25 ms·
Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
- HarryHirsch 6y agoWhy would you expect anything else? Amazon is a logistics company like UPS; if Bezos didn't squeeze every last drop of profit from their employees it wouldn't be world-dominating.
- nicoburns 6y agoThe world-dominating is largely a negative from my perspective: it pushes it's smaller competitors out of business which decreases the competitiveness of the market and extracts profits/wealth out of local communities where it would likely be spent productively into the pockets of Jeff Bezos and Amazon investors where it is not nearly so useful.
- HarryHirsch 6y agoI agree with every word you say.
- sempron64 6y agoThe services they provide have been of incomparable quality to any other offering in the US. They made free 2-day shipping and free returns the baseline. Amazon lockers provide online shopping opportunities to those not privileged to own a house with a secure front yard (I do wish shipping to amazon lockers was possible from other online-only retailers). And in truth the vast majority of amazon’s income is still invested back into the salaries of its workers and building infrastructure — they have notoriously thin profit margins outside of AWS. Bezos’ fabulous wealth comes from stock. Edit: I’m not affiliated with amazon and my acquaintances had very stressful experiences working there. But as a customer I really appreciate their service
- pmoriarty 6y ago"Bezos’ fabulous wealth comes from stock." Stock ownership should be illegal.
- chungus_khan 6y agoIn Canada it is possible to order online directly to any post office via a special address and pick up there for free. This is IMO a much better solution because post offices are already necessary and present everywhere, and individual retailers don't have to support the option to ship to them.
- neaden 6y agoJeff Bezos has made 90 billion dollars during the pandemic. He does not need to squeeze every drop of profit.
- HarryHirsch 6y agoThing is, he does. Else his wealth would quickly evaporate, and he'd be like the CEOs of Fedex, UPS & suchlike. The fact that most of his wealth is in stocks doesn't help.
- alisonkisk 6y agoThese transcripts are literal, hard to read with "it seems", "I mean", "you know", "sort of", "so". Transcripts should be be cleaned up for print.
- doytch 6y agoThen they wouldn't be transcripts...
- dredmorbius 6y agoBoth audio and transcripts are quite routinely cleaned up for broadcast and publication. Enough so on NPR / public radio that it's a signature. With some exceptions, but those are exceptions: It’s no secret that pre-taped interviews on public radio are edited, sometimes considerably. Short silences and stumbles are “cleaned up.” Digressions or parenthetical remarks within an answer are removed in what are called “internal edits.” Often entire blocks of Q&A are excised. The cuts are made to bring the conversation down to time and present it in its most compelling form.... “Cleaning up” tape. This refers to removing ums and ahs, as well as stumbles and pauses, from an answer. Most of the time this is fine, as long as you are not removing something that suggested the interviewee was reluctant or unable to respond to a question.... https://training.npr.org/2019/11/12/deciding-what-parts-of-an-interview-to-cut-here-are-some-guidelines/ https://training.npr.org/2019/11/12/deciding-what-parts-of-a... My exposure to the darkroom began when I edited my first story. I sat at the digital editing console with a producer, listening to an interview with a source I had recorded earlier. With just strokes of the keyboard, he cleaned up and tightened the sound bites I was going to use, taking out sentences, words and even some of the pauses, making what are called "internal edits." Then the various thoughts were woven together technically in a way that would be totally hidden to the listener. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/130565-pulling-back-the-curtain https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/130565-pul... (2003) (see Transcript) An intelligent verbatim transcript attempts to capture what was said rather than how it was said. The main priority being content and “voice”, while leaving out repeated words and fillers. The aim of an intelligent verbatim interview transcript has less to do with depicting accents or involuntary vocalization. It has more to do with accuracy of the substance of the research interview, considering the meanings and perceptions created and shared during a conversation. And this is why this style of transcription is so popular, because it provides a more readable transcript while staying true to the voice and intended meaning of the participants. https://weloty.com/intelligent-verbatim-transcription/ https://weloty.com/intelligent-verbatim-transcription/
- mikestew 6y ago"Pinkerton: for over one-hundred years, the ones to call when you've got a union problem." I mean, that has to be their schtick, right, even if it's unspoken? Because that pretty much sums up what I know about Pinkerton, so I would assume they are happy with that. As for the topic at hand, yeah well, that's what companies do...for over one-hundred years as well.
