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> 5. Block access to the facility for any scabs or temporary workers that the company hires Everything you mentioned other than this involves withdrawing or th

> 5. Block access to the facility for any scabs or temporary workers that the company hires Everything you mentioned other than this involves withdrawing or threatening to withdraw your own labor. Which is perfectly reasonable, because you have no obligation to work for an employer, and if they're not willing to meet your expectations, you don't have to continue doing so. However, if somebody else is willing to do a job that an employer is offering, you have no right at all to prevent them from entering into an arrangement. You really just become a gang at that point.

testbot123 7y ago
That's not how it works. Scabs who break the line are harming workers' ability to organize and demand fair working conditions. The onus is on the scab to find employment elsewhere, because by crossing the line they're not only harming the people striking, but the workers they represent as a class, including the scab. Don't cross picket lines, and don't let people cross picket lines – you're undermining human beings fighting for humane treatment – you included.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you withdraw your labor from an employer, and can’t act as though you have some ongoing exclusive right to provide that labor. By the same logic you provided, the organizers are harming the class of all people willing to take the employment on offer. When seeking employment, you have no onus at all to first check with the class of all potential candidates for that role to determine whether they all consider the tabled offer to be fair. The only judgement you have to make is whether you do.
  - silverreads 7y ago
    You're saying that creating and enforcing non-competes that not all parties are in a position to agree fairly upon is unethical?
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      I don't like non-competes at all, but I don't see how my comment refers to them.
      - silverreads 7y ago
        The workers would be creating a non compete for their own positions, and enforcing it against amazon hiring the scabs. Their right to do so is questionable, just as normal non-competes are, but we'll see how legal judgement works out I suppose. This is all very interesting stuff. Exciting time to be alive.
        AmericanChopper 7y ago
        I guess in your hypothetical alternative reality where Amazon had signed such an agreement, that would be a relevant question. In this one however, it is not.
  - Teamster 7y ago
    The picketers and strikers are actually helping the scabs, when the strike succeeds the scabs are free to apply for work at a higher wage. The absence of unions and their successful strike is literally the reason the wage gap is so large. Stopping access of scabs is even more critical in a low skill job such as picking items.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      Using force and intimidation to coerce people into joining an organisation that gets to take part of their income, and dictate the terms of their employment is for their own benefit? How exactly is this any different from the classic protection racket? I'm not sure the people who were unemployed before a strike, and then still unemployed after it are going to buy into how beneficial this is for them. Nor am I convinced that the people who were happy with their working conditions, and were forced to take unpaid leave by the union that they did not join are going to see it that way either. A lot of the tyranny that we have seen through our history on this planet has started off with somebody deciding that they know what's good for others better than they do for themselves, so they'd just be better off if you could make their decisions for them. The truth is that you don't get to make those decisions for other people, regardless of how important their compliance is to your own plans.
      - uoaei 7y ago
        Unions are run like a representative democracy. The comparison with protection rackets is asinine. It sounds like you have zero experience with unions.
- pb7 7y ago
  No, that is how it works. You can't stop people from seeking employment. Period. You don't have that right. It's crazy to me that I even have to type these words out. You think you have power by withdrawing your labor but you don't for the exact reason you're arbitrarily trying to forbid -- someone else will take your job because there are far more people willing to do it than there is demand for. The onus is on you to find a job where your skills meet the price you're willing to take. Others will do the same, even if it means sidestepping you yelling across the street from the warehouse.
  - Teamster 7y ago
    Spoken like a true scab. Stand up for the people who are actually getting screwed by the corporation, not some fictional faceless person that might try to undermine those trying to form a union.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - pb7 7y ago
      You have me confused for someone that would ever be in any part of this equation. Your name calling doesn't change the fact that you're replaceable. Very soon, it'll be by robots. And robots aren't scabs -- they're scars.
Teamster 7y ago
You are not wrong, but, given the low skill of warehouse workers there is always someone to take the job. If you unionize without incentivizing new workers to stop applying your effort will be wasted, especially with a company the size of amazon. Stopping scabs is literally the lynch pin of the plan. We absolutely have the right to picket and block the entrances, it's the entire point.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  If your plan to improve your own working conditions requires you to obstruct others from seeking employment that they’d be happy to have, then you have a bad plan, and you don’t have any moral high ground either. Anybody at any level in any company has an incentive to deny others the right to compete with them. This doesn’t make you a hero to the laborers. You do have a right to picket, you have no right at all to obstruct others in their own search for employment, or in accessing their place of work. Collective bargaining gives you the ability to voluntarily combine your bargaining power. It does not give you any right at all to involuntarily strip others of their own. If you want to know why employees themselves might be anti-union, and get confused as to why anybody would want something that you so clearly see as being against their own interests, this is why. If you don't like the union, it's not as simple as "don't join the union". Because as you demonstrate here, any union organiser with any ambition is going to make their first priority after forming the union to be pushing out non-union members, and restricting their ability to seek employment outside the CBA, by any and all means available (even regardless of legality).
- pb7 7y ago
  >We absolutely have the right to picket and block the entrances, it's the entire point. You have the right to picket but you have no right to block the entrances to a private property. Your tyranny won't be tolerated in this country. You will be imprisoned or shot dead. Your freedoms do not supersede the freedoms of others.
  - uoaei 7y ago
    Interesting. We're allowing death threats to stand on HN now.

