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Really disappointing to see the "Well, what did you expect?" comments already. Just because companies have been trying to prevent organization of their labor fo

Really 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 ago
it'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 ago
  It's not even the way that capitalism works. It's the way that unproperly regulated capitalism works
  - TheRealSteel 6y ago
    The way that capitalism works is to prevent proper regulation.
    - hnlmorg 6y ago
      No, 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"
        JackFr 6y ago
        "Because capitalism" is always a terrible argument, whatever your position. It's a very nebulous term. Does it mean free markets? Does it mean private ownership of the factors of production? Does it mean laissez-faire? Does it mean economic organization of a professional manager class, with management separated from ownership, and ownership characterized by tradeable claims on assets?
        dontbeevil1992 6y ago
        It has a specific definition that you can find by googling: "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." Don't assume that others are naive, imprecise, or uninformed about what capitalism is and how it affects the world, just because your own understanding of it is limited.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
        JackFr 6y ago
        Googling. Got it. Wow, what a time saver I wish I had known about that earlier.
        dontbeevil1992 6y ago
        My point is not that googling it will reveal everything about it, but nice bad faith. My point is it has a dictionary definition and there are plenty of people who understand what it is. It is not a nebulous concept just because you aren't informed about it. If you want to get started learning about it, I recommend looking up Richard Wolff
        JackFr 6y ago
        I must not have been clear, because you seem to have missed my point. I don't believe that capitalism is a nebulous concept because I am not informed about it. I believe it is a nebulous concept because I have actually witnessed people in arguments using it to mean different things. Some people consider capitalism as simply a rhetorical foil to Marxism. Some people consider capitalism an economy that while capital is private, the economy may be mercantilist. Others insist that free trade is part and parcel of capitalism. Etc., etc. That's all I meant. And there's a (not small) difference between bad faith and sarcasm. And tossing around Dunning-Krueger after one extremely shallow interaction is the height of irony.
      - hnlmorg 6y ago
        The interesting thing about moderation of this comment (and please note this isn't a complaint about the moderation) is that it was up-voted heavily when during Western European office hours then down-voted heavily during SV office hours, which is a correlation to the different cultural opinions I've also observed between SV and Europe when it comes to discussions regarding capitalism.
- patwolfe 6y ago
  Agree that the root cause here is not Amazon, it's a system (unregulated capitalism) that incentives this behavior. I think it's still fair to criticize actors in such a system, especially if such criticism is done with the context that these companies and their bad actions are the product of that system and that it would be positive for most of the workforce for that system to be better regulated.
  - QuesnayJr 6y ago
    Unregulated? American unions are tightly regulated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
hpoe 6y ago
Can I just point out that I think the "horrible working conditions" things is a little played up. You want to know terrible working conditions dancing with a sign for 5 hours a day in the sun when it's 90+. I did that for 3 years and was happy to do the job, mind you this was only 10 years ago so it isn't forever. I made 7.50 an hour. I would've killed to get a job at amazon back then. People are getting payed $16 that is incredible for an unskilled labor position.
- badRNG 6y ago
  "You are unreasonable for calling out a bad thing, since I can conceive of an even worse thing."
  - hpoe 6y ago
    My point is that if we are interested in helping people in geniuly terrible working conditions there are plenty of people who have it far worse than those at Amazon and those should be the focus of these efforts and outrage rather than people making $16 an hour in moderately decent conditions.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      How about we let those Amazon workers help themselves and form a union?
    - badRNG 6y ago
      People can care about multiple issues at the same time. This discussion isn't explicitly about the working conditions of Amazon, it is about the highly unethical methods they use to crush dissent and workers organizing, namely the leaked documents that detail actions including the spying on workers suspected of organizing even outside of work by the Pinkertons. This isn't the 19th century, this deeply upsetting and unconscionable behavior should not be tolerated in the 21st century.
  - cle 6y ago
    It’s not unrelated, when talking about pay and working conditions it’s all relative to the rest of the economy and sits in that context, pointing out other parts of that context is perfectly relevant (though it obviously can’t paint a complete picture). We should of course be mindful of whataboutism when discussing these things but I think it’s a good idea to consider the economic and social context when talking about these issues, they don’t exist in a vacuum.
ekianjo 6y ago
> the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury. Who is forced to work in Amazon's warehouses? Is Amazon rounding up people with guns everyday to make them work there?
- berelig 6y ago
