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Very difficult to put emotion aside when thinking about these things. I expect to be crucified for even asking this question because the audience here has a bia

Very difficult to put emotion aside when thinking about these things. I expect to be crucified for even asking this question because the audience here has a bias towards supporting activism. But oh well here goes: If Amazon condone and even enable employee activism, what bad things could that enable? I don’t mean unions. I mean a group of say 20 employees trying to bring about a change they truly believe in. Amazon has over 500,000 employees. Think of the number of edge cases. You agree with these good folks that were fired. But what about carrying guns to work? Conservative or liberal issues if you’re the other side of the table? That employee base is a small city. Is every warehouse a town square with freedom to assemble? Every office? Fighting the good fight is often necessary. But it’s also a seductive idea until it’s not your fight and disrupting your day - or worse, something you vehemently disagree with and is causing you distress. Is there another side to this argument? (Edit for spelling)

tayo42 7y ago
I think your argument is based off of a slippery slope. Your assuming future groups of people aren't being realistic or wont ask for things that are moral.
jzoch 7y ago
There is nothing wrong with allowing employees to protest (voice their opinions). This would be like protesting that you want to bring a gun to work - not bringing your gun to work. Amazon is not allowing the conversation to even happen - and even then, there is no collective bargaining power given to these employees. They have no way to ensure that their voices are heard. The only downside to this approach can be that democracy has its faults and a simple majority-rules approach can prove problematic (see elections going wonky these past few years while ignoring all the shady stuff going on). Its worth it.
- hank_z 7y ago
  Personally, I believe democracy is a lie unless people are well educated. People are so easy to be manipulated by media nowadays. Education can teach people how to think, how to question things, how to justify themselves.
toper-centage 7y ago
Very valid points. But your example of bringing guns to the workplace is just the worst. Thst benefits no one, and maybe satisfies a few. There's literally no one that would straight out reject better work conditions.
rrmm 7y ago
Part of running a company is keeping employees marginally happy enough to keep working. Whether that's through money, benefits, feelings of solidarity, shared goals, whatever. So annoying high-level employees enough to quit is a failure on one level or another.
komali2 7y ago
I understand where you're going for, but imo that's never been a valid argument against self-determination. I think your argument can be made simpler: why should we trust people to be allowed to decide for themselves? Won't they decide to do stupid and harmful things? Won't they decide to hurt eachother? Won't they decide to steal from eachother, and murder eachother? No, is the answer, because laws were created somehow, right? We don't trust the government to babysit us - we created the government so we wouldn't have to babysit eachother. We don't need the board to tell us what we can and can't do - we can figure that well enough on our own. What we don't need is a board that assumes it knows best. It doesn't, it can't possibly, in fact it is existentially unable to do anything but raise shareholder value. So, the more employee self-determination, the better. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide they want to have guns at work instead of, say, a security system, or maybe offices in places with low crime, etc. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide, I dunno, that they want the right to shit on eachother's desk, or whatever other fairly-objectively-negative thing you can think up. The right to paste racial slurs all over the office, maybe? Bigotry, bullying, and hatred are swiftly becoming a minority, and a fair system almost universally causes those minority viewpoints to lose power. They only maintain it in imbalanced systems... And worse case scenario, if Amazon turns into the kind of office where you have to shoot your way in just to get to your desk, we can have the government intervene and shut the place down (with our labor laws), and maybe someone can set up a better business where you don't have to shoot your way to your desk.
- aeroevan 7y ago
  > I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide they want to have guns at work instead of, say, a security system, or maybe offices in places with low crime, etc. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide, I dunno, that they want the right to shit on eachother's desk, or whatever other fairly-objectively-negative thing you can think up. I think his point is that carrying guns to work is not a fairly-objectively-negative thing for the 1/3 of America that owns guns.
lambdasquirrel 7y ago
Good point. There’s a bit of apples and oranges here when you get down to the specifics. Specifically, Tim is pissed because Amazon fired some whistleblowers. Not just once, and it sounds like it has happened over a period of time. In other words, there were workplace violations happening, people tried to go through proper channels, and then reported it when that didn’t work, and then they got fired.
dhagz 7y ago
I'm sure there are terms in the employment contract that Amazon can use to justify firing these employees. And I do agree that the circumstances of condoning activism at Amazon can lead to some very bad places. I also think that there most certainly are actions taken by the employees who were fired that may make the terminations look more justified. Basically - there are parts of the story we are not seeing, context missing. HOWEVER, that still does not make Amazon right in this. Sure, they followed corporate bylaws and did the things to legally cover their asses, but that doesn't mean they're wearing a white dress here. There are certainly systemic problems within Amazon the lower down the payscale you go, and Amazon trying to silence attempts to bring attention to that is more damning than the problems themselves in my mind.
netsharc 7y ago
> If Amazon condone and even enable employee activism Is this (what the whistleblowers did, and Mr. Bray is implicitly supporting by quitting) even activism? They were afraid of the well-being of the Amazon employees. Is it comparable to complaining that the wooden stairs to go into the office is rotten and may fall at any moment? That's not activism, it's just basic workspace safety.
phillipcarter 7y ago
Labor unions exist, in part, to negotiate on exactly the kinds of things you're alluding to. If you and your coworkers wish to propose something like bringing guns into the office, you need to get your union representative to negotiate for that. This isn't a terribly new concept
italicbold 7y ago
These issues arise when the culture the company portrays to employees and public doesnt align with actual culture. For companies that align their portrayed culture to employees with actual culture its not really an issue as quiting over a non missalignment is quiting for personal reasons. That said there is still behaviour public wont like even if it aligns with company culture (Uber). Quiting over that would still have affect in the court of public opinnion (vindictive behaviour, sexual abuse etc). For local hot button issues the best a company can do is act locally on those issues and in line with local law and legislation. But what really matters to a global company is what its global potential client base thinks and this will trump local issues if they cant be accomadated.