- criddell 6y agoSomebody should try to unionize Pinkerton employees.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ausbah 6y agoseems like police unions would be more fitting if my memory of history serves me right
- Florin_Andrei 6y agoI honestly thought "Pinkerton agents" was a metaphor. :) Like the way you say "xerox that paper".
- rimiform 6y agoDito. But it's really far worse that Amazon is able to use literal Pinkerton agents, because it implies the organisation hasn't been torn to shreds as you expect it should have been.
- vidarh 6y agoTo the point where if someone ever introduces themselves to me as a Pinkerton employee, my first instinct would be to assume they're immoral and not someone I want to know. It's a company with a history of supporting exploitation wherever it's gone.
- 6y ago
- Loughla 6y agoIt just astounds me that the Old Timey Pinkertons are still around, to be honest. That is a company that my 98 year old grandfather tells stories about from his childhood. I know there are other old companies, but Pinkerton is one of those that just sounds old fashioned.
- vulcan01 6y agoSame here. I'm a high school student; I learned about the Pinkertons last year in US History... (Carnegie Steel's Homestead Strike https://www.britannica.com/event/Homestead-Strike https://www.britannica.com/event/Homestead-Strike)
- xyst 6y agoThose stories are also told in a video game called "Red Dead Redemption." Stories might be fictional, but the agency is very real.
- cultus 6y agoThey tried to cease-and-desist Rockstar, actually. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-11-take-two-rockstar-dismiss-complaint-against-pinkerton https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-11-take-two-r...
- _iyig 6y agoI was reminded of their continued existence earlier this year when, in a strange reversal of fate, a Pinkerton shot and killed a pro-law enforcement protestor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/15/matthew-dolloff-charged-murder/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/15/matthew-dol...
- scruple 6y agoThey're owned by Securitas today, the Swedish security guard company. Which makes the decision to continue using "Pinkerton" as a _brand name_ even more of an intimidation tactic, IMO. And I think it ultimately results in demonstrating how committed Bezos is to fighting this.
- jimbob45 6y agoI thought the headline was a mistake and that these were “Pinkerton-style” agents. Nope. They’re legitimately Pinkerton. Surely Amazon must know better than to partner with the most recognized name in anti-labor practices. Their PR guy needs to be sitting in on these meetings.
- bstar77 6y agoThis is equal parts sad and hilarious if true. I have a sudden urge to watch Deadwood again.
- llimos 6y agoThe levels of corporate greed in the world today are making me give up on humanity.
- FpUser 6y ago>"... today ..." Are you implying that they were less greedy at some other time? The whole economy is driven by greed. Always was, always will. You can get some exceptions here and there but the general picture is pure greed.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoIt would be interesting if someone had a meaningful measure with which to compare corporate greed of today to the greed of feudalism, the greed of colonial empires, and the like.
- pietrovismara 6y agoWell talking about Feudalism, the economy was very different back then. Money wasn't yet able to buy you everything, your birth family would matter much more. So feudal lords weren't driven by profit (profit didn't really exist as a concept as it does today) but by other values like glory, etc. Not to say that they weren't greedy, because they were indeed, but they certainly didn't think about infinite growth or perpetually finding ways to make shareholders richer, like your corporate lord would today.
- Grimm1 6y ago"Pinkerton operatives were inserted into an Amazon warehouse in Wroclaw, Poland, to investigate an allegation that warehouse workers were circumventing sort of the application process for applying to warehouse jobs" How does this match the title of the piece. Then, "So I imagine that in the U.S., they're tracking labor organizing activity but not union members yet." So they have no proof and this is all speculation. Another Amazon hit piece, real quality journalism here. Amazon used some people to catch people cheesing their job application process and then because the US doesn't have strong unions and they know they look at labor stats for people joining Unions this "journalist" has extrapolated they are definitely "surveiling" people. This is really low quality. Edit: I'm fine with the allegations being true, the point I'm making is this isn't the article that we should be discussing because it's lazy journalism -- another poster below me linked much more well thought out and written posts on the subject being discussed by this article.
