adding a lot to
| the conversation. More well thought out comments are usually
| more interesting, so I'd downvote it myself for that, even
| though I do agree with the sentiment.
| tjoff wrote:
| I agree, though I don't agree with the shadowban (if I'm
| right about that).
| jefftk wrote:
| Looking back over their comment history, I do think a
| shadowban is appropriate. There are lots of inflammatory
| and mean comments, and very little actual contribution.
| maybeiambatman wrote:
| How do legislators just allow this? Isn't this cut and dry
| illegal?
| drewcoo wrote:
| The NLRB[1] is supposed to handle it. I have no idea how they
| would rule on forcing anti-union propaganda on employees today.
|
| And today's SCOTUS seems to want to defang all government
| agencies' ability to rule on or enforce . . . anything, really,
| based on their rulings on the EPA and the SEC. Well, unless
| it's the government trying to enforce on reservation land -
| that is newly allowed.
|
| [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-
| right...
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Because legislators historically are less interested in
| corporate/white collar crime.
| [deleted]
| coldpie wrote:
| It's a huge grey area, largely up to the NLRB to decide when
| anti-union campaigners cross the line. They did similar tactics
| in the Alabama vote and were slapped for that behavior[1], and
| many other infractions, with an order to re-do the vote[2].
| Amazon's execs and lawyers clearly think they have enough to
| lose (and their workers to gain) that it's worth finding
| exactly where the line is.
|
| ---
|
| [1] "The [NLRB] hearing officer also found objectionable
| Amazon's distribution of "vote no" pins and other anti-
| organizing paraphernalia to employees in the presence of
| managers and supervisors. ... U.S. labor law forbids companies
| from spying on organizing activities or leaving employees with
| the impression they are under surveillance. It also prohibits
| other actions if they are found to be coercive."
| https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-interfered-with-unio...
|
| [2] https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1022384731/amazon-
| warehouse-w...
| ixwt wrote:
| If I hazarded a guess, this might have not gone through their
| legal department first.
| sp332 wrote:
| They've hired a bunch of outside agencies to help union-
| busting. My guess is that it came from one of them, and that
| Amazon will sue them for whatever damages are caused by this.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| see also american corporate history of hiring gangsters to
| break strikes and beat workers, leaving some thugs to catch
| the blame
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| go look up what other illegal union busting behaviors they've
| gotten away with. and look at democrat or republican behaviors,
| such as biden actively strike-busting the other day
| collegeburner wrote:
| strike busting public unions is good. we should never
| recognize public unions. there is no middleman to reduce
| profits with the government, higher wages means we pay more,
| there's no "evil capitalist" who will get less instead.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| thanks for pointing this out. I definitely agree when it
| comes to police unions. need to learn more about this
| situation though
| gnulinux wrote:
| An alternative perspective to look at this is that orgs
| like USPS are _services_ provided to Americans because they
| 're the kind of services that would otherwise be
| inaccessible to great majority of Americans. For this
| reason, increasing the wages and potentially attracting
| better workers and increasing the morale (and thus
| performance) of existing workers are beneficial for
| Americans.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > The ALU may ask you to sign an authorization card or share a QR
| code to fill out an online authorization card. > _This is a
| legally binding document_
|
| Ooh scary ... is the employment contract signed by Amazon's
| employees not legally binding? How is it Amazon's business what
| their grown-ass employees can or cannot sign?
|
| > By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form,
| you are providing the ALU your personal information.
|
| Like Amazon monitoring my spending habits?
|
| > By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form,
| you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf.
|
| And thats terrible how?
|
| > The ALU is not part of Amazon and does not represent Amazon
|
| Thats the whole point.
| eli wrote:
| I mean, yeah. We don't have to pretend it's in good faith. This
| is obviously calibrated to make the union card sound as scary
| as possible while (they hope) stopping just short of being
| illegal interference.
| imgabe wrote:
| What employment contract? They're at will
| edmundsauto wrote:
| You would still be likey to have a contract, it would specify
| at-will and a slew of other clauses.
|
| It would not guarantee a term of employment, in the standard
| form (but could, if it were so modified).
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > What employment contract? They're at will
|
| Despite the colloquial use of the word "contract," there is
| generally always going to be an employment contract
| (agreement) in place.
|
| Similarly, people colloquially talk about having a "contract"
| for things like cellphones meaning a fixed term, but there is
| always an actual "contract" (agreement) with the terms of the
| service regardless of whether the plan has a fixed term or
| not and regardless of whether it's prepaid or not.
| peyton wrote:
| Contract and agreement are not synonyms. Contracts require
| consideration.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| I inserted "agreement" in parentheses to clarify the
| meaning of contract as a type of legally binding
| agreement here as opposed to other usages of the word.
|
| I don't think this is a controversial definition of the
| word contract (for example Wikipedia's entry for
| "contract" states, "A contract is a legally enforceable
| agreement...").
|
| I did not say that contract and agreement are synonyms
| that can be replaced with each other in all
| circumstances, so I'm not really sure that your comment
| is relevant to what I wrote.
|
| I was also trying to clarify that the employment contract
| might be titled "Employment Agreement" or something like
| that but is still a "contract."
| tialaramex wrote:
| But employment minus consideration is either:
|
| If the worker isn't receiving consideration: Slavery,
| which is illegal in the civilised world (Americans still
| enslave convicted criminals...)
|
| If the employer isn't receiving consideration: Some sort
| of payroll error? Are you mistakenly still paying people
| you fired? Call HR now.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, but the larger point, that employees have
| employment contracts in at-will states, is still true.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| At-will employees have an employment contract, just one that
| does not restrict causes of termination beyond those that are
| not impermissible under generally applicable employment law.
|
| "But they didn't sign anything like a contract," one might
| object.
|
| They accepted an offer to do work of some specification for
| pay of some specification. Even if there was nothing in
| writing and no other explicit terms, that's sufficient to
| have a contract.
| [deleted]
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| "How can we make the mundane and expected sound eeeeeeevil and
| dangerous?"
| jballer wrote:
| But did they cross state lines?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Ironically, he didn't even cross state lines (at least not
| that night), he was there the night before sleeping over at
| a friend's house.
| [deleted]
| tablespoon wrote:
| What are you taking about?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| There was a high profile self-defense case a while back
| and a lot of people were arguing that the victim should
| be considered guilty because he transported his weapon
| from out of state, but when that was proven untrue (his
| weapon was already in the state where the incident
| happened), they tried to make a big deal about him coming
| from out of state ("he crossed state lines!") as though
| that was indicative of anything (he lived 30 minutes away
| and had been staying with a friend in the town where the
| incident took place).
| tablespoon wrote:
| Did that person have any connection to the Amazon Labor
| Union? I'm just trying to figure out how I was supposed
| to follow this subthread.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| The "crossing state lines!" outrage was an example of
| someone trying to make the mundane sound evil and
| ominous.
| aliswe wrote:
| na
| [deleted]
| makomk wrote:
| It's a bad thing if the people signing the card or filling out
| the form do no, in fact, want the union to represent them. In
| fact, if you look at those signs they pretty much all have one
| thing in common: the people they'd convince not to sign up to a
| legally-binding agreement that the union will represent them
| are those who are not aware this is in fact what they're
| signing up for, and in the case of the last one specifically
| people who aren't aware this isn't something Amazon is requring
| of them as a normal part of the job. Make of that what you
| will.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| They're transparently trying to exploit people not knowing any
| better and being horribly afraid about losing their jobs in a
| recessing economy. It's despicable.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| obviously amazon doesn't have a real case against unions, but
| they can try to use scary language to confuse people
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| kennywinker wrote:
| Is this satire? It feels like satire. A perfect sendup of
| "both sides"-ism.
|
| If it's not satire, I've only got one argument to offer:
| what are the odds that the advantages and disadvantages of
| both sides are equally balanced? Vanishingly small. So why
| would you "both sides" things when one is definitely going
| to be better. Figure out which side that is, and then
| advocate for it. That's how progress happens.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > So why would you "both sides" things when one is
| definitely going to be better.
|
| Usually in an wish to maintain order and prevent chaotic
| conflict. Not going to explicitly say it's a good or bad
| thing, but that usually seems to be the intent.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| capital is highly organized and well-resourced, keeping
| workers from attaining the same sounds reactionary
| kennywinker wrote:
| You literally just did a "both-sides" to social change.
| "Maintaining order" is an act of violence when people's
| lives are on the line. A specific social change is either
| good or bad, there's no room for people to stand in the
| middle and obstruct because they can't be bothered to
| figure out if they value the risk of change more than the
| damage of staying the same.
| the_only_law wrote:
| No I answered a question. I very explicitly noted
| following the question I wasn't going to make specify
| judgement either way, not because "both sides" but to
| prevent over zealous users from trying to fight me on it
| as well as to keep the topic to what I've said as opposed
| to what people want me to have said so the they can enter
| their own tirade, which evidently failed.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| _jal wrote:
| "This will go down on your permanent record..."
|
| -- Bezos in helium voice
|
| I remember quitting from Krogers bagging groceries when I was
| a kid. I forget why, but I did give less than 2 weeks notice.
| Mr. Manager gravely conveyed that if I did this, I'd be
| barred from working for them again forever. Pretty sure my
| poker face then was not what it is now, but in any case I did
| not find that to be anywhere nearly as distressing as he
| seemed to think I should.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| that lifetime ban on working for the Krogers may have
| represented a much bigger threat to Mr. Manager than it
| ever would to you
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| pmc and workers aren't allies
| filoleg wrote:
| How are private military contractors related to Kroger
| workers, and why are they expected (or not) to be allies
| in the first place?
| pseudo0 wrote:
| Professional-managerial class. Basically people with
| white collar jobs who have more sway than the working
| class due to professional moats (university degrees,
| accreditations) and more influence on society due to
| controlling to some degree how capital is deployed.
|
| The point here is that getting blacklisted is probably a
| much scarier prospect for the manager. PMC jobs typically
| have more stringent reference checks and employment
| history requirements. Meanwhile a low-wage grocery store
| clerk is going to have no trouble finding another shitty
| job. Typical minimum wage jobs just want someone who will
| show up and doesn't have a criminal record.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| pro managerial class
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| I wish r/kroger and r/antiwork would intersect more, it's
| so sad to see the experiences people post in the former
| runnerup wrote:
| r/antiwork is propaganda and true-believers amplifying
| that propaganda.