tayo42 7y ago

I think your argument is based off of a slippery slope. Your assuming future groups of people aren't being realistic or wont ask for things that are moral.

jzoch 7y ago

There is nothing wrong with allowing employees to protest (voice their opinions). This would be like protesting that you want to bring a gun to work - not bringing your gun to work. Amazon is not allowing the conversation to even happen - and even then, there is no collective bargaining power given to these employees. They have no way to ensure that their voices are heard. The only downside to this approach can be that democracy has its faults and a simple majority-rules approach can prove problematic (see elections going wonky these past few years while ignoring all the shady stuff going on). Its worth it.

hank_z 7y ago
Personally, I believe democracy is a lie unless people are well educated. People are so easy to be manipulated by media nowadays. Education can teach people how to think, how to question things, how to justify themselves.

toper-centage 7y ago

Very valid points. But your example of bringing guns to the workplace is just the worst. Thst benefits no one, and maybe satisfies a few. There's literally no one that would straight out reject better work conditions.

rrmm 7y ago

Part of running a company is keeping employees marginally happy enough to keep working. Whether that's through money, benefits, feelings of solidarity, shared goals, whatever. So annoying high-level employees enough to quit is a failure on one level or another.

komali2 7y ago

I understand where you're going for, but imo that's never been a valid argument against self-determination. I think your argument can be made simpler: why should we trust people to be allowed to decide for themselves? Won't they decide to do stupid and harmful things? Won't they decide to hurt eachother? Won't they decide to steal from eachother, and murder eachother? No, is the answer, because laws were created somehow, right? We don't trust the government to babysit us - we created the government so we wouldn't have to babysit eachother. We don't need the board to tell us what we can and can't do - we can figure that well enough on our own. What we don't need is a board that assumes it knows best. It doesn't, it can't possibly, in fact it is existentially unable to do anything but raise shareholder value. So, the more employee self-determination, the better. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide they want to have guns at work instead of, say, a security system, or maybe offices in places with low crime, etc. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide, I dunno, that they want the right to shit on eachother's desk, or whatever other fairly-objectively-negative thing you can think up. The right to paste racial slurs all over the office, maybe? Bigotry, bullying, and hatred are swiftly becoming a minority, and a fair system almost universally causes those minority viewpoints to lose power. They only maintain it in imbalanced systems... And worse case scenario, if Amazon turns into the kind of office where you have to shoot your way in just to get to your desk, we can have the government intervene and shut the place down (with our labor laws), and maybe someone can set up a better business where you don't have to shoot your way to your desk.

aeroevan 7y ago
> I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide they want to have guns at work instead of, say, a security system, or maybe offices in places with low crime, etc. I think it's very unlikely that employees will decide, I dunno, that they want the right to shit on eachother's desk, or whatever other fairly-objectively-negative thing you can think up. I think his point is that carrying guns to work is not a fairly-objectively-negative thing for the 1/3 of America that owns guns.

lambdasquirrel 7y ago

Good point. There’s a bit of apples and oranges here when you get down to the specifics. Specifically, Tim is pissed because Amazon fired some whistleblowers. Not just once, and it sounds like it has happened over a period of time. In other words, there were workplace violations happening, people tried to go through proper channels, and then reported it when that didn’t work, and then they got fired.

dhagz 7y ago

I'm sure there are terms in the employment contract that Amazon can use to justify firing these employees. And I do agree that the circumstances of condoning activism at Amazon can lead to some very bad places. I also think that there most certainly are actions taken by the employees who were fired that may make the terminations look more justified. Basically - there are parts of the story we are not seeing, context missing. HOWEVER, that still does not make Amazon right in this. Sure, they followed corporate bylaws and did the things to legally cover their asses, but that doesn't mean they're wearing a white dress here. There are certainly systemic problems within Amazon the lower down the payscale you go, and Amazon trying to silence attempts to bring attention to that is more damning than the problems themselves in my mind.

netsharc 7y ago

> If Amazon condone and even enable employee activism Is this (what the whistleblowers did, and Mr. Bray is implicitly supporting by quitting) even activism? They were afraid of the well-being of the Amazon employees. Is it comparable to complaining that the wooden stairs to go into the office is rotten and may fall at any moment? That's not activism, it's just basic workspace safety.

phillipcarter 7y ago

Labor unions exist, in part, to negotiate on exactly the kinds of things you're alluding to. If you and your coworkers wish to propose something like bringing guns into the office, you need to get your union representative to negotiate for that. This isn't a terribly new concept

italicbold 7y ago

These issues arise when the culture the company portrays to employees and public doesnt align with actual culture. For companies that align their portrayed culture to employees with actual culture its not really an issue as quiting over a non missalignment is quiting for personal reasons. That said there is still behaviour public wont like even if it aligns with company culture (Uber). Quiting over that would still have affect in the court of public opinnion (vindictive behaviour, sexual abuse etc). For local hot button issues the best a company can do is act locally on those issues and in line with local law and legislation. But what really matters to a global company is what its global potential client base thinks and this will trump local issues if they cant be accomadated.