- badRNG 6y agoLeaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center reveal the company’s reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental activists, and other social movements. [1] This isn't "speculation" or "poor journalism", it is an assessment that exists within the context of a company that has been aggressively anti-union for years, for which employees are trained to rat out union organizers,[2] and, of course, in light of their retention of Pinkertons to infiltrate employee Facebook groups dedicated to organizing. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports... [2] https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-revealed-in-leake-1829305201 https://gizmodo.com/amazons-aggressive-anti-union-tactics-re...
- Grimm1 6y agoFine but you had to use alternative sources to get that information. This particular piece is trash because it didn't go get those leaked documents and then discuss them in depth like the vice link. That is real investigative journalism. This linked piece speculated the entire way through. This should be dropped from the front page and we should be discussing the vice or gizmodo article which actually put in the work to go through the allegations.
- mattalbie 6y agoIt’s a very minor point but this article makes it sound like the generic term for a union buster is Pinkerton agent. Pinkerton is a private company who does security work these days, but has a long history of doing exactly this. Fascinating Wikipedia read if you’re curious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)
- pmiller2 6y agoIndeed, everything old is new again. You know the saying, right? History doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme. This is often attributed to Mark Twain, but there's no real evidence he actually said it.
- brmgb 6y agoIn this case, I think quoting the introduction to the The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Marx is more apt: Hegel says somewhere that great historic facts and personages recur twice. He forgot to add: "Once as tragedy, and again as farce."
- black_puppydog 6y agoGiven how we seem to be unwilling to learn from history, I prefer Julian Barnes' take from "A History of the World in 10½ Chapters" > History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
- jonjacky 6y agoAnother echo from those old days: this news about Amazon was broken by a writer named Lauren Gurley. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a famous union organizer who fought the Pinkertons more than a hundred years ago. Coincidentally, the new novel The Cold Millions by Jess Walter portrays Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the Pinkertons in Spokane in 1909. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Gurley_Flynn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Gurley_Flynn (A quick search shows Lauren Gurley is a prolific writer on labor issues but doesn't mention any connection to the earlier Gurley - the names might be just a coincidence)
- omgwtfbyobbq 6y agoTo me, the lengths Amazon goes to discourage unionization hints at how vulnerable they feel they are to certain aspects of unionization (probably strikes). This isn't that much of a surprise though. The more we automate stuff (excluding complete automation), the more important the squishy humans that keep everything running are.
- hef19898 6y agoAt least in Europe, strikes don't seem to be the driving factor. They are hit anyway often enough by Verdi in Germany, and there is no way Amazon can prohibit people from signing up with a union. Not being able to enforce working conditions seems to more of a factor to me. Not that Amazon is harsher on warehouse staff than, say, DHL. It is more the monitoring and so on. No idea how things are in the US so.
- kome 6y agoWe are letting amazon going way too far. This is unacceptable. A global coalition of trade-unions is mobilizing against amazon, https://makeamazonpay.com/ https://makeamazonpay.com/ Also legislators should get more aware of companies undermining workers right. But I feel legislators to be part of the problem.
- moocowtruck 6y agounionizing amazon would be horrible, I've been working at usps for 15+ years and unions are the reason for most of our troubles. Please lets not turn a company who makes a good product and pays people well for it into the enemy
- iso1631 6y agoSo why don't you go and work for amazon?
- moocowtruck 6y agobecause i'm not in the union lol
- patwolfe 6y agoReally disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor for over a century doesn't mean it isn't still messed up now. It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury.
- pksebben 6y agoit's not just the way the world works. it's the way capitalism works. I don't think it's unfair for people to be fed up with watching these things happen while the root causes continue to be largely taken for granted.
