8 ms·

Why would Amazon want to prevent workers from unionizing? Look what it did for teaching, policing, mail delivery, port security, taxi driving, waste management,

Why would Amazon want to prevent workers from unionizing? Look what it did for teaching, policing, mail delivery, port security, taxi driving, waste management, public service, and construction.

cperciva 6y ago
I can't speak to unions' effects on taxis -- I don't know if I've ever been somewhere which has unionized taxi drivers -- but I'm guessing Amazon isn't aiming to have a workforce which can shoot innocent people with impunity.
kwistzhaderach 6y ago
Did that help the company make more profit?
xnyan 6y ago
Ageee. Amazon, walmart and co union bust because they are really really concerned with promoting healthy labor markets. Nothing at all to do with the fact that union workers make significantly more money than non-union labor.
- delfinom 6y ago
  Depends? The union supermarket chain by me makes basically pays pennies above minimum wage and they get the part-time status only scheduling shtick.
ouid 6y ago
I think there is a growing part of america that is coming around to the idea that the path to more negotiating power for laborers is not unions. It is through basic income and social safety nets.
- mattacular 6y ago
  How would basic income and social safety nets increase labors negotiating power?
  - BiosElement 6y ago
    Simple, it would mean the employee doesn't need the job as badly as the employer needs the worker. If you don't need to worry about starving, it's a much more powerful position to begin from, naturally.
  - trefoiled 6y ago
    Less precarity. If you aren't terrified of losing your job, because you know you won't be instantly devastated without it (losing health insurance, being evicted), you have less to lose in labor negotiations.
  - diebeforei485 6y ago
    It's much easier to quit an abusive boss if you have some income to sustain yourself (UBI). You don't have to put up with the abuse for another month or two until you have a new job offer, etc.
    - mattacular 6y ago
      If that were true then how come existing social safety netting in the form of unemployment benefits haven't helped people stuck in this type of situation?
      - bhupy 6y ago
        You don't qualify for unemployment benefits if you refuse to take a job due to unfavorable terms.
      - filoeleven 6y ago
        Unemployment benefits only kick in for people who have lost their job through no fault of their own, though state laws probably vary here. If I quit because my boss is a jerk, or I’m not being paid enough, or many other reasons, I am not eligible for unemployment. My employer has a lot of power, since finding a new job can take a lot of time that I may not have given a full workday and other responsibilities. The vast majority of people who receive unemployment had an unplanned job loss, which already puts them at a disadvantage both planning-wise and psychologically. If instead you KNOW that you will receive income when choosing to leave a job, you are more able to prepare for how it will affect your lifestyle.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  The presumption that the ideas we came up with in during the industrial revolutions are the best is preposterous. They might be the best (old idea aren't necessarily bad), but there are also probably modern options. I find it frustrating to discuss the failure of unions without being labeled anti-labor. But it seems to me, the fundamental failure of unions, even when they seem to work, is setting up an adversarial system. I would posit for any social institution to be stable you need an alignment of incentives.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    I'd take these kind of complaints a lot more seriously if they were coming from people with substantial experience in unionized workplaces. The adversarial situation you want to avoid already exists: Your boss wants to pay you as little as possible; you want to get paid as much as possible. All you're doing by disdaining collective bargaining is sacrificing leverage. Our owners are not as naive as we are: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/24/when-rules-dont-apply-did-silicon-valley-tech-giants-learn-from-no-poaching-antitrust-case/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/24/when-rules-dont-apply...