|
| r/Kroger and r/Walmart are real people just trying to
| deal with life as best they can.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| [deleted]
| runnerup wrote:
| What makes it incorrect? I'm a leftist and I can see that
| this is leftist propaganda. I don't necessarily disagree
| with all of it, but I recognize it for what it is! The
| vast majority of material on reddit.com is propaganda.
| The fact that lots of people buy into it and it becomes
| self-perpetuating doesn't make it any less propaganda.
| The fact that it was started by individual true believers
| also doesn't make it any less propaganda.
|
| Even if powerful groups aren't using r/antiwork to affect
| western economies (it would be incredibly neglectful not
| to at least attempt to leverage it), a grassroots
| organization of well-intending people can ALSO be its own
| engine of propaganda.
|
| The FAQ for r/AntiWork is full of "calls to action":
|
| > How can I effect change in my workplace? Resources:
| 30-minute overview on how to unionize.www.iww.org - Join
| your local IWW chapter for support in your own workplace
| or to support local organizing campaigns.
| www.amazoniansunited.org - Check out what amazon workers
| have been up to for inspiration. Legal handbook for labor
| action
|
| Don't Stand up to your boss alone. You
| will get disciplined and possibly fired.
| Allow your boss to overhear your discussions about
| workplace conditions. Most businesses have a plan to shut
| down a union campaign before it begins. Try
| to organize a strike before less aggressive actions have
| failed. Start with approaching your boss as a group with
| your demands. Smaller actions can include work slowdowns,
| intermittent strikes, sabotage, picketing your boss's
| house, public informational campaigns, etc.
| Make everything a political conversation. The current
| needs of your fellow workers can be addressed through
| workplace action aside from the larger conversation of
| politics.
|
| Do Get to know your coworkers on a
| personal level, and spend time with them outside of work.
| Solidarity can only exist if you understand your fellow
| workers' needs and barriers, and if you are there to
| support them outside of the union campaign.
| Contact local unions to get support once a few of your
| coworkers are on board with organizing. Keep
| your scope small. Getting everyone from a seven-person
| department to call off on Black Friday will have more
| impact than 1,000 workers calling off around the country.
|
| -----------------------
|
| Note that r/AntiWork is also incredibly hostile to any
| good-faith discussion which even potentially goes against
| their _prescribed_ norms and strict beliefs. Bans are
| handed out very frequently. There is a dedicated effort
| to create a self-reinforcing echo chamber. -------- Other
| propaganda subreddits:
|
| r/steroids (died quite a bit after r/steroidsourcetalk
| was closed, likely because the economic interest died
| with that)
|
| r/worldnews
|
| r/liberalgunowners (fascinating to watch this migrate
| from a kum-bay-yah liberal propaganda to a fear-mongering
| firearm manufacturer propaganda)
|
| r/entertainment
|
| r/StartingStrength
|
| r/ADHD
|
| r/UkrainianConflict
|
| r/publicfreakout
|
| ---------
|
| Some that are not yet propaganda:
|
| r/adhdmemes
|
| r/AustralianCattleDog
|
| r/woodworking
|
| r/walmart
|
| r/OSHA (surprisingly!)
|
| r/Construction
|
| r/IllegallySmolCats
|
| -------
|
| Some that are borderline:
|
| r/Fitness
|
| r/Bodyweightfitness
|
| r/Target
|
| r/Homebuilding
|
| r/Credit
| pessimizer wrote:
| You're just using the word "propaganda" as a euphemism
| for things you disapprove of.
| feet wrote:
| taurath wrote:
| Earlier in my life I nearly died driving 50 miles to get
| into work as a grocery store clerk on no sleep because a
| manager called me and in no uncertain terms told me if I
| didn't come in that day I'd be fired.
|
| I was raised to believe that a job is more important than
| just about anything, so I decided to try to go in as I was
| out of town. I crashed my car as I fell asleep at the
| wheel. It shouldn't take that to get someone to realize the
| relative unimportance of a job, but the US culture (as
| channeled through my conservative parents, at least)
| doesn't value anything higher than work and productivity in
| the service of capital as this deified virtue.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| thanks for sharing, I'm glad you survived to learn that
| lesson
| IMTDb wrote:
| >> By signing a card or filling out an online authorization
| form, you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf. >
| And thats terrible how?
|
| You really can't see the issue with authorising a group you
| have little to no control over, speak on your behalf ? I can
| totally understand that people share _some_ views with what
| unions are _currently_ defending.
|
| But the requirement on signing a paper that says "whatever the
| union currently says and will say in the future 100% represents
| my point of view" is a fair criticism of the union model.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > "whatever the union currently says and will say in the
| future 100% represents my point of view"
|
| Is that what it says? It says that you have to agree to be
| legally responsible for the union's opinions on netflix
| shows, or of your cousin's marriage?
|
| No, it says that you're agreeing for them to represent you
| with the company, not some made-up all-encompassing
| scaremongering paraphrasing of that.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The same criticism still works, though. I can like their
| position for negotiating with Amazon today, without
| necessarily having to agree that I'm going to like it
| forever.
|
| Mind you, I'm not necessarily on Amazon's side here. Their
| scare-mongering is pretty slimy, to say no more. But
| IMTDb's objection is valid, even adjusted for your
| criticism.
| naasking wrote:
| That's true of any system based on democratic rule. It's
| not much of a criticism because it's still better than
| anything else that we've come up with.
| brokenodometer wrote:
| A union authorization card does not "join" someone to a
| union, nor is it an irrevocable endorsement of "whatever the
| union will say in the future."
|
| A union authorization card is simply a means of demonstrating
| the 30% employee support required for the NLRB to order an
| election. That's it. Unions will generally not hold elections
| until 60% of employees have signed cards, because a majority
| vote is required.
|
| From the anti-union National Right to Work Foundation:
|
| "You have a legal right to revoke any union authorization
| card that you have signed. It is illegal for a union to
| restrict your right to revoke a union authorization card that
| you signed."
|
| https://www.nrtw.org/rights-card-check-private/
| mrinterweb wrote:
| Unions are kind of like electing congressional
| representatives. You and your peers elect someone to
| represent their interests. Its democratic representation.
| When it comes to a company making changes benefiting workers,
| collective bargaining is far more powerful than a single
| worker voice.
| breakyerself wrote:
| Unions are democratically controlled by the membership. When
| was the last time your employer gave you a vote on anything?
| [deleted]
| fatbird wrote:
| If ALU gets over 50% of employees to sign the card, they can
| bypass a vote and declare themselves the union and petition for
| recognition of such to the NLRB (which will grant it unless
| Amazon can demonstrate malfeasance somehow). It's a common
| tactic by unions and a common response by employers is to
| carefully but thoroughly explain this tactic to employees---
| which they're allowed to do, but it's totally illegal to say
| "DON'T SIGN THE CARD" so it's a tightrope to walk. When it
| happened at a facility at which I worked, the HR director read
| a script, showed a video, took no questions, and videotaped the
| entire thing to ensure that he could prove it was done legally.
|
| Of course, this is Amazon we're talking about, so they may just
| go for it and plan to clean up the mess later. Walmart got away
| with that approach for decades.
| egh wrote:
| That is simply not true. That could be the case in the near
| future (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/how-
| the-nlr...) but it is simply not true now. Amazon can always
| force a vote if 50% of members of the unit sign a card.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yeah, if they can get 50% of employees on legal record saying
| they support the union, it is obvious that they don't need an
| election.
|
| Your language, IMO, is value-laden. Card-signing is a common
| "tactic" for unions like the presidential election is a
| "tactic" for deciding the next president.
| fatbird wrote:
| I am 100% behind Amazon employees unionizing, and I wish
| unionization was far more widespread. I wasn't trying to
| impugn unions using the legitimate process to achieve
| legitimate ends.
| mh- wrote:
| Election votes are anonymous by nature. Card signing is
| not.
|
| I'm not opposed to unionizing but I take issue with the
| idea that getting 50% support means "it is obvious that
| they don't need an election."
| kennywinker wrote:
| It seems like you're saying the lack of anonymity will
| inflate support for a union. I.e. organizers will be able
| to pressure people who would otherwise vote no on a
| union. Frankly, I'd be worried about the opposite.
| Knowing how aggressively amazon is fighting unions, if I
| worked there i'd hesitate to put my name down on paper -
| when I wouldn't hesitate to vote in a secret ballot. If
| that's the case, 50% support implies a stronger majority.
|
| Maybe that's not always the case, but that's what I'd
| guess is happening in this case.
| mh- wrote:
| Probably both! That's why we shouldn't guess, and votes
| are secret for a reason.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Ah yes, let's make a rule that makes a difficult process
| (unionization) for a vulnerable group (workers) more
| difficult, based on a vague theory about imagined
| pressure being applied. Sounds like solid reasoning to
| me.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Historically, there have been times when intimidation
| came from the union. There have also been times when
| intimidation came from management. So, yeah. Secret
| ballot.
| kennywinker wrote:
| > People call the current National Labor Relations Board
| (NLRB) election system a secret ballot election--but in
| fact it's not like any democratic election held anywhere
| else in our society. It's really a management-controlled
| election process because corporations have all the power.
| They control the information workers can receive and
| routinely poison the process by intimidating, harassing,
| coercing and even firing people who try to organize
| unions.
|
| (via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check)
|
| Without reforming the secret ballot process, you're just
| handing power to the companies by advocating against
| card-checks
| mh- wrote:
| (That quote comes from the AFL-CIO, not Wikipedia
| editors, for the curious.)
| kennywinker wrote:
| Almost put that in, but it seemed like it was clear from
| the tone that it's a quote. If that felt misleading I
| apologize
| tus666 wrote:
| Unions should be illegal.
| rideontime wrote:
| _You_ should be illegal.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Care to explain your reasoning?
| JWlrCk9PkipFTDq wrote:
| OK I'll bite - why?
| bombcar wrote:
| If I were to try to guess, it's that it forces political
| cooperation on people under threat of not having a job.
|
| Imagine the situation where every single company in your
| state is a union shop (you have to join the union and pay
| dues if you work) - and every single union is wildly pro-gun,
| supporting candidates who want everyone to carry two guns
| (but they'll compromise to only men and only one if pushed).