- Angostura 6y agoIt's not even the way that capitalism works. It's the way that unproperly regulated capitalism works
- TheRealSteel 6y agoThe way that capitalism works is to prevent proper regulation.
- hnlmorg 6y agoNo, that's just the American model of capitalism. The rest of the world has a lot more balanced approach.
- dontbeevil1992 6y ago...so far. Other countries have some mechanisms - legal and cultural - in place that have resisted the creep of capitalist power concentration better than the U.S. has. But I'm pessimistic - I think globally we'll continue to see taxes cut, social safety nets dried up, and privatization of benefits, like has been happening in the UK. It just seems to be the tendency of capitalism. edit: I invite downvoters to let me know why they disagree, besides "capitalism good"
- kayson 6y agoI'm all for the Amazon hate train but this is pretty weak. The journalist first says Pinkerton was hired in Poland to investigate irregularities in their application process. Amazon says they only hire Pinkerton to "secure shipments". The "acquired document" says that Amazon tracks social media information about labor organization and strokes. It's all over the place, and even assuming all parties report the truth, no one actually says that Pinkerton is doing surveillance related to unions. Maybe NPR is missing something from the original article, which I couldn't find linked, but come on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rmrfrmrf 6y agoFrom the article: > We need to note that Amazon is an NPR funder. The original Motherboard article [0] is extensive. The NPR version is deliberately incoherent. [0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports...
- fennecfoxen 6y agoWho needs to be coherent or honest when you can thrill your listeners by smearing some company you both already hate? Things like honesty and integrity are wicked when they fail to serve the cause; this is a time for deliberate obfuscation! — npr, probably Geez, guys. There's so many good reasons to go after Amazon; you'd think one of them would be enough, but nooooo.
- rmrfrmrf 6y agoAmazon was recently polled to be the most trusted institution among US Democrats [0], which comprises the majority of NPR's listenership and donors. They know what they're doing. [0] http://aicpoll.com/ http://aicpoll.com/
- khalilravanna 6y agoSeems more helpful to link to the original article on Motherboard: https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports... Among other things the article differentiates between the internal Amazon org monitoring union-forming activities and the Pinkertons who were tasked with looking into warehouse workers for unrelated reasons which the NPR headline seems to conflate.
- dalbasal 6y agoIn itself, this may suggest something is really going on here. We're seemingly turning from ebb to flow in the union/anti-union pendulum. Meanwhile, amazon's employees are a genuinely vast group. Quantity is a quality, and amazon knows that scale can change how things work in hard to predict ways. It's possible that amazon is ahead of the game. Most of what I've heard/read from the pro-union side is fairly generic. Why unions are beneficial generally. I definitely hear more positive sentiments towards unions, but... I haven't heard much about goals, tactics, strategies, proposed unionisation structures. I haven't heard any ideas relating to novel 2020 realities: amazon's size, digital economics, amazon's record profits and market cap. I haven't heard anything approaching deliverables. Pay rises? Who? How much? Benefits? Amazon have $250k aws engineers, part time whole foods workers? How does this relate to unionisation strategy or goals. Even is the sentiment pendulum is swinging back to pro-union, a big role for unions still seems distant. It could take decades.
- JPKab 6y agoPinkerton has a long history of criminal activity. It's unbelievable that Bezos gets away with this with such minimal media attention. (Yeah, it's on NPR, but I highly doubt I'll see it on CNN, at the most, maybe Fox will say something because they view Bezos as a political enemy) My great grandfather was a miner in southern WV during the time period where Pinkerton agents intimidated and harassed the families of union members, and often assaulting them. Eventually it all culminated in this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain It should be noted that Blair Mountain was the only time in history where US warplanes (very primitive at the time) dropped bombs on US soil directed at US citizens.
- michaelyoshika 6y agoI honestly don't know why you got downvoted.
- JPKab 6y agoWho knows? There's people on here who will not like something you say in one thread, and downvote you on others. Hopefully not many. Perhaps my statement was viewed as off-topic? I was downvoted rather aggressively in another thread for calling Trump "his orangeness" which my Trump voter friends and family chuckle at, but apparently is in bad decorum on HN. In their defense, they are just desperately trying to keep it all from devolving into Reddit territory.
