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> Previously, Costa said Amazon attempted to intervene in the group’s efforts to organize the panel by deleting invitations sent to other workers internally, wh

> Previously, Costa said Amazon attempted to intervene in the group’s efforts to organize the panel by deleting invitations sent to other workers internally, which the group claims were accepted by more than 1,500 employees. It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the full right to control what happens on their resources. At the same time, I find that deleting the an email after it has been sent by the sender unknown to the sender to be a kind of gaslighting, and dystopian. Having a policy to not organize using work resources might be harsh, but at least it is more transparent as in the proverbial line is drawn in the proverbial sand.

claudeganon 7y ago
No, actually, none of that is true under US labor law. People can organize at their workplaces. It’s a protected action.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  You can organize at your workplace, but you don't have a right to use work resources to do it. (Workers used to have the right to use their work email, but the NLRB has recently overturned that precedent.)
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    There's also stipulations on when and where you can organize at your workplace. For example, putting up noticed about a union meeting on the bulletin board in the breakroom is allowed, but you can't put that same notice on a factory floor. You also can talk about organizing at work, but only if it's outside of work hours (you can't be on the clock and using that time to talk about organizing).
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    Calling work email a "resource" seems a little dubious to me. I.e. if I use office stationary to write my union manifesto, they have to buy more stationary. If I send an email they don't have to buy more of anything. Especially in the world we live in right now - email and other work-hosted communications platforms are not a resource provided by work, they are the WORKPLACE.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      It does seem dubious, but I can see the argument that the government shouldn't be adjudicating which work resources are or aren't costly to allow. (Internal phone calls don't cost anything either, but I think it's fair to say union organizers shouldn't be allowed to ring up all the desk phones in an office asking them to support some labor action.)
      - kennywinker 7y ago
        That scenario is covered by the fact that organizing on company TIME is not allowed. I think I disagree. This is exactly the role of the government to adjudicate. I would suggest a standard something like "everything is allowed, unless the company can prove significant harm". So instead of the gov saying "email is ok!" you just get to use email, and then the company has to go to the gov and prove that you using email is a drain on their resources in order to fire you.
    - benbenolson 7y ago
      Email servers, electricity, the time spent setting it all up, the server room that stores the machines, the IT department that maintains the machines and keeps things running, the client hardware that the employee interacts with...
      - kennywinker 7y ago
        You're explicitly allowed to put up signs in the break room, and the cost of the break room existing is DEFINITELY non-zero. Explain to me how those things are different? Email is the workplace.
      - tantalor 7y ago
        The marginal cost of everything you mentioned is zero per email.
        michaelsitver 7y ago
        Essentialy zero isn't Zero at Amazon scale (or the scale of any large business)
  - elicash 7y ago
    First statement too broad, bad advice. An example is bulletin boards that have non-work things on it. On the second note, accurate but worth noting this will be overturned again when makeup of NLRB changes again (whenever that ends up happening).
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I would guess that Costa means the invitations had an associated calendar entry and they deleted the calendar entry. Deleting emails would definitely be pretty creepy, but I don't know if I've ever heard of that happening.
- eximius 7y ago
  It'd be pretty hard to prove or even notice. It's probably happened, the corporate world is too big, but it may not be common.
  - decebalus1 7y ago
    I witnessed instances in which IT was mandated to delete emails from the server in order to stop a certain piece of information (salary info sent accidentally to a large distribution list). It did not go well, of course, because of POP3. It was pretty hilarious actually seeing people forwarding the email repeatedly. But with a calendar entry, it's a different story as it's centralized.
- tareqak 7y ago
  Oh, that’s definitely possible. I didn’t think of that. Thanks 'SpicyLemonZest.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  Deleting email messages is 100% a thing. I saw it happen myself (and confirmed with coworkers) at one unicorn I worked at.
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
I am also curious about the rate of false positives. I wonder how many of those deletions resulted in disrupted work. Maybe I should start taking "I never got your email" excuses more seriously now.
- lozaning 7y ago
  I've got a domain with punny code from to two different character sets, the express goal of which is to get my emails to disappear in strange and interesting ways. I love when people tell me they didnt get my email, that means it worked!
vkou 7y ago
> It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the full right to control what happens on their resources. It's against Amazon's interests to have this organization happen in a parallel, side channel instead. But they seem to be pushing this action in that direction.
salawat 7y ago
The issue is, you're undermining the rights of your laborer's to organize, and I'd even be willing to make a case that you may be shooting yourself in the foot in the long run, because if you annoy them to the point they organize anyway, you can expext compensation to be elevated even more than it would have been to satisfy the collective bargaining unit since they will pass on the cost of paying for their own organizing infrastructure (since you can't be trusted to let your employees use yours). So they need to nut up and shut up. If you can't be trusted to let your laborer's organize in good faith, they have no ground on which to stand when the bill comes for a second labor specific communication network comes due. All that waste they could avoid by just being decent disinterested network operators. Sad really.
throwawaysea 7y ago
It's not just company resources that are being effectively stolen to push personal political agendas. It's also company time - not just the activists spending their own time that they have been compensated by the company for, but also the time of everyone they send these emails and invites to.
- lsiebert 7y ago
  The company has erred in not giving their employees a better way to express themselves and be heard in the first place. It's not like these people would walk out if an email would make their point just as well. Incidentally paid sick leave, which warehouse workers don't have and this protest is in favor of, is estimated to actually save money, not cost it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5649342/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5649342/ As best I can tell, there's evidence that everything these workers are advocating for would have no effect on or better for the company long term through people liking the brand more reducing hiring and training costs by increasing worker retention, reducing the lost of productivity associated with sick workers getting other workers sick, etc. https://medium.com/@amazonemployeesclimatejustice/amazon-sick-out-3d61b5a7ebfa https://medium.com/@amazonemployeesclimatejustice/amazon-sic... But I guess some people think well paid executives always know better then regular employees. Personally if I had a say at Amazon, I'd suggest given the 47.3B they had in cash on hand as of nov of last year and how they've been raking it in since people have begun sheltering in place that they at least could afford to experiment.
elicash 7y ago
Obama's NLRB disagreed with you. Trump's NLRB overturned their previous decision and agreed with your take. This will continue to go back-and forth as control of NLRB changes. I personally think email is equivalent to an office bulletin board. What NLRB has said about that is you simply can't be DISCRIMINATORY on non-work issues. So if you can post on a bulletin board about sponsoring you in a Charity Fun Run, then you can post about union activity. If the employer only allows work-related things, then it's fine for them to not allow union activity.