  - ouid 6y ago
    I disagree wholeheartedly with this idea that adversaries create instability. Stability is the result of all forces acting on an object summing to zero, to abuse metaphor. You can't have that if all of the forces are pointing in the same direction. There is a reason Nash equilibrium is called "equilibrium"; it is stable. Unions fail primarily because they are a very shoddy bandaid. When you have commodity labor, in which each worker is the same, a union has the capacity to plausibly represent them as a group. That cooperation gives the workers negotiating power. There is A) no reason to suspect that that negotiating power cannot or will not be abused, and B) the premise is usually false. Police are the obvious target here on both counts, as a police union is nothing more than a private army, and policing is far from commodity labor. It matters a lot who my police are. I think that teacher's unions are probably a better example of the problems though because people tend to think of the police as an outlier.
saddlerustle 6y ago
The entry level pay at an Amazon warehouse in the US is more than most of that list.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  The primary complaints with Amazon though are about working conditions, not pay. I don't even think it is about ruthless cost-savings, as it is about ruthless efficiency of the system. They are building an automated warehouse/supply-chain, they just happen to be using real-robots for some of it and humans for other parts. They humans are just cogs, with machine dictated instructions. Much of the misery probably isn't even intentionally, but they still are culpable for it. They need more constraints on how humans are used within their system. Just using a minimum rest period (even more gracious ones than state mandates) is not enough, if you presume humans are working at 100% efficiency, constantly moving and doing for the rest of the time. And not to mention that excludes human desires like autonomy. Accounting for that, while not hindering efficacy too much is an interesting systems problem that Amazon's industrial engineers should be spending more time addressing (though I'm sure they already are investing significant effort, just clearly isn't enough).
ForHackernews 6y ago
I think you're being sarcastic, but most of those industries pay a living wage to their employees -- or they did until some SV scabs showed up -- unlike Amazon's warehouse workers.
davewritescode 6y ago
Some unions are in fact quite useful. For example, non-union electricians are often asked to do dangerous work and often have little to no recourse. Truck drivers also have unions and its one of the reasons that driving a truck is still a profession that can provide a good quality of life for its workers. Nobody complains about UPS, and every driver is a Teamster. Public unions are somewhat problematic, I'll give you that. Police are the best example of overpowered unions. Police forces often have tremendous leverage against local governments which makes it hard to keep them in line. What's happened in NYC anytime minor reforms are tried is a disgrace. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't have a problem with workers trying to unionize while recognizing that unions do have issues. Amazon warehouse workers are on the ground doing potentially dangerous work on fast moving floors with robots flying around. I think those people have a right to get paid a living wage given Amazon's profits. Basically, if you treat your employees happy, they won't have any reason to attempt to unionize.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
refurb 6y ago
Actually your example of police unions is a good one. What do they excel at? Protecting bad cops.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Why would Amazon want to prevent workers from unionizing? Look what it did for teaching, policing, mail delivery, port security, taxi driving, waste management, public service, and construction.