- TheRealSteel 6y agoInterfering with unionization needs to be illegal, and not met with fines that affect only the bottom line of a balance sheet, but jail time for everyone involved, with mandatory minimum sentencing. If this is true Bezos should be behind bars.
- pmiller2 6y agoHow many corporate execs have actually gone to prison for wrongdoings done in the name of the corporation? There's Ken Lay from Enron, one completely random banker from the financial crisis of 2008, and not a whole lot of others I can think of.
- dredmorbius 6y agoKenneth Lay died on holiday at a resort before he was sentenced. The conviction was vacated: Lay, who at age 64 succumbed to a massive heart attack at a rented Colorado vacation home, was found guilty by a federal jury in May along with former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling of conspiracy and fraud. The two were star defendants in the notorious business scandal, which vaporized more than 4,000 jobs and billions of dollars in stockholders’ investments. But when a defendant who pleaded not guilty dies before sentencing, as Lay did, in most cases the conviction is wiped out on the grounds that the defendant did not have the opportunity to appeal, legal experts said.... https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-06-fi-lay6-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-06-fi-lay6-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay
- VonGuard 6y agoAh, lovely of Amazon to employ the EXACT same people that Carnegie and Frick hired to beat and kill steel workers in 1892. How long before Amazon has the Pinkertons open fire on the unionizers? Great prescident, Amazon. No bad choices here. Just the honest, fair dealings of the richest man in the world hiring the same people who've been murdering strikers and unionizers since 1850. Stay classy Jeff!
- fennecfoxen 6y agoThe exact same people? I marvel at their longevity! 128+ years is quite an accomplishment!
- downrightmike 6y agoCorporations are people, legally.
- tjbiddle 6y agoAnd the people running those organizations change, biologically.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoCommon nonsense and entirely false. Corporations are treated like people for certain elements of the legal process (like the question of civil rights) because they are owned and operated by people, as a way for those people to do things together as a group (like exercising civil rights). This line is a strong indicator that you're with or have been influenced by the "I hate Citizens United" people, who never seem to bother to remember that Citizens United itself was incorporated as a nonprofit, making a movie about Hillary Clinton with (non-tax-deductible) donations, as an exercise in those peoples' first amendment rights — one which the FEC sought to stop. Anyway, Pinkerton's corporation has been replaced by a successor legal entity wholly owned by Securitas AB.
- Semaphor 6y ago
- InvOfSmallC 6y agoPinkertons were one of the enemies in RDR2!
- brian_herman 6y agoPinkerton the company or the idea of Pinkerton I’m confused.
- jt2190 6y agoThe original piece of reporting that this interview is discussing: “Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups” https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports... Edit: Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25189167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25189167
- mishftw 6y agoAm I the only one who thought of the video game Red Dead Redemption 2?
- one2know 6y agoIts funny they don't care at all about the Indian labor organization which control > 50% of tech jobs at Amazon and are funded by the Indian government and their lobbying organization NASSCOM. Probably because > 50% of tech managers there are Indian nationals. In fact they promote Indian labor union formation there, which Amazon calls Bof's. They are absolutely entranced, though, in attempts to extract one more penny from blue collar jobs such warehouse, trucking, and security guards which are predominately staffed by white, black, and latino Americans. Amazon's tech labor costs have to be in the tens of billions per year. They are paying SDE's, SDM's $200k-$1MM and but are surveilling $15 people who are stealing candybars.
- nabla9 6y ago>Amazon hired Pinkerton operatives in Europe to surveil workers. Europeans would be more familiar with the name Securitas as in three red dots security firm. Pinkerton is a subsidiary of Swedish company Securitas AB. Securitas has over 330,000 employees.
- xyst 6y agoSome people in this thread propose a boycott to Amazon by not buying their products. But this effort is mostly null and void since the warehouse division is largely subsidized by AWS which is funded by most of the Fortune 500. These boycotts might piss off an executive or VP within the warehouse division, but Amazon as a whole will continue to exist. Personally, I have stopped using all AWS/Amazon.com/Prime services but I am only a minnow in this vast sea.