|
| So to live and work, your money has to go to support that. If
| you were anti-gun, you'd probably feel a bit annoyed.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I live in a country (Romania) with almost no legal guns, so
| I am missing some context. I thought that with the USA
| constitution guns are a right that "shall not be
| infringed", so what exactly "anti-gun" means: changing the
| constitution or ignoring it? Most of the news I see, people
| are trying to ignore it, which is basically ignoring the
| laws. In this case, Amazon breaking some laws seems to fit
| well in the picture.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The Constitution is not "the law", it only restricts what
| the government can do, not individuals.
|
| Guns are a right but only to a limited extent. No right
| is absolute. The debate right now is how far this right
| extends.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's an attempt to pick an example that "works" - most
| people on HN will not be sad that the union supports a
| political party, because it's the party _they_ also
| support.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| Imagine the situation where every single company in your
| state is underpaying its employees, exploiting workforce in
| third world countries, polluting the environment,
| externalizing costs, laying off exclusively to improve
| short term profits for shareholders, etc and they lobby
| governments to keep it that way.
|
| So to live and work, your labor has to go to support that.
| If you were anti-capitalist, you'd probably feel a bit
| annoyed.
| JWlrCk9PkipFTDq wrote:
| I get your point, but that's specifically compulsory union
| membership (which I agree is undesirable). It's a huge leap
| from that to "unions should be illegal".
|
| Side note - where I am (Australia) compulsory union
| membership is illegal.
|
| At its core a trade union is an organisation that
| represents workers interests, and that formally negotiates
| on behalf of its members. To say that unions should be
| illegal is to say that workers should be banned from
| collectively negotiating via formal organisations, which
| seems a tad extreme.
| bombcar wrote:
| I believe in most cases in the US you have compulsory
| union membership (or as matters most, compulsory union
| dues).
| JWlrCk9PkipFTDq wrote:
| Definitely agree that compulsory union membership (or
| compulsory membership of any political organisation for
| that matter) is a terrible idea!
| bombcar wrote:
| The argument is understandable - if you're not forced to
| join the union and pay for it, then everyone will just
| not join and let the union still negotiate on their
| behalf; and it'll have no money to operate and fall
| apart.
|
| However, I'm sure there would be other ways (for example,
| if the union is negotiating with the company, the company
| can just pay for the union, it does indirectly through
| salary anyway).
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| If you aren't in the union you should have to negotiate
| your own contract. I don't see why you would get the
| fruits of the union's labor if you aren't a part of it.
|
| That way if the union does a good job, workers will join,
| and if it does a bad job they won't.
| JWlrCk9PkipFTDq wrote:
| Yeah for sure - I can see why compulsory unionism is a
| thing for historical reasons and understand the argument
| for maintaining it but fundamentally disagree on
| principle (freedom of political association etc.).
|
| Voluntary membership is a hard problem for unions, and in
| Australia declining union membership is a big thing
| outside of industries like construction that still have
| unionism as a core part of the working culture. I think
| it's hard for a lot of people to see the benefits they
| gain from union membership when most of the basic working
| rights that unions have won are taken for granted, and a
| lot of the bargaining and political lobbying work they do
| is somewhat abstract.
|
| It always seems strange to me how much anti-union
| sentiment there seems to be in the US though. Not to say
| that Australia is perfect by any means but labour
| conditions in the US seem pretty insane as an outsider.
| bombcar wrote:
| I feel (especially in construction) that unions missed a
| chance to become a "guarantee of quality" - basically,
| certify that their members perform to a baseline, and if
| you have an issue with work they did, the union (or the
| company) will make it right. Basically self-policing.
| designium wrote:
| "We care about your privacy but not your rights." "Please suffer
| privately on your own."
| crikeyjoe wrote:
| justinzollars wrote:
| If you really cared, cancel your amazon accounts. 148 Prime users
| upvoted this article.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Can't we have prime and have people paid sufficiently too?
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| I did, during the initial union busting efforts. Surprisingly
| easy to get by without prime.
|
| Until Amazon can start treating workers well, it seems to me
| the best move is not to pay them to abuse people.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Realistically an Amazon-wide union is the only way Amazon workers
| are going to get decent wage increases. If the USA is going to
| allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid
| (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China, without
| having any cross-border capital flow penalities (neoliberal
| globalism in a nutshell), then the major employers like Amazon
| and Walmart are going to have to double their wages.
|
| Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They
| may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
| nxmnxm99 wrote:
| Retric wrote:
| Competition means higher prices aren't an easy fix.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Competition also means non-union employers will dominate
| the market. You can't have it both ways.
| Retric wrote:
| It doesn't need to be. Giant companies that threat their
| workers worse than average face much stronger
| unionization efforts.
|
| Which pushes markets to increased efficiency rather
| forcing working conditions into a race to the bottom.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| You're right that higher labor costs will cause higher prices
| rather than lowering of stratospheric executive compensation.
| But, it sounds like you're suggesting that this is some sort
| of intrinsic property of an efficient market. In reality the
| status quo prioritizes personal greed over efficient markets.
| closewith wrote:
| Higher prices in exchange for basic labour rights. Seems like
| a price worth paying to me.
| gruez wrote:
| That's easy for someone making 6 figures to say, but what
| about someone making close to minimum wage?
| closewith wrote:
| It's hard to believe this comment is for real? Labour
| rights - including the right to a living wage and civil
| working conditions - benefit those on the minimum wage
| more than high-earners. It's not a zero-sum game.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| What about the people that now can't get jobs at the
| higher minimum wage? (Or the more restrictive union-based
| hiring). They go from $X to $0 which seems quite a
| downside. So it's disingenuous to argue that it's
| strictly a benefit to all workers (obviously it does
| benefit many).
| closewith wrote:
| Labour rights extend to a robust social safety net.
|
| Robust and enforced labour rights are strictly a benefit
| to all workers. Only exploitative employers benefit from
| their absence.
| hiddencost wrote:
| We're comfortable that you'll have to pay sightly more for
| disposable plastic crap if it means we're not destroying
| worker's bodies.
|
| I'd argue that in the long term, having healthier & happier
| workers who see their interests aligned with the rest of the
| economy will lead Amazon workers to develop skills more in
| demand, commit fewer crimes, take better care of their
| health, and contribute to their communities
|
| Why do libertarians and ancaps always sound like they took a
| 101 econ course and actually like it when people suffer?
| Jhjjjjjjjj wrote:
| ekianjo wrote:
| > he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage
| increases.
|
| If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around
| you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| While I do agree in principle that rapidly increasing wages
| leads to price inflation, your reference does not relate to
| my experience in Switzerland (most recently was there on
| Saturday and will spend the next few days there starting
| tomorrow.)
| ekianjo wrote:
| > your reference does not relate to my experience in
| Switzerland
|
| Living in Switzerland is clearly way more expensive than
| living in any of its close neighbors, so please explain me
| how this is not related to higher wages.
| GordonS wrote:
| But... aren't wages in Switzerland also higher than their
| close neighbours? It's the same thing in Norway -
| everything seems expensive for visitors, but wages are
| _much_ higher too.
| ekianjo wrote:
| The point is that once you raise wages, the cost of
| living automatically goes up. You don't make everyone
| rich, you end up paying more for everything.
| jon_adler wrote:
| Wouldn't this situation make imported goods cheaper for
| everyone?
| bitcharmer wrote:
| Yes, and the quality of life for a physical worker is
| much higher than for someone from the US. What's your
| point?
| Jiejeing wrote:
| Prices in Switzerland are somewhat similar to or a bit higher
| (and certainly not 10 times) than the US, except for meat.
| danans wrote:
| Interesting, do the swiss eat less meat as a consequence?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| This not accurate. Eating out, for example, is very
| expensive there, even compared to major cities in the US.
| 9dev wrote:
| Try saying that again after paying 16EUR for a kebab in
| Basel compared to 5EUR in Germany, a few kilometres to the
| east. There is _definitely_ a difference.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The social effects of this seem to be really good, if you
| look at quality of life in Switzerland.
|
| If wages at the bottom go up and that causes inflation, the
| overall impact of that is wage compression, or in other
| words, reduced income inequality. Which is what we want.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _reduced income inequality. Which is what we want._
|
| Reducing the PPP of rich people while only maintaining that
| of poorer people seems like a dubious policy outcome, at
| least in economic terms.
| somehnguy wrote:
| 1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level?
|
| 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don't need to pay themselves
| such absurd salaries, that would probably help.
|
| What a strange comment imo. I can't take the 'everything will
| go up!' stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10
| houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious.
|
| By the way, Switzerland's GDP is 748 billion vs the United
| States' 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is
| meaningless and silly.
| drstewart wrote:
| >Maybe CEOs and executives don't need to pay themselves
| such absurd salaries, that would probably help
|
| Can you show your work here? Assume Amazon executives cut
| their salaries to 0, how much extra would they be able to
| pay workers?
| tjpnz wrote:
| Everyone would get 213 dollars a year extra if just their
| CEO didn't receive any compensation. Amazon employs
| approximately 1 million people in the United States and
| Andy Jassy received 213 million total comp in 2021.
| kristjansson wrote:
| That ~200m (really 61000 shares) vests over 10 years
| though. So really ~20 bucks per employee per year.
| umanwizard wrote:
| So, practically none.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Their example was only a single person cutting salary, so
| practically meaningless. And I would also argue, in bad
| faith with the design of proving a point with bad data.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Feel free to pick a representative group of executives
| for your purposes; it really won't make any difference.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Everyone would get 213 dollars a year extra if just
| their CEO didn't receive any compensation.
|
| Wow, then they can buy an extra starbucks coffee now and
| then. That would surely change their life.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's something like $300-1000/yr more if we average over
| all Amazon employees, depending on who counts as
| "executives".
|
| If the high pay is truly attracting better performers
| (which I admit is unlikely) they could easily be
| benefiting the company's workers a larger amount by
| increasing demand. Or maybe not and they are kinda
| useless , but in any case the total cost isn't that high.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| That doesn't pass the sniff test.
|
| Amazon allegedly has about 1.6 million employees.
| Assuming that the "executive" class is a trivially small
| number of them, and that the average employee works say
| 2,000 hours per year, you're suggesting that the cost to
| Amazon of paying those executives is somewhere between
| $960B and $3.2T per year.
|
| The high end of that estimate is about one fifth of the
| total earned income for the entire U.S. economy.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > 1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level?
|
| Why not? If you can double every few years eventually you
| will get to 100 dollars. And if you claim that everyone
| needs to make decent wages, who is to define what "decent"
| is supposed to be? People will always be asking for more,
| never less.
|
| > 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don't need to pay themselves
| such absurd salaries, that would probably help.