cperciva 6y ago

I can't speak to unions' effects on taxis -- I don't know if I've ever been somewhere which has unionized taxi drivers -- but I'm guessing Amazon isn't aiming to have a workforce which can shoot innocent people with impunity.

kwistzhaderach 6y ago

Did that help the company make more profit?

xnyan 6y ago

Ageee. Amazon, walmart and co union bust because they are really really concerned with promoting healthy labor markets. Nothing at all to do with the fact that union workers make significantly more money than non-union labor.

delfinom 6y ago
Depends? The union supermarket chain by me makes basically pays pennies above minimum wage and they get the part-time status only scheduling shtick.

ouid 6y ago

I think there is a growing part of america that is coming around to the idea that the path to more negotiating power for laborers is not unions. It is through basic income and social safety nets.

mattacular 6y ago
How would basic income and social safety nets increase labors negotiating power?
- BiosElement 6y ago
  Simple, it would mean the employee doesn't need the job as badly as the employer needs the worker. If you don't need to worry about starving, it's a much more powerful position to begin from, naturally.
- trefoiled 6y ago
  Less precarity. If you aren't terrified of losing your job, because you know you won't be instantly devastated without it (losing health insurance, being evicted), you have less to lose in labor negotiations.
- diebeforei485 6y ago
  It's much easier to quit an abusive boss if you have some income to sustain yourself (UBI). You don't have to put up with the abuse for another month or two until you have a new job offer, etc.
  - mattacular 6y ago
    If that were true then how come existing social safety netting in the form of unemployment benefits haven't helped people stuck in this type of situation?
    - bhupy 6y ago
      You don't qualify for unemployment benefits if you refuse to take a job due to unfavorable terms.
    - filoeleven 6y ago
      Unemployment benefits only kick in for people who have lost their job through no fault of their own, though state laws probably vary here. If I quit because my boss is a jerk, or I’m not being paid enough, or many other reasons, I am not eligible for unemployment. My employer has a lot of power, since finding a new job can take a lot of time that I may not have given a full workday and other responsibilities. The vast majority of people who receive unemployment had an unplanned job loss, which already puts them at a disadvantage both planning-wise and psychologically. If instead you KNOW that you will receive income when choosing to leave a job, you are more able to prepare for how it will affect your lifestyle.
jacobr1 6y ago
The presumption that the ideas we came up with in during the industrial revolutions are the best is preposterous. They might be the best (old idea aren't necessarily bad), but there are also probably modern options. I find it frustrating to discuss the failure of unions without being labeled anti-labor. But it seems to me, the fundamental failure of unions, even when they seem to work, is setting up an adversarial system. I would posit for any social institution to be stable you need an alignment of incentives.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  I'd take these kind of complaints a lot more seriously if they were coming from people with substantial experience in unionized workplaces. The adversarial situation you want to avoid already exists: Your boss wants to pay you as little as possible; you want to get paid as much as possible. All you're doing by disdaining collective bargaining is sacrificing leverage. Our owners are not as naive as we are: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/24/when-rules-dont-apply-did-silicon-valley-tech-giants-learn-from-no-poaching-antitrust-case/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/24/when-rules-dont-apply...
- ouid 6y ago
  I disagree wholeheartedly with this idea that adversaries create instability. Stability is the result of all forces acting on an object summing to zero, to abuse metaphor. You can't have that if all of the forces are pointing in the same direction. There is a reason Nash equilibrium is called "equilibrium"; it is stable. Unions fail primarily because they are a very shoddy bandaid. When you have commodity labor, in which each worker is the same, a union has the capacity to plausibly represent them as a group. That cooperation gives the workers negotiating power. There is A) no reason to suspect that that negotiating power cannot or will not be abused, and B) the premise is usually false. Police are the obvious target here on both counts, as a police union is nothing more than a private army, and policing is far from commodity labor. It matters a lot who my police are. I think that teacher's unions are probably a better example of the problems though because people tend to think of the police as an outlier.

saddlerustle 6y ago

The entry level pay at an Amazon warehouse in the US is more than most of that list.

jacobr1 6y ago
The primary complaints with Amazon though are about working conditions, not pay. I don't even think it is about ruthless cost-savings, as it is about ruthless efficiency of the system. They are building an automated warehouse/supply-chain, they just happen to be using real-robots for some of it and humans for other parts. They humans are just cogs, with machine dictated instructions. Much of the misery probably isn't even intentionally, but they still are culpable for it. They need more constraints on how humans are used within their system. Just using a minimum rest period (even more gracious ones than state mandates) is not enough, if you presume humans are working at 100% efficiency, constantly moving and doing for the rest of the time. And not to mention that excludes human desires like autonomy. Accounting for that, while not hindering efficacy too much is an interesting systems problem that Amazon's industrial engineers should be spending more time addressing (though I'm sure they already are investing significant effort, just clearly isn't enough).

ForHackernews 6y ago

I think you're being sarcastic, but most of those industries pay a living wage to their employees -- or they did until some SV scabs showed up -- unlike Amazon's warehouse workers.

davewritescode 6y ago

Some unions are in fact quite useful. For example, non-union electricians are often asked to do dangerous work and often have little to no recourse. Truck drivers also have unions and its one of the reasons that driving a truck is still a profession that can provide a good quality of life for its workers. Nobody complains about UPS, and every driver is a Teamster. Public unions are somewhat problematic, I'll give you that. Police are the best example of overpowered unions. Police forces often have tremendous leverage against local governments which makes it hard to keep them in line. What's happened in NYC anytime minor reforms are tried is a disgrace. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't have a problem with workers trying to unionize while recognizing that unions do have issues. Amazon warehouse workers are on the ground doing potentially dangerous work on fast moving floors with robots flying around. I think those people have a right to get paid a living wage given Amazon's profits. Basically, if you treat your employees happy, they won't have any reason to attempt to unionize.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

refurb 6y ago

Actually your example of police unions is a good one. What do they excel at? Protecting bad cops.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]