- snvzz 6y agoAmazon is making good money. This annoys a lot of people, thus hit pieces are written. News at 11.
- jason0597 6y agoNo, people aren't annoyed at Amazon because they make a lot of money. That is a false and unsubstantiated assertion.
- _wldu 6y agoIn 1920 Appalachia, coal companies owned all the land, the homes and stores. They also paid workers with their own special money (that was useless everywhere else). The security companies they hired where armed and violent towards miners and their families. https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-dark-past/ https://explorepartsunknown.com/west-virginia/coal-minings-d... Today, people can tour these old towns and learn the history of how the coal companies trapped and abused workers. A lot of unions and labor rights groups came out of the abuses that occurred in Appalachia.
- djsumdog 6y agoThis is where the Tennessee Ernie Ford song comes from, "Sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't call me cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store." There was an episode of South Park last season where they played this song as a backdrop to Amazon workers in a warehouse.
- javajosh 6y agoThat is de facto slavery!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zmix 6y agoI would call it Capitalism without opposition from the Left.
- samdamsamma 6y agoThis is objectively the case. It’s exactly what happens every time the left is broadly defeated. And I literally mean every single time.
- drran 6y agoIt's Soviet Union in miniature.
- throwawaysea 6y agoWhy is this problematic? I find the idea of unions distasteful. Why should all employees be obligated to join a union? It would make more sense if it was voluntary and people collectively bargain as a subgroup whose size is smaller than all employees. But forcing a single union upon all employees is just creating a separate parallel management structure, one that often tends towards practices that ultimately deliver less for customers by legitimizing things like tenure-based rules. Having a single union also eliminates competition - I just don't see why that is a good thing. And what stops employees from just forming their own company to provide a service that is contracted out? The company can choose whether or not to use their services based on their offer.
- detaro 6y agoWhich of your legal rights should your employer be allowed to attempt to suppress if someone doesn't like you using them?
- arrosenberg 6y agoThat sounds good in theory, but essentially gives the company the ability to play groups off each other. The entire point of unionization is to be able to negotiate on level terms. This viewpoint also seems to assume that merit is the most important thing, and that unions should optimize for it. For a union, tenure is super important to maintain its strength. Corporations are held together with contracts and money, so they optimize for things that are legally safe and make more money than they cost. Unions are held together with only social fabric, so it makes sense to optimize for things that maintain continuity and cohesion.
- detaro 6y agoAnd AFAIK in the US specifically, a union can only force an employer to accept them if it gets the majority on board to represent all employees, which means unions representing only some employees, while possible, are heavily disadvantaged, so pushing for covering all employees of a group makes even more sense.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
- onetimemanytime 6y ago"Here's $15 an hour...take it or leave, no one is forcing you" blah blah. It doesn't work that way in modern states. If you cannot afford to feed, shelter and educate your kids, that will fall unto others (Govt) since we've come a long way since Sparta. Also, Amazon is closing stores left and right and turning maybe millions of small businesses into $15 an hour temporary jobs. The government has every right to get involved.
- johnjones4 6y agoHistory repeats itself. Check out the story of the Molly Maguires, a somewhat vigilante labor group in PA's coal region, who were infiltrated by an undercover Pinkerton in the late 1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Maguires#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Maguires#In_the_United_S... I'm from the region of PA where this all happened, and it's a well-known story among locals.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jtdev 6y agoJunk made in China by impoverished and forced labor + union busting and poor wages in fulfillment = Jeff Bezos and his executives becoming even fatter cats.
- xg15 6y agoIn this thread: Far too many people seeing human rights as a dangerous slippery slope.
- jbrun 6y agoWhat a surprise!
- balozi 6y agoIts safe to assume that as usual Amazon, Pinkerton, the unions and NPR/journalists are all being shady for their own self-serving reasons. Also, its appears they are all in bed with each other anyway. Some of them are trying to appear noble for extra credit.