claudeganon 7y ago

No, actually, none of that is true under US labor law. People can organize at their workplaces. It’s a protected action.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
You can organize at your workplace, but you don't have a right to use work resources to do it. (Workers used to have the right to use their work email, but the NLRB has recently overturned that precedent.)
- txcwpalpha 7y ago
  There's also stipulations on when and where you can organize at your workplace. For example, putting up noticed about a union meeting on the bulletin board in the breakroom is allowed, but you can't put that same notice on a factory floor. You also can talk about organizing at work, but only if it's outside of work hours (you can't be on the clock and using that time to talk about organizing).
- kennywinker 7y ago
  Calling work email a "resource" seems a little dubious to me. I.e. if I use office stationary to write my union manifesto, they have to buy more stationary. If I send an email they don't have to buy more of anything. Especially in the world we live in right now - email and other work-hosted communications platforms are not a resource provided by work, they are the WORKPLACE.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    It does seem dubious, but I can see the argument that the government shouldn't be adjudicating which work resources are or aren't costly to allow. (Internal phone calls don't cost anything either, but I think it's fair to say union organizers shouldn't be allowed to ring up all the desk phones in an office asking them to support some labor action.)
    - kennywinker 7y ago
      That scenario is covered by the fact that organizing on company TIME is not allowed. I think I disagree. This is exactly the role of the government to adjudicate. I would suggest a standard something like "everything is allowed, unless the company can prove significant harm". So instead of the gov saying "email is ok!" you just get to use email, and then the company has to go to the gov and prove that you using email is a drain on their resources in order to fire you.
  - benbenolson 7y ago
    Email servers, electricity, the time spent setting it all up, the server room that stores the machines, the IT department that maintains the machines and keeps things running, the client hardware that the employee interacts with...
    - kennywinker 7y ago
      You're explicitly allowed to put up signs in the break room, and the cost of the break room existing is DEFINITELY non-zero. Explain to me how those things are different? Email is the workplace.
    - tantalor 7y ago
      The marginal cost of everything you mentioned is zero per email.
      - michaelsitver 7y ago
        Essentialy zero isn't Zero at Amazon scale (or the scale of any large business)
- elicash 7y ago
  First statement too broad, bad advice. An example is bulletin boards that have non-work things on it. On the second note, accurate but worth noting this will be overturned again when makeup of NLRB changes again (whenever that ends up happening).