  You live in a small town with small businesses that are undercut by Amazon's price and scale. Those businesses slowly die out as everyone in your region switches to ordering online (primarily from Amazon). Amazon opens a warehouse in the region to meet the demand and is now the largest employer around. This exact transformation already happened with Wal-Mart in the 80s and 90s. Obviously no one is literally forcing workers to go to Amazon's warehouses but you can see how in essence this leaves them with no choice (i.e. forced).
  - dcgudeman 6y ago
    Do you have any evidence that Amazon has decreased overall employment? To me it is totally plausible that with the convenience of online shopping they have increased the overall “retail pie” and have not taken away from local businesses. So I would prefer when you make claims about how small business are dying out because of Amazon you provide evidence
    - berelig 6y ago
      I should have prefixed that this is drawing heavily on what I remember reading about Walmart and their effect on rural/suburban economies when they expanded. In that sense it is conjecture on my part as I'm not drawing on any studies about Amazon in particular. I only wanted to show how large corporations that compete directly with small retail employers can get an unfair advantage against their labour force. Your theory could obviously be valid as well.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    My life was transformed with the growth of WalMart and Amazon. The quality, variety, convenience and price of goods available to me all improved. The Mom and Pop who had been financing their lifestyle on the backs of the rural poor were forced out of business. I feel a little bad for them, but it seems wrong to elevate them over the rest of the population.
iratewizard 6y ago
>people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions It really sucks that we decided to bring back indentured servitude. Good thing those unions are there to help the worker and not just some parasitic middleman who sees an opportunity.
selykg 6y ago
Speaking with my wallet. I no longer use Amazon. Though my employer users AWS. I don't have any swing over that sadly. But for my own money, no more Amazon.
- satisfaction 6y ago
  I have stopped ordering from amazon.com but do still use AWS. I should probably evaluate other cloud providers, when I made the decision to use AWS about 5 years ago there were no other providers that offered all the functionality I wanted. It was also easy enough to throw a rock and hit a certified aws consultant.
  - TremendousJudge 6y ago
    At this point the cloud provider that is the least shitty as a company is probably... Microsoft? Damn what has the world come to
    - rvense 6y ago
      My company is on DigitalOcean, but we're not exactly web scale yet, so I can't vouch for them on that level. Their support is nice and responsive, though, and their management interface is very nice. They don't do everything AWS do, e.g., they only just added an S3-compatible object store and I've yet to come across anything like secrets management or IAM for their virtual machines.
      - satisfaction 6y ago
        Our prototype was on DigitalOcean but we started collecting issues and feature requests that were solved more easily by AWS. Including IAM, we were an early adopter of S3, it's a great product. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm going to open an issue to evaluate the other cloud providers. But honestly, the team is going to hate me, they have all spent a lot of time learning AWS.
        6y ago
dalbasal 6y ago
For those who identify strongly with unions, union-busting stuff like this is triggering... like "bringing up the war" in a war traumatised nation. I get that. But... 2020 isn't 1920 or even 1980. Fresh eyes might see more clearly. To the advantage of union organisers, mass communication and organisation is a lot easier today. Surveillance is easier too. IDK. Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just let it happen without a fight. Same as always. That said, if people want to hear what an amazon union organiser has to say... it's almost impossible to stop it. I don't think the central factor here is Pinkertons. Union organising is the actual determinant. If they can get enough amazon employees interested, they'll probably succeed regardless.
- formercoder 6y ago
  Tough ask for an average warehouse employee to practice enough opsec to hide the talks from Amazon.
  - badRNG 6y ago
    Harder still, if they retain Pinkerton agents to spy on you even after you clock out [1] [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...
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  > Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just let it happen without a fight. Same as always. Which is, if I recalled correctly, illegal.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    Maybe in spirit. In reality, bezos and any future amazon union are opposed to one another. That's a pretty firmly embedded truism in union thinking too. No point getting outraged over the trite. Also, this is not even amazon getting serious yet. Imagine what happens when/if amazon union organisers ever make a credible effort.
dnissley 6y ago
Where do we draw the line? What tactics are ok for a company to use to combat unions if it doesn't want them? Or should companies just accept and work with any union that forms?
- neaden 6y ago
  Don't force your workers to work in dangerous conditions with low pay and no voice in their work place, and maybe they wouldn't want to form a union.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    What if I don't do any of those things? What if I run the most worker-centric paradise, with employee empowerment, great wages, benefits and conditions? And what if the national organization of an umbrella labor organization considers my non-union workforce as a threat to both their budget and their political power? And what if they provide materials and advisors promoting unionization, despite the fact that they are acting in the interest of the union organization itself, and not the workers they hope to represent?