testbot123 7y ago

That's not how it works. Scabs who break the line are harming workers' ability to organize and demand fair working conditions. The onus is on the scab to find employment elsewhere, because by crossing the line they're not only harming the people striking, but the workers they represent as a class, including the scab. Don't cross picket lines, and don't let people cross picket lines – you're undermining human beings fighting for humane treatment – you included.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you withdraw your labor from an employer, and can’t act as though you have some ongoing exclusive right to provide that labor. By the same logic you provided, the organizers are harming the class of all people willing to take the employment on offer. When seeking employment, you have no onus at all to first check with the class of all potential candidates for that role to determine whether they all consider the tabled offer to be fair. The only judgement you have to make is whether you do.
- silverreads 7y ago
  You're saying that creating and enforcing non-competes that not all parties are in a position to agree fairly upon is unethical?
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    I don't like non-competes at all, but I don't see how my comment refers to them.
    - silverreads 7y ago
      The workers would be creating a non compete for their own positions, and enforcing it against amazon hiring the scabs. Their right to do so is questionable, just as normal non-competes are, but we'll see how legal judgement works out I suppose. This is all very interesting stuff. Exciting time to be alive.
      - AmericanChopper 7y ago
        I guess in your hypothetical alternative reality where Amazon had signed such an agreement, that would be a relevant question. In this one however, it is not.
- Teamster 7y ago
  The picketers and strikers are actually helping the scabs, when the strike succeeds the scabs are free to apply for work at a higher wage. The absence of unions and their successful strike is literally the reason the wage gap is so large. Stopping access of scabs is even more critical in a low skill job such as picking items.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    Using force and intimidation to coerce people into joining an organisation that gets to take part of their income, and dictate the terms of their employment is for their own benefit? How exactly is this any different from the classic protection racket? I'm not sure the people who were unemployed before a strike, and then still unemployed after it are going to buy into how beneficial this is for them. Nor am I convinced that the people who were happy with their working conditions, and were forced to take unpaid leave by the union that they did not join are going to see it that way either. A lot of the tyranny that we have seen through our history on this planet has started off with somebody deciding that they know what's good for others better than they do for themselves, so they'd just be better off if you could make their decisions for them. The truth is that you don't get to make those decisions for other people, regardless of how important their compliance is to your own plans.
    - uoaei 7y ago
      Unions are run like a representative democracy. The comparison with protection rackets is asinine. It sounds like you have zero experience with unions.
pb7 7y ago
No, that is how it works. You can't stop people from seeking employment. Period. You don't have that right. It's crazy to me that I even have to type these words out. You think you have power by withdrawing your labor but you don't for the exact reason you're arbitrarily trying to forbid -- someone else will take your job because there are far more people willing to do it than there is demand for. The onus is on you to find a job where your skills meet the price you're willing to take. Others will do the same, even if it means sidestepping you yelling across the street from the warehouse.
- Teamster 7y ago
  Spoken like a true scab. Stand up for the people who are actually getting screwed by the corporation, not some fictional faceless person that might try to undermine those trying to form a union.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pb7 7y ago
    You have me confused for someone that would ever be in any part of this equation. Your name calling doesn't change the fact that you're replaceable. Very soon, it'll be by robots. And robots aren't scabs -- they're scars.

Teamster 7y ago

You are not wrong, but, given the low skill of warehouse workers there is always someone to take the job. If you unionize without incentivizing new workers to stop applying your effort will be wasted, especially with a company the size of amazon. Stopping scabs is literally the lynch pin of the plan. We absolutely have the right to picket and block the entrances, it's the entire point.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
If your plan to improve your own working conditions requires you to obstruct others from seeking employment that they’d be happy to have, then you have a bad plan, and you don’t have any moral high ground either. Anybody at any level in any company has an incentive to deny others the right to compete with them. This doesn’t make you a hero to the laborers. You do have a right to picket, you have no right at all to obstruct others in their own search for employment, or in accessing their place of work. Collective bargaining gives you the ability to voluntarily combine your bargaining power. It does not give you any right at all to involuntarily strip others of their own. If you want to know why employees themselves might be anti-union, and get confused as to why anybody would want something that you so clearly see as being against their own interests, this is why. If you don't like the union, it's not as simple as "don't join the union". Because as you demonstrate here, any union organiser with any ambition is going to make their first priority after forming the union to be pushing out non-union members, and restricting their ability to seek employment outside the CBA, by any and all means available (even regardless of legality).
pb7 7y ago
>We absolutely have the right to picket and block the entrances, it's the entire point. You have the right to picket but you have no right to block the entrances to a private property. Your tyranny won't be tolerated in this country. You will be imprisoned or shot dead. Your freedoms do not supersede the freedoms of others.
- uoaei 7y ago
  Interesting. We're allowing death threats to stand on HN now.