5 ms·

Strange that companies would rather invest in fighting unionization than actually raise the work standards, and treatment of their employees.

ConsiderCrying 6y ago
Because it's likely cheaper to bust unions once in a while than to raise standards overall and forever. Or, at least, that's what the executives think or what their right-hand people tell them. Ultimately, you could probably gather some data and prove that increasing pay, providing good vacation time, and other benefits would improve the quality of people's work and morale... But you'd have to get through to the billionaires at the top first.
grumple 6y ago
Not strange. It's cheaper to bust the union and fire those involved, and pay out for the ensuing lawsuits (whether just to lawyers or lawyers + settlement) than to pay higher wages and provide better benefits. Or at least, that's what they think, and I'm sure someone has done some sort of math to validate this course of action (whether or not it's correct). And companies rarely care about their employees or anything other than profit / bonuses they get from that profit.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The big advantage of not having to deal with unions is being able to quickly make changes in reaction to changing market conditions.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > The big advantage of not having to deal with unions is being able to quickly make changes in reaction to changing market conditions. You could say similar things about authoritarian governmental forms. Like democracy, unions give a bigger seat at the decision-making table to stakeholders outside of privileged leadership classes.
    - syshum 6y ago
      >>>Like democracy, Well that is 100% not true. Democracy in no way gives the people a voice, many many studies have proven this. >>unions give a bigger seat at the decision-making table to stakeholders outside of privileged leadership classes. In theory that is true, but that largely depends on the size of the union, and the size of the company the union is negotiating with. I have seen more than a few companies put completely under by unions that believed the economic health of the company was better than it really was and those "privileged leadership classes. " that you clearly have a disdain for was just out to "get the workers". The conflict lead to an economically unsustainable business
      - ardy42 6y ago
        > Well that is 100% not true. Democracy in no way gives the people a voice, many many studies have proven this. Citation most certainly needed. While democracy is admittedly imperfect, it sounds like you're claiming that citizens of democracies have no more political voice than those of authoritarian countries like the PRC or North Korea, which is obviously false. The only plausible theory that supports your claim is that all decisions in democracies are made to benefit some corporate/financial elite, but the election of Trump rather than Clinton (which none of these elite groups wanted) is pretty strong and straightforward evidence against that. > I have seen more than a few companies put completely under by unions that believed the economic health of the company was better than it really was and those "privileged leadership classes. " that you clearly have a disdain for was just out to "get the workers". The conflict lead to an economically unsustainable business Maybe it was true that union was wrong in that case (your story is far too vague to verify), however it's plausible other unions were right in other, similar cases. Typically, management's priority is to be as generous as possible to the shareholders, not the workers. > "privileged leadership classes. " that you clearly have a disdain for My comment was a pretty straightforward observation that people with power tend to make decisions that benefit themselves, tend put far less weight on the interests of those without the political power to influence them, and a solution is to spread political power more widely. How exactly did you jump to that conclusion that I have "disdain" for "leadership classes"? You're reading in emotions that aren't there, and if you're going to to that, you're not worth talking to.
  - kjaftaedi 6y ago
    that advantage goes to the business. some societies find a preference for giving advantages to workers. neither is objectively right or wrong, it's just a question of priorities.
- rubyn00bie 6y ago