    - neaden 6y ago
      Sure, that could happen. Are you trying to argue that an employer should have a 100% right to have a union-free workplace?
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      If you are such a wonderful, caring employer what difference would it make if your employees were unionised? I think that part of the problem here is that the history of unions and union busting in the US appears to be one of corruption on both sides; but this is not a necessary or inevitable feature of unionisation.
    - hollandheese 6y ago
      If you “ran” the most worker-centric paradise, you’d be the elected CEO of a co-op where the workers had democratic control of the means of production. In such a place, there’d of course be no need for a union because the workers would have the say in what happens already. Now your strawman benevolent dictatorship could never exist since you would still be denying workers control over their workplace. Thus they may form a union to fight for that control.
dcgudeman 6y ago
I have not seen any convincing evidence that Amazon’s warehouses have “terrible working conditions”, do you have a source that might change my opinion?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- door99 6y ago
  https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed-rising-injury-rates-at-its-warehouses.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed...
- samizdis 6y ago
  The Center for Investigative Reporting has, through its online publication Reveal, covered Amazon for quite some time - especially with respect to injuries. See: https://revealnews.org/?s=amazon https://revealnews.org/?s=amazon A search for "Amazon working conditions injuries" on DDG or Google will return many of those, but also follow-ups by many media houses considered to be reasoned/reliable, rather than rabid and ranting. Anecdotal, perhaps, but these anecdotes are there in significant numbers.
JackFr 6y ago
> the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses Who is being forced?
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  People that cannot find a better alternative in their current personal situation. Sure they are not "forced" in a precise linguistic sense. But when it's this or nothing there is really just an illusion of choice.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    Why is it Amazon’s problem that they have no alternative? If Amazon went away, would their situation be better or worse? I believe that as a society we must ensure that people have enough money to live, but why should the employers on the bottom of the skills spectrum be forced to bear the brunt of it? Every employer should be required by law to provide a safe workplace free of discrimination and harassment. But hiring unskilled workers at a market wage doesn’t make you a bad actor.
    - dkersten 6y ago
      Because Amazon are use their disproportionate position of power to abuse these employees. It is far from an even playing field. This very article we're commenting on shows that Amazon are trying hard to keep it from becoming fair and equal. I find your lack of compassion for underprivileged employees astounding. > Every employer should be required by law to provide a safe workplace free of discrimination and harassment. And who is going to sue when they are underpaid and have no other job options available? Litigation is time consuming and expensive and rent won't wait.
    - Voloskaya 6y ago
      Your question was literally "who is being forced?" I responded to that and nothing more. > But hiring unskilled workers at a market wage doesn’t make you a bad actor. No, but artificially preventing the market conditions (wage + others) from raising by blocking people's basic right of association will make you a bad actor.
glaugh 6y ago
“What did you expect?” is my least favorite conversational trope (it’s more disappointing on HN because in general I have higher expectations here, but it’s common everywhere). On the surface it sounds smart and world-weary. As an actual part of a conversation, whether something is expected is pretty orthogonal to whether, say, something would ideally be done about it. I suppose it is relevant to whether something makes good content, but hopefully most of us aren’t here primarily to comment on our judgment of content marketability I think the most common place I see it is with surveillance conversations Though I should note that I’m not seeing those comments towards the top anymore, so that’s good
- grayhatter 6y ago
  I love the common tropes, you only have to learn a single response that allows you to control the narrative. > What did you expect? Well, geez, I don't know basic human decency probably? Are we all so numb to asshattery that we're not surprised or upset when we learn about someone using power to hurt or control the little guy?
  - purplecats 6y ago
    > Well, geez, I don't know basic human decency probably? Oh sweetheart, if you expect that under a capitalist system... or really any system run by human nature.
    - ewmiller 6y ago
      > Oh sweetheart This should also be on the list of annoying conversational tropes.
      - purplecats 6y ago
        Agreed
- ardy42 6y ago
  > “What did you expect?” is my least favorite conversational trope (it’s more disappointing on HN because in general I have higher expectations here, but it’s common everywhere). > On the surface it sounds smart and world-weary. As an actual part of a conversation, whether something is expected is pretty orthogonal to whether, say, something would ideally be done about it. Yeah, it's pretty much just a lazy dismissal of the issue, and maybe even an attempt to jam up the discussion.
geodel 6y ago
> It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, Its equally easy to be disappointed and show some virtual outrage via social media. To me if office workers are not putting their money where their mouth then it is not of much consequence whether they are disappointed or world weary.