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

I would guess that Costa means the invitations had an associated calendar entry and they deleted the calendar entry. Deleting emails would definitely be pretty creepy, but I don't know if I've ever heard of that happening.

eximius 7y ago
It'd be pretty hard to prove or even notice. It's probably happened, the corporate world is too big, but it may not be common.
- decebalus1 7y ago
  I witnessed instances in which IT was mandated to delete emails from the server in order to stop a certain piece of information (salary info sent accidentally to a large distribution list). It did not go well, of course, because of POP3. It was pretty hilarious actually seeing people forwarding the email repeatedly. But with a calendar entry, it's a different story as it's centralized.
tareqak 7y ago
Oh, that’s definitely possible. I didn’t think of that. Thanks 'SpicyLemonZest.
alexandercrohde 7y ago
Deleting email messages is 100% a thing. I saw it happen myself (and confirmed with coworkers) at one unicorn I worked at.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

I am also curious about the rate of false positives. I wonder how many of those deletions resulted in disrupted work. Maybe I should start taking "I never got your email" excuses more seriously now.

lozaning 7y ago
I've got a domain with punny code from to two different character sets, the express goal of which is to get my emails to disappear in strange and interesting ways. I love when people tell me they didnt get my email, that means it worked!

vkou 7y ago

> It’s Amazon’s internal network, and Amazon’s email system, so they have the full right to control what happens on their resources. It's against Amazon's interests to have this organization happen in a parallel, side channel instead. But they seem to be pushing this action in that direction.

salawat 7y ago

The issue is, you're undermining the rights of your laborer's to organize, and I'd even be willing to make a case that you may be shooting yourself in the foot in the long run, because if you annoy them to the point they organize anyway, you can expext compensation to be elevated even more than it would have been to satisfy the collective bargaining unit since they will pass on the cost of paying for their own organizing infrastructure (since you can't be trusted to let your employees use yours). So they need to nut up and shut up. If you can't be trusted to let your laborer's organize in good faith, they have no ground on which to stand when the bill comes for a second labor specific communication network comes due. All that waste they could avoid by just being decent disinterested network operators. Sad really.

throwawaysea 7y ago

It's not just company resources that are being effectively stolen to push personal political agendas. It's also company time - not just the activists spending their own time that they have been compensated by the company for, but also the time of everyone they send these emails and invites to.

lsiebert 7y ago
The company has erred in not giving their employees a better way to express themselves and be heard in the first place. It's not like these people would walk out if an email would make their point just as well. Incidentally paid sick leave, which warehouse workers don't have and this protest is in favor of, is estimated to actually save money, not cost it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5649342/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5649342/ As best I can tell, there's evidence that everything these workers are advocating for would have no effect on or better for the company long term through people liking the brand more reducing hiring and training costs by increasing worker retention, reducing the lost of productivity associated with sick workers getting other workers sick, etc. https://medium.com/@amazonemployeesclimatejustice/amazon-sick-out-3d61b5a7ebfa https://medium.com/@amazonemployeesclimatejustice/amazon-sic... But I guess some people think well paid executives always know better then regular employees. Personally if I had a say at Amazon, I'd suggest given the 47.3B they had in cash on hand as of nov of last year and how they've been raking it in since people have begun sheltering in place that they at least could afford to experiment.

elicash 7y ago

Obama's NLRB disagreed with you. Trump's NLRB overturned their previous decision and agreed with your take. This will continue to go back-and forth as control of NLRB changes. I personally think email is equivalent to an office bulletin board. What NLRB has said about that is you simply can't be DISCRIMINATORY on non-work issues. So if you can post on a bulletin board about sponsoring you in a Charity Fun Run, then you can post about union activity. If the employer only allows work-related things, then it's fine for them to not allow union activity.