  I would say this is largely because business management and ownership are only interested in short term returns. They have an extreme amount of incentive to only return "now," with no thought as to the true cost. That is to say, they won't be around long enough for the externalities to materialize on the balance sheet so they don't care. /shrug it's a fairly shitty world we live
- syshum 6y ago
  In some ways is not about the direct costs of the union, it is about the indirect costs that a union brings. The work force becomes much more inflexible, and everything has to be negotiated at the group level. Most unions also bring in Seniority over merit which make its harder to replace long tenure employees that have become complacent, and often people use the Union as a shield from Disciplinary actions. I known a few people that have went through the union fight, they thought everything would be better with the union. After the voted in the union their insurance was reduced, they did get a $1 / hr raise, but the union dues were about $0.90 per hour so.... Productivity and output at that factory dropped like a stone as people believe (and proved to be true) that the union would protect them from termination. with in 3 years the factory was closed.
Ididntdothis 6y ago
That’s how the ruling class always tended to operate. History is full of examples where the peasants were starving and the rulers spent a lot of money on squashing insurgencies instead of just feeding the people. If you only care about your profit this may make sense.
- munificent 6y ago
  If crushing an insurgency costs X$, feeding the people costs Y$, and X$ < Y$, then the optimal choice according to free market capitalism and rational actor economic theory is to crush the insurgency.
  - Guest42 6y ago
    I don't think the analysis gets completed before the decision gets made.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Make that calculation too many times, though, and the guillotines start to come out.
    - Ididntdothis 6y ago
      It’s a very fine line but you can keep this going for a long time.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    As a heuristic (as in a psychological shortcut, not necessarily a generally-correct rule of thumb), I'm guessing one just assumes that it's always less expensive in the long run to crush the insurgency. Because you assume that's a one time expense, whereas feeding the people requires accepting permanently higher operating costs.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Insurgencies often tend to make people mad at you, which is fairly hard to value. Make enough people mad and soon you won't be making any money.
UK-Al05 6y ago
I don't it's it true or not. The reason they state for this, is not because they don't mind payment workers more(warehouse Amazon jobs often pay more than equivalent jobs elsewhere). It's because they don't want to consult unions for changes in their business as it can take awhile.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  This is literally the same reason that every nonunion shop gives. They usually couch it familial language, and paint the union (i.e. the workers they're employing) as an outside agitator.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
philwelch 6y ago
Raising work standards and treating employees well is a good way to prevent unionization but it’s not always enough. Whole Foods does (or at least used to) treat their employees exceptionally well by grocery standards, and Costco famously does the same, but that didn’t stop some Costco stores from unionizing.
justapassenger 6y ago
What makes you think it's a choice of just one of those? Company can do both.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Of course it’s possible to do both, but that’s not what Amazon is doing.
djaque 6y ago
I actual just had an experience with the opposite. I'm a graduate student in a non-union department and the university made an announcement that they would cut student pay and hours. Mind you that students are still working the same amount of time and for TAs are working longer hours because remote teaching requires even more effort and preparation. However, the university was planning to cut already our already low pay rates. The student union organizers circulated a petition which included demands for pay, sick leave, healthcare, and funding extensions. When the petition hit like 800 signatures the university sent out an email announcing a pay raise instead of a cut, healthcare, and sick leave without a single mention of the petition. It's probably a peace offering to keep people from unionizing in the long term.