|
| Even if CEOs gave up their whole salary tomorrow, it would
| not change the pay of people working in very large
| companies with dozens of thousands or hundred of thousands
| of employees.
| somehnguy wrote:
| > Why not? If you can double every few years eventually
| you will get to 100 dollars.
|
| Huh? That isn't reasonable at all and I don't think
| you're arguing in good faith because of it.
| [deleted]
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Why do you think it means less for executives? It could be that
| they pass the costs on to consumers. So everything at Amazon
| will be more expensive just to pay the premium.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This effect would only really exist for monopolies.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Or Amazon will push for more automation and they will all lose
| their jobs.
|
| Right now these workers work at Amazon, because that's the best
| paying job they can find.
| kolinko wrote:
| Amazon will push for more automation regardless.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| If the costs of labor go up fast, they have much more
| incentive to automate. When right now they may think it's
| cheaper to hire humans.
| kolinko wrote:
| This would only be true if there was a technology to
| automate and it was just too expensive.
|
| For jobs that Amazon hires people there isn't a
| technology to automate right now.
|
| Such technology is being developed (better AI and better
| robotics), but increasing the budget wouldn't necessarily
| speed things up.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| You're confusing the absence of the off-the-shelf product
| with the absence of the technology.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| Amazon's Kiva robots, also https://youtu.be/d7J2_vr0ra4,
| are not installed in every FC.
|
| They are not willing to pay to upgrade all the old FCs,
| new international FCs, etc. i.e. "it's too expensive".
|
| This is also clear in how Amazon waited till the pandemic
| to add self checkout counters to many Whole Foods. They
| spent "$4 BB on safety measures for employees" and called
| self checkout a safety measure to reduce employee to
| employee density and employee to customer contact. Again
| it was previously "too expensive to do in mass" even if
| only for the terrible press it would have brought out
| side the pandemic.
|
| Not saying "they will never get to it." They will. Or
| that it's not worth it. But the other commenter is also
| right that unions and hire wages could drive a larger
| investment in automation earlier than it would have
| otherwise.
| jupp0r wrote:
| I don't think you are taking the price increases and
| inefficiencies that a nationally isolated economy would produce
| into account. People with less disposable income would suffer
| most from this.
|
| If you don't like supply chain issues and inflation right now,
| you won't like the model you propose.
| Retric wrote:
| How much do you think Amazon can actually raise prices before
| people just shop elsewhere?
|
| The simple truth is warehouse employee salaries aren't
| significant because of throughput. Someone making 30$/hour vs
| 15$/hour sounds huge but when people are picking 300+ items
| an hour that's 5 cents a pop. But, more realistic unionized
| job would be 17$/hour but only 250 items a sub 2 cents
| increase.
| jupp0r wrote:
| 100% agreed. My comment was referring to the part of OPs
| comment where they criticized globalization and proposed
| capital controls.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders.
| They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
|
| Is it what usually happens when workers unionize? It seems like
| most of the times, the result is a higher price for the
| customer, at least when things go well.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher
| price for the customer, at least when things go well.
|
| Sure. So the customer buys less product, the company makes
| less profit, and the shareholders eject the executives.
|
| But there are huge delays in these chains of causation, which
| provide opportunities for arbitrage.
| makomk wrote:
| The trouble with that argument is that you haven't
| justified why it should only cause downward pressure on
| prices when companies have to increase pay due to unions
| demanding more cash. The exact same process should drive
| down prices and the amount executives make all the time,
| which means that the price will already be near the optimum
| given a particular level of costs and that increasing the
| costs will increase that optimum price. (This is
| particularly clear in scenarios where this works so well at
| pushing prices down that the increased wage demands would
| lead to losing money on every unit sold at the original
| price. Obviously in this scenario the price must increase.)
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Well, I don't think I said it caused downward pressure on
| prices! So I don't have to explain why that might happen.
|
| Obviously, if workers can negotiate more effectively by
| being unionised, that exerts upward pressure on costs.
| Those additional costs can be met out of profits (i.e.
| shareholders pay, and execs get sacked) or "efficiencies"
| (e.g. automation, reducing headcount).
|
| If you can figure out how to make a better product that
| you can charge more for, then everyone's happy. If you
| can't, then perhaps your competitor can, even if he's
| unionised too. Unions can contribute at least as much to
| product and process improvement as management can. In
| fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Sorry for replying to self! I said:
|
| > In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
|
| That's arse-over-tit. My view has long been that
| management's purpose, in a company that makes stuff, is
| to remove obstacles from production staff. In that
| respect, they are servants: rather like clerks, or office
| managers. Managers are an adjunct to production workers,
| not the other way round.
|
| I don't mean to disparage either clerks or office
| managers; most of the ones I've worked with were pure
| gold. But I've never met a useful project manager; and as
| you get higher in the monkey tree, you meet people who
| are more difficult/dangerous, and less helpful.
|
| /me retired, had time to reflect on my career. A bit.
|
| I always liked computers as a teen.
|
| I started work in a Big-5 computer company, and gradually
| moved to smaller companies. Me and big companies wasn't a
| good match, on reflection. But I can't see what I could
| have done differently, at the time. Even in the light of
| what I've learned since.
| tialaramex wrote:
| If the customer would pay the higher price, why not raise the
| price and "capture" this market inefficiency in the form of
| more yachts for the executives ?
| mswift42 wrote:
| > It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher
| price for the customer, at least when things go well.
|
| Can you substantiate this claim?
|
| With the vast majority of goods the price is set by the
| market, i.e. higher wages would indeed result in a smaller
| profit margin and not in a higher price.
| yojo wrote:
| It could be either. In most cases it is likely both
| (shrinking margins, higher prices).
|
| The price is determined by the market. But there's a demand
| curve. There are many prices that an item could sell at,
| with varying numbers of buyers at each price.
|
| In a highly competitive market, the price should be driven
| down close to the cost of production. This allows the most
| people to buy at the lowest possible price, at the expense
| of retailer margins.
|
| Amazon probably has the best cost structure of online
| retailers. Which means in many cases they are setting the
| floor on the price. If their labor costs go up enough to
| wipe out their margins, their prices must go up, or they
| must exit the market for highly competitive items. With
| less competition, other retailers have more leeway to
| increase prices.
|
| As a society we may decide it is worth paying more for
| goods to ensure a fair living wage and safe working
| conditions. That doesn't sound unreasonable. But to assume
| you can get that without increasing prices is naive.
| mswift42 wrote:
| I'd like to point out that amazon is making ginormous
| profits, meaning increasing wages and ensuring safe
| working conditions would hardly make a dent in amazons
| revenue.
| mrep wrote:
| From their last earnings release [0], their retail
| division lost 3 billion dollars last quarter.
|
| [0]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/
| 2022/q1/...
| antisthenes wrote:
| They're making profits off of AWS, not the ecommerce
| division.
| mh- wrote:
| Does Amazon retail make ginormous profits? Genuine
| question. I googled for a few minutes but, given the way
| the company is structured with regards to AWS, it doesn't
| seem simple (possible?) for an outsider to determine the
| margins on their retail operations.
| francoisdevlin wrote:
| Anecdote not data
|
| Some of the grocery shops near me are known union shops.
| The prices are in fact higher than the non union shops.
| tarr11 wrote:
| It also means Amazon increases spending on automation.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/22/amazon-debuts-a-fully-
| auto...
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Automation is going to happen no matter what. Even people
| working for free is not going to stop it.
| abirch wrote:
| I was wondering how far away are they from fully automating
| the process? I always see their new robots.
| kaibee wrote:
| Amazon is going to do that regardless.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This.
|
| A lot of people, even economists, conflate the freedom of trade
| with the free movement of capital. They are not the same and
| not equivalent. I like to point people to this comic [1] that
| someone made when the TPP was hot news as it accurately
| describes this in a very accessible way.
|
| Neoliberalism serves the interests of the capital-owning class.
|
| [1]: https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
| smugma wrote:
| Amazon _has_ significantly increased wages. They were at the
| forefront of the $15 wage, more than double the federal minimum
| wage. I think at the time Walmart was at $10 or $11.
|
| I live in very liberal SF but outside of my bubble, I hear
| people complain that it's not possible to hire
| Nannies/housecleaners/employees anymore when Amazon and
| Starbucks pay $18/hr. Seems like the answer is easy: pay them
| more or make the job more desirable.
|
| Amazon working conditions are challenging, and they have been
| super anti-union. But they've also done more to increase wages
| in the US than anyone in Washington in the past 15 years,
| arguably second biggest in past 40 [1].
|
| [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
| smugma wrote:
| Additional context: it wasn't until 2015 that Walmart raised
| its minimum wage from the federal minimum to $9/hr. It's now
| $12.
| Garlef wrote:
| The federal minimum is not really something that should be
| taken as a point of reference (from the employees side).
|
| A better metric: "How much do jobs pay that are easily
| available to me?" (And so in this sense, the wages of
| Wallmart and Amazon seem to be very much relevant for
| many.)
|
| Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for
| my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money,
| etc.)".
| feet wrote:
| >Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough
| for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement
| money, etc.)".
|
| In my opinion, this is the only valid metric.
|
| If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the
| business should not exist. Businesses do not have more of
| a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full
| stop.
| TimeBearingDown wrote:
| So, you would have the government step in and deny the
| right of an individual to earn what they may need at that
| moment, in their specific circumstance, to form a
| contract with another person - a business owner? The
| bureaucracy knows better, and if the individual can't
| find another job at a level to even scrape by then the
| bureaucracy steps in again, but is this a path to a solid
| job in 20 years? The higher the wage, especially
| federally, the more dramatic and onerous the effect.
|
| It feels deeply infantilizing to me, and will absolutely
| cut off the bottom rung of society and hasten the
| unprepared and unskilled towards the coming AI cliff in
| my opinion.
|
| I personally did not have my own shit together enough to
| earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+
| starts to become a mountain that the least well-off
| cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay
| competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.
| feet wrote:
| We already produce enough food, goods, and housing for
| everyone in the country to live with their basic needs
| met. The only reason that isn't happening is because
| there is a small group of capital owners and corporations
| that work to create artificial scarcity. It's an
| absolutely disgusting practice that benefits nobody but
| people who are already rich
|
| With the AI cliff that you discuss, productivity will
| increase even more than it did in the industrial
| revolution and there is even less of a reason to continue
| with our absurd current system of making a tiny out of
| people rich at the expense of everyone else.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| > I personally did not have my own shit together enough
| to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start.