pksebben 6y ago

it'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 ago
It's not even the way that capitalism works. It's the way that unproperly regulated capitalism works
- TheRealSteel 6y ago
  The way that capitalism works is to prevent proper regulation.
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    No, 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"
      - JackFr 6y ago
        "Because capitalism" is always a terrible argument, whatever your position. It's a very nebulous term. Does it mean free markets? Does it mean private ownership of the factors of production? Does it mean laissez-faire? Does it mean economic organization of a professional manager class, with management separated from ownership, and ownership characterized by tradeable claims on assets?
        dontbeevil1992 6y ago
        It has a specific definition that you can find by googling: "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." Don't assume that others are naive, imprecise, or uninformed about what capitalism is and how it affects the world, just because your own understanding of it is limited.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
        JackFr 6y ago
        Googling. Got it. Wow, what a time saver I wish I had known about that earlier.
        dontbeevil1992 6y ago
        My point is not that googling it will reveal everything about it, but nice bad faith. My point is it has a dictionary definition and there are plenty of people who understand what it is. It is not a nebulous concept just because you aren't informed about it. If you want to get started learning about it, I recommend looking up Richard Wolff
        JackFr 6y ago
        I must not have been clear, because you seem to have missed my point. I don't believe that capitalism is a nebulous concept because I am not informed about it. I believe it is a nebulous concept because I have actually witnessed people in arguments using it to mean different things. Some people consider capitalism as simply a rhetorical foil to Marxism. Some people consider capitalism an economy that while capital is private, the economy may be mercantilist. Others insist that free trade is part and parcel of capitalism. Etc., etc. That's all I meant. And there's a (not small) difference between bad faith and sarcasm. And tossing around Dunning-Krueger after one extremely shallow interaction is the height of irony.
    - hnlmorg 6y ago
      The interesting thing about moderation of this comment (and please note this isn't a complaint about the moderation) is that it was up-voted heavily when during Western European office hours then down-voted heavily during SV office hours, which is a correlation to the different cultural opinions I've also observed between SV and Europe when it comes to discussions regarding capitalism.
patwolfe 6y ago
Agree that the root cause here is not Amazon, it's a system (unregulated capitalism) that incentives this behavior. I think it's still fair to criticize actors in such a system, especially if such criticism is done with the context that these companies and their bad actions are the product of that system and that it would be positive for most of the workforce for that system to be better regulated.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  Unregulated? American unions are tightly regulated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

