9 ms·

Seems like Amazon's getting desperate now. Too bad the US government is the weakest in decades it's been to do something for the workers.

by foob4r 6y ago

Despegar 6y ago
It's been that way for the past 40 years or so, but I think that's starting to change.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  On the bright side, Trump is quite petty and may push support where someone deems feasible for him through government channels to these efforts, just because he doesn't like Bezos.
da_chicken 6y ago
It wouldn't matter. The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson. Even if we had a strong Federal government right now, it would be interested in aiding Amazon, not it's workforce. As it is I fully expect to hear talking points that "responsible" workers wouldn't strike or try to organize, or that there should be a law against unionization during national emergencies.
- rednerrus 6y ago
  Trump hates Bezos enough to try to shut USPS to get to him. I'm sure he'd love to get the double whammy of screwing over Bezos and a boost from working class voters in swing states.
  - rayuela 6y ago
    This! Amazon is taking a huge risk in exposing themselves to the wrath of a personal feud between Bezos and Trump.
  - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
    If that's how he feels personally, his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board don't show it. And if it would take legislation, he'd never get it past Mitch McConnell.
    - kevingadd 6y ago
      Your first point aside, Republicans have been trying to privatize the USPS for decades (though it's definitely the case that many Democrats are in favor of this too for whatever reason). The White House has been actively rejecting the idea of providing aid to the USPS over the last month or two despite the fact that the situation has demolished their revenues. I think it's at least quite plausible that the WH could try to do this since it aligns with their priorities, and that McConnell would be fine with it. The House, probably not.
  - duxup 6y ago
    Trump has plenty of employees in his businesses, and support from lots of business folks. I would expect Trump to cut his nose off to spite his face at any moment ... but not if it meant using the federal government to side with a labor movement like this. He has likely made that choice already with his appointments.
    - klenwell 6y ago
      > Trump has plenty of employees in his businesses, and support from lots of business folks. On that topic: For some, it was a plainly calculated choice. Thomas Peterffy, a billionaire who owned the largest estate in Greenwich, donated to Trump but never pretended to admire him. “When the choice is between two ideologies, then it’s a luxury to dwell on the personalities of the candidates,” he told me. “It’s a luxury that we cannot afford.” Peterffy, who made his fortune as a pioneer in digital trading, said that the choice was between “a high degree of government regulation or a diminished amount of government regulation, because, basically, that’s how the U.S. will get to socialism—increasing government regulation.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-republicans-learned-to-love-trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-...
- TheBobinator 6y ago
  Forcing work during a pandemic that might kill people without providing them PPE or making changes to operations is the literal height of insanity. Amazon has been a subsidized american corporation servicing chinese interests for 2 decades; the US goverment recieves hundreds of billion in chinese bond purchases a year and for the privelage of having this subsidy the Federal government the federal government in turn provides a subsidty to amazon in the form of forging anti-trust prosecution against amazon for running a retail division that ran a loss for 2 decades while prosecuting wal-mart. End of the day, best way to handle this is to make an app for it. People run it on their phones which everyone has, and they co-ordinate and vote that way as a single block and as seperate groups.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  > The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson Is that true? Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs), attempting to tighten immigration, lowering taxes on repatriation of cash. Those are all pro worker.
  - andybak 6y ago
    Yes but all those things are also fairly safe in terms of his other demographics. Trump's brand of populism strikes me as being all about surface gestures. Has anything he's done for workers also disadvantaged his rich donors?
  - munk-a 6y ago
    It is true yes - though it's also true that recently both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor. The trade deal renegotiations didn't focus on or accomplish good changes to keep labour local and, while I'm not wholly against tariffs tax changes have wiped out any local investment motivations tariffs were supporting. Lastly, the repatriation of cash was a loss for everyone - companies that skirted tax laws got a gift in being able to reclaim a lot of cash they had been unable to access due to dodging taxes while also paying a much reduced rate... And I think that action happening again so soon is just a clear signal to companies to avoid actually bringing any money into the country until they can get a tax holiday to get it in for free - it's like your kid eating the cookie jar and you saying "Well, I'm going to dock your allowance thirty percent this week... And I will refill the cookie jar but don't do that again!" - we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws by letting them skirt some more tax laws while wagging a finger and saying "Naughty naughty!"
    - linuxftw 6y ago
      > we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws If it's legal, it's not skirting the law. > both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor No argument here. But if we're comparing the current administration to (recent) previous, it's an improvement.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
- maximente 6y ago
  actually, i wouldn't be surprised if trump tries to go left of biden in a few key areas if only to try to win the next election. i think he's under immense pressure due to mishandling the pandemic - he's not polling well at all, not that that means everything - and i suspect he's not above wildly shaking up policy in order to pick up votes, esp. in the critical swing states. his party isn't in a position to throw up a challenger so the Rs are stuck with him, from my point of view: if desperate enough, who knows what he'll try?
  - silverreads 6y ago
    Biden will stick with the party and it's "obligations" no matter what, so you've got a really good point here. Trump could punch low and swing left, where biden has no footing. Maybe maybe, this could catalyze a general republican swing to the far left?
    - orestarod 6y ago
      This sounds like a circus. Not saying that it's better anywhere else in essence, but in US politics the political words meanings have been absolutely butchered.
      - silverreads 6y ago
        I mean, is that out of character though? I was going to vote for bernie but if trump extends federally funded healthcare to everyone and abolishes private health insurance (which, as far as I know, wouldn't negatively impact his financial supporters as much as bidens), hell yeah I'd vote for him. One issue, done deal.