| $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-
| off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay
| competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.
|
| This is the most salient point in my opinion when
| discussing minimum wages. Employers have to decide which
| potential employee can produce enough to make up for the
| wages that they pay. The higher the minimum wage goes,
| there are less opportunities to get a career started due
| to not being hired. Experience is highly valued in almost
| every field. If you cannot get a low paying job just to
| build some experience in your resume, you delay or never
| get the next high paying job. Minimum wage ends up
| crippling the very people it was meant to help.
| feet wrote:
| Or employees could group together to form cooperative
| companies that _don 't_ simply work to extract from their
| labor and actually provides a decent living for everyone.
| There is no reason that we should be all working together
| as a group to make a few people wealthier when they
| didn't do any of the actual work.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| > If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the
| business should not exist.
|
| I'll assume you are talking about full time all year
| jobs. Each one of the baseline expenses defined above are
| not nominally set in stone. They are different for every
| person. I might define baseline food as beans and rice,
| while others might define it as steak and lobster. The
| same goes for the other baseline expenses defined above.
| This is why allowing individuals to make decisions is so
| important. If you want to dismiss the idea of any one
| person deciding for themselves what that baseline is,
| there would have to be a group(gov't/union) to decide
| what these baselines are. One problem I have is if you
| allow some group to decide what this baseline is, you
| lose your ability to decide as an individual what your
| baseline is. Additionally, resources that could have been
| allocated to you are now allocated to dealing with the
| regulations and or bureaucracy.
|
| Furthermore, some individuals do not need that baseline,
| whatever it may be. A child supported by parents may have
| other expenses covered. A retiree who just wants to be
| employed to stay sane, may not need all the wages and
| benefits that a parent of three may need. Paying them
| less does lower the market price of labor though.
|
| > Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than
| the workers that make them up. Full stop.
|
| I agree. The opposite is true as well. Businesses, aka
| transactions between people, have just as much a right to
| exist as the people that do the transacting. Setting
| aside the statutory protections that LLCs, corporations,
| etc. provide, a business can be a single person hiring
| people to do work for them, or a single person who does
| all the work for themselves(eg. cobbler). The right to
| interact with others for goods and services is a
| fundamental right.
| 8note wrote:
| Transacting is one aspect of business - ownership is much
| more important, and only exists as far as the government
| enforces it.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| Did early humans own the tools they created? Probably.
| Government limits this in almost all cases. Even the
| liberty minded founders of the USA created eminent domain
| which is not limited in which property the state can
| take, technically. The USA typically is supportive of
| private ownership, but not the originator. I think
| ownership exists inherently in humans. As does it's
| counterpart theft. We have decided that theft is bad and
| ownership is good over the millennia. It is possible we
| may change to not value ownership and theft would then
| have a more positive connotation.
|
| Business cannot exist without two parties transacting.
| Businesses can exist without ownership. That is if you do
| not consider a persons labor to be "owned" by them. There
| does not even have to be capital exchanged. Bartering for
| labor can and does happen.
| feet wrote:
| Businesses can be owned by all of the workers
| collectively, its rather silly to assume that's not true
| and it needs a singular owner. There is zero reason why
| this would be the case. Groups of people can agree on
| things, believe it or not.
| feet wrote:
| I'm talking about _all_ jobs
|
| Capitalism was good for the time between feudalism and
| the industrial revolution, but now we have an excess of
| goods, food, and housing yet corporations are creating
| artificial scarcity in order to continue enriching a few
| people at the expense of everyone else.
|
| We have enough empty housing in California alone to house
| all homeless people in the US yet we still have people
| living in the streets. We have people starving while we
| produce enough food to not only feed all of the US but
| also Africa, yet corporations throw away good food to
| create artificial scarcity to protect the profits of a
| few.
|
| Forming cooperatives owned by the workers who make up the
| business would be a good step in the right direction, and
| making the excuses like 'some people don't need that
| baseline' is horse shit. The purpose of a system is what
| it does and those jobs aren't just filled by young
| people, there are older people who should be retired
| worming minimum wage jobs. There are people trying to
| support their families in those positions. If those jobs
| are meant for kids, why are the business open during
| schools hours?
|
| If we work together we can improve living conditions for
| _all humans_
| enraged_camel wrote:
| You are right that Amazon has raised wages, but only by a
| fraction of what they will have to if their workers unionize.
| baron816 wrote:
| Yes, a big chunk of the labor shortages in hospitality, child
| care, etc. we've seen the last two years is a direct result
| of Amazon hiring lots and lots of people. And as shitty as
| the conditions of those jobs may be, they're often still
| better than where they're coming from. Sticking labels to
| boxes and moving them around a warehouse all day may still be
| better than dealing with handsy bar hounds or screaming
| children.
|
| I'm not here to say that Amazon is doing a great job and we
| should all be singing Jeff Bezos's good graces. But I will
| say that unionization does come with a cost that is borne not
| by Amazon's executives or their shareholders, but on everyone
| who could want to work at Amazon but can't because their jobs
| are more scarce, and by everyone who buys things from
| retailers (Amazon or not) in the form of higher prices.
|
| Unionists like to talk about how the labor movement provided
| a lot of basic protections for workers and the 40 hour work
| week. What they like to talk less about is American unions'
| frequent associations with organized crime, it's history of
| racism and sexism, all of the environmental bills it has
| fought against. I could go on.
|
| A union-free Amazon has driven up wages for workers
| throughout the economy. And it has helped keep prices low for
| everyone else so that even if you don't earn as much as a
| Amazon warehouse worker nor shop at Amazon, you can still
| afford many basic necessities. So yes, I'm saying we should
| be singing the good graces of competition.
| britch wrote:
| wages are one thing, working conditions are another.
|
| It doesn't matter how much you pay me if I can't see my
| kids and have to pee in a bottle.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| While I like the idea of unions, I can say that they've
| been a disappointment in my career. One of my colleagues
| desperately needed the protection of the union at work when
| he got caught up in office politics. Some of his rivals for
| a big promotion got him accused of something that had
| nothing to do with work. It was all cancel culture. The
| union, though, didn't back him up at all. They make a big
| show about somehow fighting management for the workers, but
| in this case they were happy to help the management screw
| the guy over and end his career. Sure they're a union, but
| they're humans and sometimes they'll be aligned against
| you.
| kqr wrote:
| This is not a problem with unions as a concept, but
| rather with the huge, centralised, bureaucratic,
| political entities they have become in practise. That
| type of organisation has some benefits, but I believe
| federations of highly local unions would be more
| effective for helping individual people deal with
| specific pickles.
| TimeBearingDown wrote:
| It's easily possible to argue that the concept or
| structure of unions, and their relationships to business,
| as generally implemented, tends towards those
| corruptions.
| flatline wrote:
| I'm reading this as, he made racist or otherwise hateful
| statements in a semi-public forum and nobody was going to
| put their organization's name behind that. It's an
| interesting problem. On the one hand it's a free country
| you can say what you please and your employee can fire
| you for it. On the other hand I think it's inhumane for
| someone to lose their job - and most notably healthcare -
| because they are one of a large number of knob heads out
| there and were unwise enough to advertise it.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I think someone who is willing to speak out hatefully
| against large swathes of the population based on things
| like sex and race are exactly the kind of people that
| should be ostracized. In the case of the work
| environment, getting fired. If they aren't, they stick
| around, making coworkers uncomfortable, possibly getting
| promoted and then ensuring the group they hate doesn't
| get hired or promoted
|
| But HR departments are not usually doing that as a first
| step. They talk to the employee and try to get an apology
| if needed. The stories in the news are always egregious
| examples or people with a long history and it was the
| last straw
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Without a due process ensured by a union, it's very hard
| to know what they did.
|
| Even if someone does something truly horrific, unions
| still need to protect their rights to a proper hearing,
| evidence, etc.
|
| A while ago a reporter was fired from the NYTimes for
| repeating racist language used by a third party.
|
| The reporter had works at the NYTimes for decades with a
| clear record. A few years before the incident, they
| became part of unions negotiating team.
|
| Once they joined the negotiating team, the paper suddenly
| began disciplining then for minor infractions.
|
| Once the allegations about racist language came about,
| they had a dirty record.
|
| Per the union agreement, had a right to see the evidence
| against them. The paper refused to do that.
|
| If this person hadn't been part of union negotiating
| team, they would have had a clean record, and likely
| would have survived.
|
| They are now working as a reporter at the Economist.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| > Some of his rivals for a big promotion got him accused
| of something that had nothing to do with work.
|
| How does that translate into making racist or hateful
| statements?
|
| A better translation is they were in a forum where racist
| or hateful statements were made, but did it participate
| in making them.
| Garlef wrote:
| > But I will say that unionization does come with a cost
| that is borne not by Amazon's executives or their
| shareholders, but ...
|
| I like parts of the analysis (if a big player has to pay
| higher wages, this will affect many in different ways). But
| I think it's hard to discuss what exactly the implications
| would be without a deeper analysis including numbers.
|
| Without numbers, I find that participants in a discussion
| are often tempted to put a high emphasis on a certain
| argument or on the impact of a mechanism just because they
| have come up with that argument or mechanism. But actual
| numbers might imply a different weighting.
|
| An example would be: With longer fingernails you might be
| able to swim faster. But to what degree?
| naasking wrote:
| > Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the
| forefront of the $15 wage
|
| Warehouse workers before Amazon were making over $20/hr.
| Amazon seriously depressed wages for that kind of work. How
| do you think they got so profitable and outcompeted everyone
| else in that space?