ConsiderCrying 6y ago

Because it's likely cheaper to bust unions once in a while than to raise standards overall and forever. Or, at least, that's what the executives think or what their right-hand people tell them. Ultimately, you could probably gather some data and prove that increasing pay, providing good vacation time, and other benefits would improve the quality of people's work and morale... But you'd have to get through to the billionaires at the top first.

grumple 6y ago

Not strange. It's cheaper to bust the union and fire those involved, and pay out for the ensuing lawsuits (whether just to lawyers or lawyers + settlement) than to pay higher wages and provide better benefits. Or at least, that's what they think, and I'm sure someone has done some sort of math to validate this course of action (whether or not it's correct). And companies rarely care about their employees or anything other than profit / bonuses they get from that profit.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
The big advantage of not having to deal with unions is being able to quickly make changes in reaction to changing market conditions.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The big advantage of not having to deal with unions is being able to quickly make changes in reaction to changing market conditions. You could say similar things about authoritarian governmental forms. Like democracy, unions give a bigger seat at the decision-making table to stakeholders outside of privileged leadership classes.
  - syshum 6y ago
    >>>Like democracy, Well that is 100% not true. Democracy in no way gives the people a voice, many many studies have proven this. >>unions give a bigger seat at the decision-making table to stakeholders outside of privileged leadership classes. In theory that is true, but that largely depends on the size of the union, and the size of the company the union is negotiating with. I have seen more than a few companies put completely under by unions that believed the economic health of the company was better than it really was and those "privileged leadership classes. " that you clearly have a disdain for was just out to "get the workers". The conflict lead to an economically unsustainable business
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > Well that is 100% not true. Democracy in no way gives the people a voice, many many studies have proven this. Citation most certainly needed. While democracy is admittedly imperfect, it sounds like you're claiming that citizens of democracies have no more political voice than those of authoritarian countries like the PRC or North Korea, which is obviously false. The only plausible theory that supports your claim is that all decisions in democracies are made to benefit some corporate/financial elite, but the election of Trump rather than Clinton (which none of these elite groups wanted) is pretty strong and straightforward evidence against that. > I have seen more than a few companies put completely under by unions that believed the economic health of the company was better than it really was and those "privileged leadership classes. " that you clearly have a disdain for was just out to "get the workers". The conflict lead to an economically unsustainable business Maybe it was true that union was wrong in that case (your story is far too vague to verify), however it's plausible other unions were right in other, similar cases. Typically, management's priority is to be as generous as possible to the shareholders, not the workers. > "privileged leadership classes. " that you clearly have a disdain for My comment was a pretty straightforward observation that people with power tend to make decisions that benefit themselves, tend put far less weight on the interests of those without the political power to influence them, and a solution is to spread political power more widely. How exactly did you jump to that conclusion that I have "disdain" for "leadership classes"? You're reading in emotions that aren't there, and if you're going to to that, you're not worth talking to.
- kjaftaedi 6y ago
  that advantage goes to the business. some societies find a preference for giving advantages to workers. neither is objectively right or wrong, it's just a question of priorities.
rubyn00bie 6y ago
I would say this is largely because business management and ownership are only interested in short term returns. They have an extreme amount of incentive to only return "now," with no thought as to the true cost. That is to say, they won't be around long enough for the externalities to materialize on the balance sheet so they don't care. /shrug it's a fairly shitty world we live
syshum 6y ago
In some ways is not about the direct costs of the union, it is about the indirect costs that a union brings. The work force becomes much more inflexible, and everything has to be negotiated at the group level. Most unions also bring in Seniority over merit which make its harder to replace long tenure employees that have become complacent, and often people use the Union as a shield from Disciplinary actions. I known a few people that have went through the union fight, they thought everything would be better with the union. After the voted in the union their insurance was reduced, they did get a $1 / hr raise, but the union dues were about $0.90 per hour so.... Productivity and output at that factory dropped like a stone as people believe (and proved to be true) that the union would protect them from termination. with in 3 years the factory was closed.

Ididntdothis 6y ago

That’s how the ruling class always tended to operate. History is full of examples where the peasants were starving and the rulers spent a lot of money on squashing insurgencies instead of just feeding the people. If you only care about your profit this may make sense.

munificent 6y ago
If crushing an insurgency costs X$, feeding the people costs Y$, and X$ < Y$, then the optimal choice according to free market capitalism and rational actor economic theory is to crush the insurgency.
- Guest42 6y ago
  I don't think the analysis gets completed before the decision gets made.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Make that calculation too many times, though, and the guillotines start to come out.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    It’s a very fine line but you can keep this going for a long time.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  As a heuristic (as in a psychological shortcut, not necessarily a generally-correct rule of thumb), I'm guessing one just assumes that it's always less expensive in the long run to crush the insurgency. Because you assume that's a one time expense, whereas feeding the people requires accepting permanently higher operating costs.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Insurgencies often tend to make people mad at you, which is fairly hard to value. Make enough people mad and soon you won't be making any money.

UK-Al05 6y ago

I don't it's it true or not. The reason they state for this, is not because they don't mind payment workers more(warehouse Amazon jobs often pay more than equivalent jobs elsewhere). It's because they don't want to consult unions for changes in their business as it can take awhile.

jonathankoren 6y ago
This is literally the same reason that every nonunion shop gives. They usually couch it familial language, and paint the union (i.e. the workers they're employing) as an outside agitator.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

philwelch 6y ago

Raising work standards and treating employees well is a good way to prevent unionization but it’s not always enough. Whole Foods does (or at least used to) treat their employees exceptionally well by grocery standards, and Costco famously does the same, but that didn’t stop some Costco stores from unionizing.

justapassenger 6y ago

What makes you think it's a choice of just one of those? Company can do both.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
Of course it’s possible to do both, but that’s not what Amazon is doing.

djaque 6y ago

I actual just had an experience with the opposite. I'm a graduate student in a non-union department and the university made an announcement that they would cut student pay and hours. Mind you that students are still working the same amount of time and for TAs are working longer hours because remote teaching requires even more effort and preparation. However, the university was planning to cut already our already low pay rates. The student union organizers circulated a petition which included demands for pay, sick leave, healthcare, and funding extensions. When the petition hit like 800 signatures the university sent out an email announcing a pay raise instead of a cut, healthcare, and sick leave without a single mention of the petition. It's probably a peace offering to keep people from unionizing in the long term.