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>What does an amazon union even look like? There are already Amazon unions across Europe, so I don’t understand the speculative framing here. They fight for be

>What does an amazon union even look like? There are already Amazon unions across Europe, so I don’t understand the speculative framing here. They fight for better wages, working conditions, etc for their members. All of these are better than their American counterparts because of their present and others historical organizing efforts. > How do unions operate legally/practically in global firms? They don’t? They operate locally based on the unionization laws for a given country. In Europe, many are part of sector-wide bargaining systems that provide a floor for treatment and wages. The US, by contrast, specifically enshrined shop-level organization as the legal means for unionizing to make it more adversarial, limit its political influence and spread. >What "package" would they want to negotiate for. One union? Many unions? Structure. Strategy. Tactics. Etc. Again, these are locally determined by workers through democratic processes. The formation of these unions is to give workers back the power that’s stripped from them by the asymmetries of authoritian corporate structures and wage labor more generally.

dalbasal 6y ago
Agreed on europe. In fact my 1980-2020 pendulum analogy doesn't work for (eg) Germany or France like it does for the UK or US. In a lot of western europe, there wasn't the same sharp de-unionisation. So, unions exist and their role is well understood. They more or less form for a regulatory body for labour by sector. It's stable. I doubt amazon themselves are concerned about these. Not much uncertainty here. Interestingly enough, shop-level organization at amazon scale gets somewhat similar to sector-wide unions. In any case, unionization laws aren't deterministic.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  > Interestingly enough, shop-level organization at amazon scale gets somewhat similar to sector-wide unions. Not really. If every Amazon warehouse organized, you would still need Walmart, Target, etc warehouse workers to organize to achieve something comparable. And in the U.S., they still wouldn’t have the same bargaining power because solidarity strikes and similar tactics are illegal. But I agree that labor laws are not deterministic, as the teacher strikes in red states have recently demonstrated. We’ll also have to see what extent states will further block organizing activities if this starts gaining traction in places like Alabama. Given things like the extremely violent police response to protests, I’d wager “pretty far.”
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    Similar, not identical. For example, the amount of goods sold by amazon or people employed might be a lot larger than many national sectors of many such-unionaised european nations. So similar, or much larger scale. Not gonna look up the actual figures, but safe to assume that amazon US is bigger than all retail (certainly online retail) in the netherlands, belgium or whatnot.

dalbasal 6y ago

Agreed on europe. In fact my 1980-2020 pendulum analogy doesn't work for (eg) Germany or France like it does for the UK or US. In a lot of western europe, there wasn't the same sharp de-unionisation. So, unions exist and their role is well understood. They more or less form for a regulatory body for labour by sector. It's stable. I doubt amazon themselves are concerned about these. Not much uncertainty here. Interestingly enough, shop-level organization at amazon scale gets somewhat similar to sector-wide unions. In any case, unionization laws aren't deterministic.

claudeganon 6y ago
> Interestingly enough, shop-level organization at amazon scale gets somewhat similar to sector-wide unions. Not really. If every Amazon warehouse organized, you would still need Walmart, Target, etc warehouse workers to organize to achieve something comparable. And in the U.S., they still wouldn’t have the same bargaining power because solidarity strikes and similar tactics are illegal. But I agree that labor laws are not deterministic, as the teacher strikes in red states have recently demonstrated. We’ll also have to see what extent states will further block organizing activities if this starts gaining traction in places like Alabama. Given things like the extremely violent police response to protests, I’d wager “pretty far.”
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Similar, not identical. For example, the amount of goods sold by amazon or people employed might be a lot larger than many national sectors of many such-unionaised european nations. So similar, or much larger scale. Not gonna look up the actual figures, but safe to assume that amazon US is bigger than all retail (certainly online retail) in the netherlands, belgium or whatnot.