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| You're saying conflicting things, Amazon "leads raising
| wages" to you but then "it's not possible to hire X at rate Y
| so people have to pay more."
|
| Amazon has to pay more because their jobs are shit. They
| aren't doing anything to raise wages they're just trying to
| get people's asses in the door. I'm sort of shocked you
| linked to the department of labor's historical page as some
| sort of proof of your idea.
|
| I can guarantee that wage is the minimum they can pay to get
| people in the door for the level of work required by them
| calculated by a legion of economists.
|
| The fact you think Amazon jobs are competing with
| "Nannies/house cleaners/employees" is equally strange. Like
| somehow these jobs are related?! Why do you only compare
| those jobs to Amazon factory jobs?
| mightyham wrote:
| >their jobs are shit I have a couple friends that have
| worked at Amazon warehouses and also worked at shipping
| centers for UPS and FedEx and they both told me that Amazon
| not only paid better but had better working conditions. Not
| saying that's the case universally, but I don't think it's
| right to uniquely criticize Amazon and not the industry at
| large, especially if Amazon really is a better employer
| than their competition.
| hedora wrote:
| Amazon rose wages and have some the highest warehouse
| worker wages around, to the point where they are creating
| upward pressure on wages in other industries.
|
| Their jobs also are super stressful and burn people out.
|
| These things are not contradictory.
|
| Anecdotally, in support of the comment you are replying to,
| Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market
| rate for babysitters around here, and $100-$150 a night
| isn't anywhere near enough to screw with her sleep
| schedule. She works $18/hr morning shifts and now owns a
| car.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| This seems like a poor comparison. Your babysitter left a
| part time job (100/25 = 4 hours of work per day) for a
| full time one and can now afford a car.
| hedora wrote:
| Yeah; good for her. The point is that Starbucks and
| Amazon have created an ever raising floor for the price
| of labor.
|
| They're low-skill/training jobs, so no skilled job is
| able to pay less than that. (Also, the Starbucks thing is
| part time, and she had babysat for other people too --
| babysitting probably made sense at 2x the hourly rate of
| a part time job, but $25 isn't 2x anymore.)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the
| market rate for babysitters around here
|
| Seems like $25/hour was the market rate.
| hedora wrote:
| I get the impression the dollar amount didn't change.
| Instead, the existence of the market did. (None of the
| other parents we know have been able to find babysitters
| either.)
|
| Presumably, it'll even out after the labor shortages
| subside.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Have you tried offering $2,500 per hour? The market
| exists. There are babies that need babysitting, and
| people capable of babysitting.
|
| What does not exist is an intersection of the supply and
| demand curves of people willing and able to pay what
| people capable of babysitting want to get paid for
| babysitting.
| feet wrote:
| alistairSH wrote:
| Are we talking about nannies or a sitter for a random
| single night? Are there no teenagers in the neighborhood
| who want an "easy" 4 hours work? That's what we did with
| my son (late 90s). Same as my parents did with me and my
| sister (early 80s).
| mh- wrote:
| If he's in SF.. probably not, actually.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders.
| They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
|
| Based on retail business profit margins, it would mean higher
| prices for customers. Not that that is a bad thing, less
| consumption would be great.
| Retric wrote:
| Competition limits how much they could raise prices,
| automation and efficiency increases are needed to compete.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Treating workers like shit and churning them limits the
| workers they can hire and retain.
|
| They even know this - Amazon is running out of eligible
| workers to hire. But the need to hit quarterly metrics
| forces the line management to make strategically bad
| decisions.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Who is more efficient than Amazon/Walmart/Target/Home
| Depot/Staples/Costco/etc?
|
| They set the bottom price, and if they are earning 2%-4%
| profit margins, then their costs increases will have to end
| up in either prices increases or them no longer selling the
| product.
|
| The funny thing is that it is Amazon coming along and
| greatly increasing demand for labor (in conjunction with
| reduced supply of that type of labor) that caused all the
| other warehouse jobs and retailers to increase pay.
|
| And I hope the labor continues making gains in their
| quality of life at work and pay, but I do not see this
| happening without an increase in prices for products (like
| we have already seen).
| danaris wrote:
| > if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins
|
| They're not (depending on the product).
|
| My wife used to work in Halloween costume design for a
| wholesaler (and some of her costumes did end up in Target
| and Walmart, which was cool to see), and the retailers'
| margins on those were _at least_ 50%.
|
| As I said, the margin _does_ depend heavily on the
| product, but do not assume that across-the-board average
| margins are anywhere near that razor-thin.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is irrelevant because the entire organization's
| profit margins are where increased wages would come from.
| danaris wrote:
| My point is that the entire organization's profit margins
| are _not_ likely to be anywhere near 2-4%.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is what their 10-K filings say.
| Retric wrote:
| They are incentivized to hide investments as operating
| expenses for tax reasons, which muddles the picture.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Source? What are the incentives? Why do the most highly
| valued companies in the world report much higher profit
| margins?
|
| I would need a good reason to believe the executives and
| owners of retail businesses do not want to report higher
| profit margins.
| Retric wrote:
| The incentives are simple, profits are taxed.
|
| To simplify, if you want to say develop new software you
| can call it a capital investment and pay for it with
| after tax money or call it operating expense and pay for
| it in pretax money. Guess which one is a better deal.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Regardless of how the expense is classified, the amount
| of additional money available for wages is still the net
| income figure. The owners will still want as much net
| income as possible. They are not going to want to waste
| money just so they do not have to pay 20% of it to taxes.
| Retric wrote:
| The trick means real net income is larger than what's on
| the books/10-K filings. Misclassified investments are not
| wasted money, simply hiding how much money is available
| for other expenses.
|
| It's like the old trick of paying an offshore subsidiary
| in a tax heaven licensing fees to use your own IP with
| the added advantage of being able to directly profit from
| the use of these investments. Nobody looking at the books
| would think such things are actual expenses, but
| companies must pretend they are.
| lozenge wrote:
| That's a markup, not a profit margin. A profit margin is
| after all expenses, which a wholesaler doesn't know
| about.
| makomk wrote:
| Yeah, and I don't think it would be terribly unusual for
| 50% markups to translate to low-single-digit profit
| margins in cost-competitive retail sectors - those both
| seem like about the right ballpark overall. Retail has a
| lot of costs and wages are one of the big ones.
| Retric wrote:
| That's assuming they keep their margins the same. The
| thing is Amazon isn't manufacturing anything so their
| "thin" margins aren't as sensitive to increased labor
| costs as 2-4% suggests.
|
| Paying 18$ for something your selling for 20$ is a 10%
| margin, taxes and CC processing fees are similarly
| inflexible. So if 2-4% of the final price is profit then
| they could raise their internal costs by 10% and still be
| profitable.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| In the Metro NY and upstate regions, there is a supermarket
| chain called Shoprite that is unionized. Where I live, none
| of the other chains are union shops.
|
| The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less
| (or no) automated checkout lanes. Prices are no different
| than anywhere else.
| danaris wrote:
| > The only visible difference as a consumer is there are
| less (or no) automated checkout lanes.
|
| ...Really? That's a straight detriment in my book, as a
| customer.
|
| I would generally prefer to support a union shop, but I'm
| extremely fond of self-checkout--and, in fact, further
| upstate, Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you
| can use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a
| code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the
| way out to pay.
|
| One of the _worst_ things unions can do is try to "protect
| jobs" at the expense of technological advancement, customer
| service, or improved product.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you can
| use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a
| code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the
| way out to pay.
|
| Kroger did that here a few years ago. They pushed it
| hard. Got very little uptake. It's still an option, but
| they aren't shoving it in your face when you walk in.
| There are just a handful of scanners on a rack by the
| entrance, and I've never seen anyone using them.
| salawat wrote:
| Does Wegman's pay you for providing them free labor?
|
| You're subsidizing them at your own cost with self-
| checkout. After all, you are:
|
| -Updating their inventory tracking system -engaging with
| the regulatory framework of purchasing on their behalf
| -being subject to their annoying "loss prevention hot
| days" where they turn the merchandise scales on.
|
| I've started to take a different view toward these jobs
| over time. Being an employer is a high bar in the U.S.,
| and if we (the taxpayers proxied through the
| markets/Federal Reserve) have an objective to have people
| participating in the workforce, then these "automated"
| checkouts cost workforce participation.
|
| Which also means fewer training opportunities for low
| skill workers, fewer jobs of last resort, etc. Not
| everything is necessarily $$$.
|
| Be a hell of an economics project to really suss out the
| difference in flow of money in grocers who took different
| approaches.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They are phasing them in for express in this area - but
| the company needed to negotiate with the union.
|
| The point is, retail and warehouse unions don't translate
| into retail apocalypse.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| In my experience, Aldi/Walmart/Lidl/Costco prices are much
| lower than Shop Rite. Also, Shop Rites are sort of like
| franchises, different ones have different owners and
| management.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I don't know about Lidl, the the rest aren't full service
| grocers either. I'm a big fan of Aldi in particular, but
| they don't have a butcher, bakery, prepared food/deli,
| staffed produce. Awesome store for what they do though.
| Aldi also pays a premium hourly rate.
|
| Walmart tries to do everything but they suck imo. The
| produce is garbage, but the dry goods are cheap due to
| their economy of scale.
| Varqu wrote:
| Perhaps you should consider that maybe some of those
| shareholders are your parents whose retirement future depends
| on those investments?
| mantas wrote:
| How much of that money is made by externalising costs to the
| society?
|
| Limiting cross-borders money flow is a very good way to keep
| social contract intact.
| Varqu wrote:
| So basically, let's keep buying our average quality cars
| for more money, than allow free trade & importing better
| quality vehicles from a country that specializes with it?
|
| For some reason, it was the growth of global trade that
| coincided with the growth of global GDP & the increase of
| the life quality of the earth population.
| mantas wrote:
| Tax the shit out of imported cars and make sure that
| local makers actually compete.
|
| It's funny how people cry about CO2 and whatnot. But when
| it's about trade, suddenly transporting stuff thousands
| of kilometers is fiiiine.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Globalism is coming from the same people that also want
| open borders for immigration. Should borders be open or
| closed? (European here, I have no stance on that, Amazon
| has no retail presence in my country and immigration is
| almost zero here)
| mantas wrote:
| Closed, of course (european too). It destroys capitalist
| job market by kicking out floor from workers. People
| ain't willing to do a job for peanuts? How about raising
| a salary (and automation becoming feasible)? Nah, let's
| important people who will work for less.
| 9dev wrote:
| Perhaps your parents shouldn't have built their retirement
| future on the ongoing exploitation of lower class people?
| Might there be a systemic issue here?
| makomk wrote:
| Any kind of retirement future is fundamentally built on the
| labour of the still-active workforce, and will be for as
| long as labour is still required in order to produce goods
| and services. That's just inherent to the concept of
| retirement itself, no matter how that retirement appears to
| be funded - those retired people still need to consume
| stuff that requires workers to produce and they're not
| working themselves by definition. Every single retiree is
| taking a cut of the labour productivity of those still
| working whilst not returning anything, whether that's
| funded via shareholdings in their pension plan or a state
| pension scheme or any other form of pension.
|
| More subtly, in the current economy there are basically
| only two pots that higher real-terms wages for workers can
| come from: taking from other workers, and taking from the
| retired. That's because the whole economy has a supply-side
| crisis in basically everything and does not have the
| capacity to supply people overall with any more than they
| already have. All the usual scapegoats, like the super-
| wealthy, just don't consume enough as a proportion of the
| global economy that redistributing from them would have an
| impact on ordinary people. (Often articles attempt to
| confuse people about this by using definitions of wealthy
| that include like a third of the US population, or by
| comparing net worth instead and tricking people into
| thinking it means consumption by ordinary people could be
| increased by that amount if it was redistributed.)