hpoe 6y ago

Can I just point out that I think the "horrible working conditions" things is a little played up. You want to know terrible working conditions dancing with a sign for 5 hours a day in the sun when it's 90+. I did that for 3 years and was happy to do the job, mind you this was only 10 years ago so it isn't forever. I made 7.50 an hour. I would've killed to get a job at amazon back then. People are getting payed $16 that is incredible for an unskilled labor position.

badRNG 6y ago
"You are unreasonable for calling out a bad thing, since I can conceive of an even worse thing."
- hpoe 6y ago
  My point is that if we are interested in helping people in geniuly terrible working conditions there are plenty of people who have it far worse than those at Amazon and those should be the focus of these efforts and outrage rather than people making $16 an hour in moderately decent conditions.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    How about we let those Amazon workers help themselves and form a union?
  - badRNG 6y ago
    People can care about multiple issues at the same time. This discussion isn't explicitly about the working conditions of Amazon, it is about the highly unethical methods they use to crush dissent and workers organizing, namely the leaked documents that detail actions including the spying on workers suspected of organizing even outside of work by the Pinkertons. This isn't the 19th century, this deeply upsetting and unconscionable behavior should not be tolerated in the 21st century.
- cle 6y ago
  It’s not unrelated, when talking about pay and working conditions it’s all relative to the rest of the economy and sits in that context, pointing out other parts of that context is perfectly relevant (though it obviously can’t paint a complete picture). We should of course be mindful of whataboutism when discussing these things but I think it’s a good idea to consider the economic and social context when talking about these issues, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

ekianjo 6y ago

> the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions don't have that luxury. Who is forced to work in Amazon's warehouses? Is Amazon rounding up people with guns everyday to make them work there?

berelig 6y ago
You live in a small town with small businesses that are undercut by Amazon's price and scale. Those businesses slowly die out as everyone in your region switches to ordering online (primarily from Amazon). Amazon opens a warehouse in the region to meet the demand and is now the largest employer around. This exact transformation already happened with Wal-Mart in the 80s and 90s. Obviously no one is literally forcing workers to go to Amazon's warehouses but you can see how in essence this leaves them with no choice (i.e. forced).
- dcgudeman 6y ago
  Do you have any evidence that Amazon has decreased overall employment? To me it is totally plausible that with the convenience of online shopping they have increased the overall “retail pie” and have not taken away from local businesses. So I would prefer when you make claims about how small business are dying out because of Amazon you provide evidence
  - berelig 6y ago
    I should have prefixed that this is drawing heavily on what I remember reading about Walmart and their effect on rural/suburban economies when they expanded. In that sense it is conjecture on my part as I'm not drawing on any studies about Amazon in particular. I only wanted to show how large corporations that compete directly with small retail employers can get an unfair advantage against their labour force. Your theory could obviously be valid as well.
- JackFr 6y ago
  My life was transformed with the growth of WalMart and Amazon. The quality, variety, convenience and price of goods available to me all improved. The Mom and Pop who had been financing their lifestyle on the backs of the rural poor were forced out of business. I feel a little bad for them, but it seems wrong to elevate them over the rest of the population.

iratewizard 6y ago

>people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses with terrible working conditions It really sucks that we decided to bring back indentured servitude. Good thing those unions are there to help the worker and not just some parasitic middleman who sees an opportunity.