- poidos 6y agoPretty disgusting and completely unsurprising. Most of us (sadly) can't avoid if our companies use AWS, but a significant fraction can absolutely do without the "convenience" of Amazon, shopping at Whole Foods, etc. I'm lucky enough to be able-bodied enough that I don't need package delivery, so I haven't used Amazon in a few years. I don't miss it, doubly so when articles like this come out.
- michaelyoshika 6y agoI'll try using other online retailers whenever I can until Amazon gets splitted.
- ketamine__ 6y agoIf it's any concession Bezos had his privacy violated by his girlfriend's brother and then made a fool of himself by blaming MBS.
- neom 6y agoHow does one get a job as a Pinkerton agent? Not that I'd want one, but I can't imagine the job posting/how they approach it. Security team?
- c0nducktr 6y agoHere's one job posting. It seems just like applying for any other job. https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listing/agent-pinkerton-JV_IC1134644_KO0,5_KE6,15.htm?jl=3460215793 https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listing/agent-pinkerton-JV_IC1...
- neom 6y agoBut at amazon they're blending them into the work force, is amazon contracting pinkerton or hiring their own? I guess it's just an undercover person on their security team?
- telaelit 6y agoUnion busting practices like this should be illegal.
- LatteLazy 6y agoI'm a brit, can someone give me an overview of the law on US unions? If one forms, are Amazon compelled to work with them like in European nations? If its still just At Will employment, I don't see how a union would make any difference there, Amazon can (will) just fire everyone who joins and replace them tomorrow right?
- hypersoar 6y agoInterfering with a union or the formation of a union are explicitly illegal. This includes firing someone for trying to organize, at-will employment or no. However, this doesn't keep employers from trying, or from retaliation using pretextual explanations to avoid penalties. It's also common for employers to force employees to watch anti-union propaganda. Much of the overall culture in the US, as well, has turned hostile to unions. State and federal law have been growing increasingly hostile to unions. Since 1910, if a union is formed by way of a majority vote of the employees, then they are required to represent all employees, whether or not they pay dues. Many states, including New York, California, and most "blue" states, allow "union shops", requiring all employees to pay dues whether or not they choose to join. But many, including most "red" states, have "Right to Work" laws banning union shops and allowing only "open shops". Any employee can therefore benefit from a union without contributing to it. The immediate free-rider problem cripples labor organization in those states. The problem is compounded by manufacturers moving their production to RtW states to save on labor costs. Boeing, for example, has moved much of its production from Washington, where its employees are unionized, to South Carolina, where they aren't. Membership has fallen from 20% in 1984 to 10% in 2018. Moreover, the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that unionized public sector jobs must all be open shops, overturning a 1977 decision. That covers about half of the country's membership, so we can expect it to weaken labor even more in the years to come. The overall result is that the power of organized labor is a pale shadow of what it was in the mid-20th century.
- LatteLazy 6y agoThanks. It doesn't seem like an Amazon union would actually have any teeth so long as amazon can either ignore them or fire/de-schedule workers that actually take any action (strike, work to rule, go-slow etc).
- vmchale 6y agoMan these people always end up on the wrong side of history.
- free2OSS 6y agoPrivate sector unions are fine as long as we let capitalism play out. No bailouts/taxes when GM/Ford/Chrysler can't afford to pay the bills. Public sector unions are a danger to society. A monopoly in monopoly will take down the whole country.
- basicsbeauty 6y agoThe employees should hire a detective agency to spy Jeff. Then he/they would understand.
- rogerdickey 6y agoOn some level this makes sense. Unions murder margins and productivity so you'd want to be circumspect.
- crb002 6y agoIf Bezos was really naughty he would fund unionizing at competitors like Walmart, Hy-Vee, Kroger, ...
- kthejoker2 6y agoAnother great film on union breaking is the 1976 documentary Harlan County USA https://youtu.be/FCOd7fPHmfU https://youtu.be/FCOd7fPHmfU
- ummonk 6y agoWait Pinkerton is still around? How have they not rebranded like Blackwater?