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the
| majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to
| Mexico and China
|
| What? You think overseas manufacturers are paying $30 an hour?
|
| It wasn't high-skilled manufacturing that was outsourced.
| Welders and machinists still have near zero unemployment and
| make about as much as a software engineer. It was low skilled
| manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to China. Those jobs
| _never_ paid anywhere close to $30 /hour even in the heyday of
| unionized American manufacturing.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| High-skilled manufacturing was absolutely outsourced outside
| of the US.
|
| > Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in
| the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
|
| Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced) certainly paid that
| much and more in inflation adjusted dollars. From a book
| studying the auto industry describing average wages in
| Detroit,
|
| > At $11.62 an hour in 1982 wages, Detroit's autoworkers,
| according to U.S. car companies, were simply too expensive,
| particularly with the added cost of pensions, health
| insurance, and union-negotiated work rules.
|
| This is already over $30/hr in 2022 dollars.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced)
|
| The decline of Detroit UAW auto industry definitely weren't
| outsourced. It certainly wasn't GM that opened car
| factories in Japan and Germany. And it certainly wasn't GM
| shareholders or executives that benefited from the rise of
| Japanese and German imports.
|
| This isn't outsourcing, this is simply a case of American
| carmakers being outcompeted by better products from
| Japanese and European competitors. (A significant fraction
| of which were actually assembled in US-based plants owned
| by those overseas competitors.)
|
| This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and
| unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in
| the world that can protect poorly managed American
| companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while
| one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million
| Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car
| reliability, affordability and safety.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 1. Both factors matter. Most manufacturing for the
| American automakers also happens outside of the US. That
| is outsourcing. People still buy American cars.
|
| 2. It does have to do with mobility of capital in that
| many of these "international" competitors are still
| reliant on American capital and are owned in no small
| part by American institutional investors.
|
| > This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and
| unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in
| the world that can protect poorly managed American
| companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you,
| while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300
| million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in
| car reliability, affordability and safety.)
|
| You are mixing in a moral argument about which is better
| but it is sort of irrelevant to the veracity of claims
| like "manufacturing jobs never paid close to $30/hr" and
| "high-skilled manufacturing was never outsourced."
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > It does have to do with mobility of capital in that
| many of these "international" competitors are still
| reliant on American capital and are owned in no small
| part by American institutional investors.
|
| The Japanese auto industry, like virtually all of postwar
| Japan, was almost entirely financed by Japan's
| persistently high domestic savings rate. You don't have
| to take my word for it, just look at the long and
| persistently high current account deficit Japan has with
| the US. Japan is a huge net _exporter_ of capital, not
| importer, and it has been for 50 years.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The majority of the auto factory jobs that were (e.g.
| automotive assembly line work) are considered unskilled
| work; not even semi-skilled; never mind high-skill.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| two points were made:
|
| 1. only low skilled jobs were outsourced
|
| 2. low skilled jobs by definition do not pay more than
| $30/hr.
|
| i am saying at least one of these is wrong, but it really
| is a question of semantics which one it is.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I rather think the point is that outsourcing of those
| jobs was proof of the assertion that unskilled
| manufacturing jobs at $30/hr (in 2022 money) plus rich
| benefits are not a thing that was sustainable.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Go ahead and re-read the comment you are defending. I
| think it has twisted in your memory to something much
| more reasonable rather than something that can be
| verifiably fact-checked as false.
| hedora wrote:
| If the jobs were to come back to the US, they'd need to pay
| $18+/hour, since they're worse than a warehouse job, and
| Amazon pays so well.
|
| At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on
| automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will
| be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or
| machinists make).
| jaclaz wrote:
| I may be wrong, but besides and before the wage increases, it
| seems to me like the priority would be for decent working
| conditions, if what is published from time to time on media is
| actually true, the biggest issues are about lack of (normal,
| decent) pauses or rest periods, continuous summoning for
| increases in productivity, total control on the workers, etc.
| q1w2 wrote:
| > if what is published from time to time on media is actually
| true
|
| That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the
| industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions
| in industrial settings where worker's dying was common.
|
| OSHA did away with all that.
|
| The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is
| around getting adequate bathroom breaks.
| 0n0n0m0uz wrote:
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| This is pure historical revisionism concocted solely to
| diminish modern struggles for worker organisation.
|
| Wages are and have always been the primary driver of
| unionising.
|
| The main motivation was never mustache twirling capitalist
| charicatures shoveling children into furnaces as fuel or
| some other unambiguous evil that we have since banished.
| Conditions have always been part of the bargain, but the
| goal has always been first and foremost higher wages.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| > shoveling children into furnaces
|
| https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/factory-fire-reveals-
| banglad...
| SantalBlush wrote:
| OSHA did away with all that _on paper_. In reality, OSHA
| compliance varies considerably across manual labor jobs.
| Here 's how:
|
| Suppose you're a manager/foreman. You never outright tell
| your staff to ignore safety regulations; you simply give
| them a huge workload with a deadline and set of equipment
| that make it impossible to feasibly accomplish the workload
| within compliance. Your workers catch on that in order to
| get the job done, they need to ignore the safety regs. As a
| manager, you look the other way as they ignore the rules.
| If an injury happens on the job, you then blame the worker
| for ignoring the safety regulations, which of course you
| instructed them to follow. Follow up by giving them a drug
| test so you might even be able to get out of paying them
| workers comp.
|
| This is how it works in the real world. Source: seen it,
| done it.
| salawat wrote:
| ... So why didn't you push back and hold the manager
| foreman's feet to the fire for the scheduling if you
| _knew_ it caused OSHA violations?
|
| If you do not push back against management, nothing
| changes, and unfortunately, to get anything provable in a
| court of law beyond he said she said... It has to be on
| paper/in an email.
|
| Go on. Text your boss you can't get the job done on his
| schedule without violating OSHA standards. Then come back
| tomorrow and finish it. If they decide to fire you, sue.
| All the evidence you need will be discoverable.
|
| Don't absorb risk for people not putting their neck on
| the line.
| 8note wrote:
| Where this comment is missing is how you pay rent after
| doing this
| salawat wrote:
| For heaven sake. You're enabling this type of behavior.
| Every manager _will_ push and squeeze to get everything
| out of you they can.
|
| Here's the secret though: It's their ass on the line if
| it doesn't get done. If they're a middle manager, they
| now have to go back with hat in hand and tell their
| higher up they made a mistake. That repeats for however
| many layers of middle management exist until resources
| get properly allocated. It's their business that takes
| the hit if it gets out to client's that project their
| having built is meat grinding their laborers.
|
| _You_ the end laborer, hold the power in this case. A
| manager cannot knowingly force you to conduct your work
| in such a way as your rights to a safe workplace are
| jeopardized. _You_ have the power to expose it, and make
| it unequivocably known to your higher ups that these
| violations are happening. _You_ can report your employer
| to your local OSHA enforcement arm.
|
| A law on paper but never enforced is no law at all, and a
| workplace where everyone lets the boss abuse one another
| is the only outcome if you won't stand up for _you_ , and
| sometimes, encourage someone else to stand up for
| _themselves_. I did it for my people damn it. You need to
| do it for yourselves and your peers. This is why labor
| organization is important. Businesses can abuse you
| because people don 't act in concert to the degree the
| business does.
|
| No work is so important it cannot be done as safely as
| possible. No one has the right to conspire to put you in
| harms way. An employer who provably does is _not_
| entitled to be an employer in the United States. That is
| a privilege, not a right.
|
| Fight, damnit! Fight! Or vote with your feet by finding
| something else to do! If you don't set the bar for people
| to not work for, and refuse to make their life more
| difficult by making them accountable for their own
| malfeasance, you're passing the buck to the next crazy
| motherf'er who will, and we are in short supply.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| What rock are you living under? Plenty of the documented
| absolute nightmare of working for Amazon in their
| warehouses is corroborated by their own internal analysis.
| Unions are for more than just making sure people don't die
| when doing their job. The union I am a member of more than
| doubled the wages of its members after its first 12 years
| of existence. Crucially it also ensures twice yearly cost
| of living adjustments. It is the only way for labor to have
| a meaningful negotiating position. There are shitty unions
| out there, but there are a lot of shitty employers too.
| Amazon's internal reporting shows they're going to exhaust
| the labor pool in several areas because they've cycled
| through everyone who could possibly work at the warehouses
| and fulfillment centers. People aren't leaving Amazon
| because they aren't allowed to use the bathroom. They're
| leaving Amazon because it is dehumanizing and miserable.
| Funny how the people who make the lowest wages have to put
| up with the most shit.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| These people are oblivious to the suffering, or excuse it
| away.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| OSHA is always thrown around as either an overbearing force
| of oppression or a magical savior of the worker by anti-
| union people.
|
| The reality is that it's a toothless tiger by design. Many
| states do their own enforcement, and don't exactly
| prioritize it -- IIRC, North Carolina has 20% of the
| inspectors that _it_ says it needs.
|
| I'm sure your cushy IT gig requires you to stand for 6
| hours without taking a piss. Try it sometime before
| attacking others.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| All that becomes a lot more tolerable if you're getting
| double your previous pay.
| abirch wrote:
| The pay is why the employees don't quit en mass.
| azemetre wrote:
| Is this the same Amazon that is convinced they will run
| out of employees in a few years because they quit so
| often?
|
| https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-
| wareh...
| macintux wrote:
| Only until you're injured.
| rapnie wrote:
| > Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders.
| They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
|
| Unrealistic, in neoliberalism.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This doesn't mean anything. Markets mature and margins
| decline. All firms have to compete for labor, and the market
| for labor has tightened. However during an inflationary
| environment it's pretty easy to raise prices.
|
| They'll eventually build higher labor costs into their
| financial projects and pass along some of the costs.
| Shareholders probably won't care much, because Amazon is
| still a good investment.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| $30 is 3 days worth of payment in some countries.