selykg 6y ago

Speaking with my wallet. I no longer use Amazon. Though my employer users AWS. I don't have any swing over that sadly. But for my own money, no more Amazon.

satisfaction 6y ago
I have stopped ordering from amazon.com but do still use AWS. I should probably evaluate other cloud providers, when I made the decision to use AWS about 5 years ago there were no other providers that offered all the functionality I wanted. It was also easy enough to throw a rock and hit a certified aws consultant.
- TremendousJudge 6y ago
  At this point the cloud provider that is the least shitty as a company is probably... Microsoft? Damn what has the world come to
  - rvense 6y ago
    My company is on DigitalOcean, but we're not exactly web scale yet, so I can't vouch for them on that level. Their support is nice and responsive, though, and their management interface is very nice. They don't do everything AWS do, e.g., they only just added an S3-compatible object store and I've yet to come across anything like secrets management or IAM for their virtual machines.
    - satisfaction 6y ago
      Our prototype was on DigitalOcean but we started collecting issues and feature requests that were solved more easily by AWS. Including IAM, we were an early adopter of S3, it's a great product. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm going to open an issue to evaluate the other cloud providers. But honestly, the team is going to hate me, they have all spent a lot of time learning AWS.
      - 6y ago

dalbasal 6y ago

For those who identify strongly with unions, union-busting stuff like this is triggering... like "bringing up the war" in a war traumatised nation. I get that. But... 2020 isn't 1920 or even 1980. Fresh eyes might see more clearly. To the advantage of union organisers, mass communication and organisation is a lot easier today. Surveillance is easier too. IDK. Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just let it happen without a fight. Same as always. That said, if people want to hear what an amazon union organiser has to say... it's almost impossible to stop it. I don't think the central factor here is Pinkertons. Union organising is the actual determinant. If they can get enough amazon employees interested, they'll probably succeed regardless.

formercoder 6y ago
Tough ask for an average warehouse employee to practice enough opsec to hide the talks from Amazon.
- badRNG 6y ago
  Harder still, if they retain Pinkerton agents to spy on you even after you clock out [1] [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...
kayodelycaon 6y ago
> Yes, Bezos does not want an amazon union and won't just let it happen without a fight. Same as always. Which is, if I recalled correctly, illegal.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Maybe in spirit. In reality, bezos and any future amazon union are opposed to one another. That's a pretty firmly embedded truism in union thinking too. No point getting outraged over the trite. Also, this is not even amazon getting serious yet. Imagine what happens when/if amazon union organisers ever make a credible effort.

dnissley 6y ago

Where do we draw the line? What tactics are ok for a company to use to combat unions if it doesn't want them? Or should companies just accept and work with any union that forms?

neaden 6y ago
Don't force your workers to work in dangerous conditions with low pay and no voice in their work place, and maybe they wouldn't want to form a union.
- JackFr 6y ago
  What if I don't do any of those things? What if I run the most worker-centric paradise, with employee empowerment, great wages, benefits and conditions? And what if the national organization of an umbrella labor organization considers my non-union workforce as a threat to both their budget and their political power? And what if they provide materials and advisors promoting unionization, despite the fact that they are acting in the interest of the union organization itself, and not the workers they hope to represent?
  - neaden 6y ago
    Sure, that could happen. Are you trying to argue that an employer should have a 100% right to have a union-free workplace?
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    If you are such a wonderful, caring employer what difference would it make if your employees were unionised? I think that part of the problem here is that the history of unions and union busting in the US appears to be one of corruption on both sides; but this is not a necessary or inevitable feature of unionisation.
  - hollandheese 6y ago
    If you “ran” the most worker-centric paradise, you’d be the elected CEO of a co-op where the workers had democratic control of the means of production. In such a place, there’d of course be no need for a union because the workers would have the say in what happens already. Now your strawman benevolent dictatorship could never exist since you would still be denying workers control over their workplace. Thus they may form a union to fight for that control.