Seems like Amazon's getting desperate now. Too bad the US government is the weakest in decades it's been to do something for the workers.

by foob4r 6y ago

Seems like Amazon's getting desperate now. Too bad the US government is the weakest in decades it's been to do something for the workers.

Despegar 6y ago

It's been that way for the past 40 years or so, but I think that's starting to change.

Frost1x 6y ago
On the bright side, Trump is quite petty and may push support where someone deems feasible for him through government channels to these efforts, just because he doesn't like Bezos.

da_chicken 6y ago

It wouldn't matter. The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson. Even if we had a strong Federal government right now, it would be interested in aiding Amazon, not it's workforce. As it is I fully expect to hear talking points that "responsible" workers wouldn't strike or try to organize, or that there should be a law against unionization during national emergencies.

rednerrus 6y ago
Trump hates Bezos enough to try to shut USPS to get to him. I'm sure he'd love to get the double whammy of screwing over Bezos and a boost from working class voters in swing states.
- rayuela 6y ago
  This! Amazon is taking a huge risk in exposing themselves to the wrath of a personal feud between Bezos and Trump.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  If that's how he feels personally, his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board don't show it. And if it would take legislation, he'd never get it past Mitch McConnell.
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    Your first point aside, Republicans have been trying to privatize the USPS for decades (though it's definitely the case that many Democrats are in favor of this too for whatever reason). The White House has been actively rejecting the idea of providing aid to the USPS over the last month or two despite the fact that the situation has demolished their revenues. I think it's at least quite plausible that the WH could try to do this since it aligns with their priorities, and that McConnell would be fine with it. The House, probably not.
- duxup 6y ago
  Trump has plenty of employees in his businesses, and support from lots of business folks. I would expect Trump to cut his nose off to spite his face at any moment ... but not if it meant using the federal government to side with a labor movement like this. He has likely made that choice already with his appointments.
  - klenwell 6y ago
    > Trump has plenty of employees in his businesses, and support from lots of business folks. On that topic: For some, it was a plainly calculated choice. Thomas Peterffy, a billionaire who owned the largest estate in Greenwich, donated to Trump but never pretended to admire him. “When the choice is between two ideologies, then it’s a luxury to dwell on the personalities of the candidates,” he told me. “It’s a luxury that we cannot afford.” Peterffy, who made his fortune as a pioneer in digital trading, said that the choice was between “a high degree of government regulation or a diminished amount of government regulation, because, basically, that’s how the U.S. will get to socialism—increasing government regulation.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-republicans-learned-to-love-trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-...
TheBobinator 6y ago
Forcing work during a pandemic that might kill people without providing them PPE or making changes to operations is the literal height of insanity. Amazon has been a subsidized american corporation servicing chinese interests for 2 decades; the US goverment recieves hundreds of billion in chinese bond purchases a year and for the privelage of having this subsidy the Federal government the federal government in turn provides a subsidty to amazon in the form of forging anti-trust prosecution against amazon for running a retail division that ran a loss for 2 decades while prosecuting wal-mart. End of the day, best way to handle this is to make an app for it. People run it on their phones which everyone has, and they co-ordinate and vote that way as a single block and as seperate groups.
linuxftw 6y ago
> The current administration is from a party whose platform is as anti-labor as their opposition was under Woodrow Wilson Is that true? Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs), attempting to tighten immigration, lowering taxes on repatriation of cash. Those are all pro worker.
- andybak 6y ago
  Yes but all those things are also fairly safe in terms of his other demographics. Trump's brand of populism strikes me as being all about surface gestures. Has anything he's done for workers also disadvantaged his rich donors?
- munk-a 6y ago
  It is true yes - though it's also true that recently both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor. The trade deal renegotiations didn't focus on or accomplish good changes to keep labour local and, while I'm not wholly against tariffs tax changes have wiped out any local investment motivations tariffs were supporting. Lastly, the repatriation of cash was a loss for everyone - companies that skirted tax laws got a gift in being able to reclaim a lot of cash they had been unable to access due to dodging taxes while also paying a much reduced rate... And I think that action happening again so soon is just a clear signal to companies to avoid actually bringing any money into the country until they can get a tax holiday to get it in for free - it's like your kid eating the cookie jar and you saying "Well, I'm going to dock your allowance thirty percent this week... And I will refill the cookie jar but don't do that again!" - we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws by letting them skirt some more tax laws while wagging a finger and saying "Naughty naughty!"
  - linuxftw 6y ago
    > we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws If it's legal, it's not skirting the law. > both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor No argument here. But if we're comparing the current administration to (recent) previous, it's an improvement.
- mschuster91 6y ago
maximente 6y ago
actually, i wouldn't be surprised if trump tries to go left of biden in a few key areas if only to try to win the next election. i think he's under immense pressure due to mishandling the pandemic - he's not polling well at all, not that that means everything - and i suspect he's not above wildly shaking up policy in order to pick up votes, esp. in the critical swing states. his party isn't in a position to throw up a challenger so the Rs are stuck with him, from my point of view: if desperate enough, who knows what he'll try?
- silverreads 6y ago
  Biden will stick with the party and it's "obligations" no matter what, so you've got a really good point here. Trump could punch low and swing left, where biden has no footing. Maybe maybe, this could catalyze a general republican swing to the far left?
  - orestarod 6y ago
    This sounds like a circus. Not saying that it's better anywhere else in essence, but in US politics the political words meanings have been absolutely butchered.
    - silverreads 6y ago
      I mean, is that out of character though? I was going to vote for bernie but if trump extends federally funded healthcare to everyone and abolishes private health insurance (which, as far as I know, wouldn't negatively impact his financial supporters as much as bidens), hell yeah I'd vote for him. One issue, done deal.