| [deleted]
| pxeger1 wrote:
| Ok, lesson learnt: don't read the comments on any HN story about
| unions.
| blamazon wrote:
| Unions and bicycling are two topics that I rarely enjoy reading
| HN comments about, but here I am.
| koolba wrote:
| I think the singularity will be reached when we discuss a
| unionized dev shop developing a defi bike sharing platform
| written in rust.
| drewcoo wrote:
| That conforms with my diet but not my exercise plan.
| Starlevel001 wrote:
| Why are you surprised that Reddit for Bosses is against unions?
| [deleted]
| s0l1dsnak3123 wrote:
| It's lovely to see so much solidarity on this subject from HN. A
| lot of people are fed up right now, and they're very much
| justified.
| darepublic wrote:
| I've been in unions in some really shitty jobs; where I assume
| the union had no power.
| ozzythecat wrote:
| I was with Amazon working in tech for over 10 years.
|
| I lost control of my health, my hair turned white, and during
| that time I lost most of my friends. It's obviously my own fault
| for letting all that happen.
|
| Of all the companies in the world, Amazon is probably one of the
| coldest, soulless places.
|
| Management is riddled with politics and third rate talent who'll
| often knowingly do the wrong thing, just to get promoted.
|
| The people who actually drove the innovation, who weren't
| necessary easier to work with but at least had some technical
| vision and production vision have all left.
|
| A significant piece of the company is all just legacy systems and
| tech debt, supported by Indian H1Bs who hire more H1Bs.
|
| If the government breaks up AWS and the rest of Amazon, most of
| their domains won't make business sense anymore. There are too
| many middle men who are against this though - everyone from
| companies that help people relocate, to vendors that provide
| special tax services for the H1B army.
|
| I hope Amazon fully unionizes. Even in tech, it was a grueling,
| toxic place to work.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Apparently even that's not working, give they still spam people
| that other FAANGs would never touch.
| capableweb wrote:
| mrits: "You guys love the police union too, right? Right???"
|
| The general idea, yeah. It proves how strong a union can be.
|
| The implementation? No. A union for people who have monopoly on
| violence? No. A union that protects people who are actively
| hurting civilians without recourse? No.
| ahelwer wrote:
| The general framework for understanding police unions from a
| labor perspective is that the primary function of police is to
| safeguard private property rights, specifically the rights of
| the owning class. In that sense they are structurally opposed
| to all other sorts of labor unions, since labor unions threaten
| the maximal control of owners over the private property used
| (in conjunction with labor) to generate profit. Police often
| play a direct role in breaking strikes and harassing
| organizers, sometimes to the point of physical assault or
| murder. Police unions are permitted to exist without
| suppression for this reason: they support the powerful.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Seems like police spend almost all their time dealing with
| poor people who own almost no valuable property.
| pitaj wrote:
| Yeah, if you buy into the socialist class conflict theory.
| But it's pretty obvious that police only protect themselves
| and the state. They don't care about the private property of
| rich people any more than it hurts their reputation or the
| rich people have political connections.
| kqr wrote:
| > the rich people have political connections.
|
| This is exactly what happens, though. You don't stay truly
| rich without a decent chunk of political influence. So,
| yeah, police protect the private property of those who
| support that idea most.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| In the UK the police are neither allowed to form a union or
| strike.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| They have a union: The Police Federation. It's true the
| police in the UK are not allowed to strike.
| jstanley wrote:
| How can you ban people from going on strike? The entire point
| of a strike is that you're not working when you're supposed
| to be.
| kqr wrote:
| How to ban people in general from striking is easy: you
| just call the cops on them. How to prevent the cops from
| striking I don't know...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| In Germany, police officers, soldiers and (depending on the
| state) teachers and other sort of public officials swear an
| oath of office that bans them from strikes ("Beamte").
| formerly_proven wrote:
| OTOH they can't be fired, get excellent and cheap health
| insurance for the entire family, and retirement pay is
| far beyond the normal pension system, meanwhile the pay
| increases are often coupled to the results negotiated by
| unions for equivalent employees.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| biden literally just did this yesterday
| bombcar wrote:
| You make it illegal to negotiate based on work stoppages,
| to plan a strike, or otherwise conspire to strike. And you
| permanently fire those who do. It happened to air traffic
| controllers in the US.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Although that's also a bad answer, since their employer (the
| government) is also a monopoly with even more power than most
| businesses.
| iasay wrote:
| We just have the masons instead which spans the police, CPS
| and the entire rest of the legal system.
|
| Been burned big time by that.
| notacoward wrote:
| > people who are actively hurting civilians
|
| Police are civilians too. Using "civilian" in this way is
| supporting the militarization of police, and is not a good
| thing.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think police unions are a bit different for the same reason
| we don't have a military union.
| 0n0n0m0uz wrote:
| People nowadays have no memory of the decades of struggle,
| sacrifice to win the rights we currently have. Unions are the
| most effective tool the working class has to affect change where
| they spend a majority of their waking life. No wonder why its
| demonized at every possible instance.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I do think unions had some (modest) benefit but the role of raw
| economic growth in improving worker rights is often
| understated.
| [deleted]
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Strong unions certainly did wonderful things for the working
| class people of Detroit, Michigan.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| Unions can be corrupted or do mistakes, and sometimes unions
| are not powerful enough in the face of global market shifts.
|
| That doesn't mean unions are bad or useless. It would be like
| saying that since democratic governments can be corrupted, we
| should do without democracy.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| That analogy is poor because we don't know of a good
| alternative to democratic governments. But there is an
| obvious alternative to unions that many workers do prefer.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| And they can still choose it, since unions are not
| compulsory as far as I know? So what are we discussing
| about?
| vasco wrote:
| They can choose it by quitting only, as the work changes
| before and after the union. So instead of having the
| unhappy people quit when they perceive the company as not
| being good enough for them, the unhappy people create a
| union and make the happy people quit instead. It's fine
| either way by me but it feels a bit pointless.
| seabird wrote:
| Not necessarily. Unions can and do negotiate terms that
| protect union members to ridiculous extents at the cost
| of making what is basically an underclass out of non-
| union employees and employees of other unions. You'll
| find terms that limit certain scopes of work exclusively
| to employees of a certain union, and even employees of
| that union with a certain standing within it. Some of
| this work is gravy train shit that you'll never get to
| see if you're not in the union or not in the right union.
| In some unions, working non-union jobs can result in
| repeating fees for the length of time you do it. Do it
| long enough and you'll be so far in the hole that you'll
| effectively never be able to pay it back, you'll never be
| in good standing, and you'll join the rest of the
| employees outside of your union that can't draw crazy
| high pay for very easy work.
| hourago wrote:
| Many rights that everybody enjoys were won by unions and
| applied to everybody. You are generalising to all unions
| some hypothetical case.
|
| Better job opportunities for a part of the population
| means that all employers need to improve conditions to
| compete for employees.
| seabird wrote:
| Have you ever worked in a union shop, or have family that
| did? Demarcation is not a hypothetical case, and it's not
| something that's so uncommon that you can just not worry
| about it, _especially_ as a worker that needs to consider
| whether or not your opportunities are going to be
| hindered by it. Me, my father, my grandfathers, my
| friends, their fathers and grandfathers, and basically my
| community on the whole have watched it happen firsthand
| or have been directly affected by it. Union membership
| can be a big choice where you 're heavily incentivized to
| join the union not just on the merits of them protecting
| you as a worker, but because they're going to work
| against you if you don't. Some unions have worse problems
| with it than others, and some don't have the problem at
| all, but it's not something that is so minor that you can
| just ignore it.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Hold on just to be clear: do you think the problem in
| Detroit is that the unions _weren 't powerful enough_?
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| To be clear, just read again. I don't claim to be an
| expert about Detroit's union history by the way.
|
| > Unions can be corrupted or do mistakes
| seabird wrote:
| >I don't claim to be an expert about Detroit's union
| history by the way.
|
| Industry in Detroit is a perfect example of what can
| happen when unions have way too much power. The current
| conversation really downplays how ridiculously powerful
| unions like the UAW were. It was effectively impossible
| to lose your job -- you would have line workers that
| would bring a portable TV to work and watch their work
| roll past them all day, and they were able to do that
| until the plants closed down because of the terms the
| union had in place. I have multiple drawers of tools from
| vendors that only ever sold B2B; in my father's time, you
| would buy them off UAW members that stole them from auto
| manufacturers in decently large quantities, because you
| wouldn't get fired for it. The only way to reliably lose
| your job was to cross the union itself. Even people who
| were part of a union at that time will pretty readily
| admit that they were unsustainably powerful. We're not
| even started on the organized crime that came out of
| unions in Detroit at that time.
|
| The point isn't that unions shouldn't exist at all. The
| point is that you need to be really careful with comments
| like the root comment, which describe unions as the
| common man engaging in a heroic struggle against the
| forces of capitalist evil, while completely glossing over
| what they have become in multiple places at multiple
| points in history.
| [deleted]
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Try listed three potential issues with unions, why did
| you zoom in on just that one?
| hedora wrote:
| They used to be a tool to help the working class in the US.
|
| My parents had good experience with their unions. Every
| interaction every person I know in my generation has had with
| them (CWA, UAW, teamsters, railway unions, etc, etc.) has been
| strongly negative.
|
| The Amazon workers should form a new union if they want
| representation.
|
| Cards from existing corrupt national unions are definitely a
| trap. Once enough people sign, they will swoop in to extract
| dues, bribe politicians on unrelated issues, and alternate
| between sabotaging Amazon's work environment and negotiating
| away whatever current benefits the workers get.
|
| People that are good at negotiating union politics will somehow
| become unfirable, and just stop bothering to do their jobs.
|
| If history repeats itself, the union reps will then work with
| Amaozn to create an underclass of ununionizable jobs and hire
| people at minimum wage to do the old $18/hr work, while the
| union cronies "supervise" for $25+/hr.
| jaredandrews wrote:
| > The Amazon workers should form a new union if they want
| representation.
|
| They did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Labor_Union
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| yeah my parents only remember their parents having to move
| their family farm to a different state due to the trucking
| union (Teamsters, aka the actual mafia associated group). you
| know where the business was prior to 1950.. Ferguson outside St
| Louis where the riots were. So they certainly didn't bring
| prosperity to the area. There's a middle history of unions
| that's not so nice.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-16 23:02 UTC)