dcgudeman 6y ago

I have not seen any convincing evidence that Amazon’s warehouses have “terrible working conditions”, do you have a source that might change my opinion?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
door99 6y ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed-rising-injury-rates-at-its-warehouses.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed...
samizdis 6y ago
The Center for Investigative Reporting has, through its online publication Reveal, covered Amazon for quite some time - especially with respect to injuries. See: https://revealnews.org/?s=amazon https://revealnews.org/?s=amazon A search for "Amazon working conditions injuries" on DDG or Google will return many of those, but also follow-ups by many media houses considered to be reasoned/reliable, rather than rabid and ranting. Anecdotal, perhaps, but these anecdotes are there in significant numbers.

JackFr 6y ago

> the people who are forced to work in Amazon's warehouses Who is being forced?

Voloskaya 6y ago
People that cannot find a better alternative in their current personal situation. Sure they are not "forced" in a precise linguistic sense. But when it's this or nothing there is really just an illusion of choice.
- JackFr 6y ago
  Why is it Amazon’s problem that they have no alternative? If Amazon went away, would their situation be better or worse? I believe that as a society we must ensure that people have enough money to live, but why should the employers on the bottom of the skills spectrum be forced to bear the brunt of it? Every employer should be required by law to provide a safe workplace free of discrimination and harassment. But hiring unskilled workers at a market wage doesn’t make you a bad actor.
  - dkersten 6y ago
    Because Amazon are use their disproportionate position of power to abuse these employees. It is far from an even playing field. This very article we're commenting on shows that Amazon are trying hard to keep it from becoming fair and equal. I find your lack of compassion for underprivileged employees astounding. > Every employer should be required by law to provide a safe workplace free of discrimination and harassment. And who is going to sue when they are underpaid and have no other job options available? Litigation is time consuming and expensive and rent won't wait.
  - Voloskaya 6y ago
    Your question was literally "who is being forced?" I responded to that and nothing more. > But hiring unskilled workers at a market wage doesn’t make you a bad actor. No, but artificially preventing the market conditions (wage + others) from raising by blocking people's basic right of association will make you a bad actor.

glaugh 6y ago

“What did you expect?” is my least favorite conversational trope (it’s more disappointing on HN because in general I have higher expectations here, but it’s common everywhere). On the surface it sounds smart and world-weary. As an actual part of a conversation, whether something is expected is pretty orthogonal to whether, say, something would ideally be done about it. I suppose it is relevant to whether something makes good content, but hopefully most of us aren’t here primarily to comment on our judgment of content marketability I think the most common place I see it is with surveillance conversations Though I should note that I’m not seeing those comments towards the top anymore, so that’s good

grayhatter 6y ago
I love the common tropes, you only have to learn a single response that allows you to control the narrative. > What did you expect? Well, geez, I don't know basic human decency probably? Are we all so numb to asshattery that we're not surprised or upset when we learn about someone using power to hurt or control the little guy?
- purplecats 6y ago
  > Well, geez, I don't know basic human decency probably? Oh sweetheart, if you expect that under a capitalist system... or really any system run by human nature.
  - ewmiller 6y ago
    > Oh sweetheart This should also be on the list of annoying conversational tropes.
    - purplecats 6y ago
      Agreed
ardy42 6y ago
> “What did you expect?” is my least favorite conversational trope (it’s more disappointing on HN because in general I have higher expectations here, but it’s common everywhere). > On the surface it sounds smart and world-weary. As an actual part of a conversation, whether something is expected is pretty orthogonal to whether, say, something would ideally be done about it. Yeah, it's pretty much just a lazy dismissal of the issue, and maybe even an attempt to jam up the discussion.

geodel 6y ago

> It's easy to say that it's just the way the world works from your desk, Its equally easy to be disappointed and show some virtual outrage via social media. To me if office workers are not putting their money where their mouth then it is not of much consequence whether they are disappointed or world weary.