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Wow. Just...wow. Maybe the line with the worst rhetorical trick is this bullshit in the "joining a union" FAQ: "Q: Will a union provide better wages and benefi

Wow. Just...wow. Maybe the line with the worst rhetorical trick is this bullshit in the "joining a union" FAQ: "Q: Will a union provide better wages and benefits? A: A union cannot guarantee better wages and benefits. With union negotiations, you could end up with more, the same.... or less than what you make today." I love that because it works exactly as well when you just negate the question: "Q: Will NOT having a union provide better wages and benefits? A: Without a union, Amazon cannot guarantee better wages and benefits. Without union negotiations, you could end up with more, the same.... or less than what you make today."

conanbatt 6y ago
There is an asymmetry because the union collects a due even if the fail to do the wage negotiation.
chordalkeyboard 6y ago
Q: Will NOT having a union provide better wages and benefits? A: Yes, it could. Unions introduce parasitic loss and collective bargaining. Collective bargaining allows a large part of the workforce to negotiate as one unit and consequently higher performing workers are unable to negotiate a salary commensurate with their performance. In order to retain higher performing workers, corporations end up paying average performing workers more and high performers less under union conditions. The amount of benefit you receive from collective bargaining, and if you receive a benefit at all, are directly related to your productivity relative to the median worker.
- flower-giraffe 6y ago
  > higher performing workers Do you mean the ones that sit at their keyboards earning a multiple of the salaries of those who do the actual physical work necessary to serve customers. I often remind my colleagues that we are very lucky to have such easy and well paid jobs by asking the simple question, “how many bags of sand did you carry yesterday?”
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > Do you mean the ones that sit at their keyboards earning a multiple of the salaries of those who do the actual physical work necessary to serve customers. I mean “higher performing” according to the people who pay them. > I often remind my colleagues that we are very lucky to have such easy and well paid jobs by asking the simple question, “how many bags of sand did you carry yesterday?” I’ve been a welder/fabricator, machine operator, and forklift driver. Programming and web development isn’t easy although it isn’t physically arduous. Whats more relevant to our discussion is that a high performer is not as easily replaced. Physical work is honorable and demanding. Its also something a lot of people can do.
    - flower-giraffe 6y ago
      > Whats more relevant to our discussion is that a high performer is not as easily replaced. I agree that a high performing developer is hard to find, but so is a high performing manual worker. Conversely in my experience retaining a high performing developer at market rates is easier, because the job is more rewarding (that’s what I think makes the job easier to do). I think what you are talking about is scarcity driving the market salary rates for developers, not performance. Personally I think a union with members including the scarce developers and the abundant manual workers would be a good thing for all the employees. I expect 20 years from now there will be no scarcity of developers, and the vast majority of them will not be paid nearly as much as US manual workers - primarily because they will be working in poorer countries with labour laws that favour the employer.
      - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        > I agree that a high performing developer is hard to find, but so is a high performing manual worker. high performing manual workers negotiate superior wages unless they are restrained by a union > I think what you are talking about is scarcity driving the market salary rates for developers, not performance. So they are related but the key concept here is that a low performer is more easily replaced, and so does not have the negotiation power to negotiate a higher wage. So these workers benefit from a union. > Personally I think a union with members including the scarce developers and the abundant manual workers would be a good thing for all the employees. It would be a good thing for the replaceable workers and a bad thing for the less replaceable workers.
- upbeat_general 6y ago
  ...except for Amazon warehouses where to my knowledge almost everyone with the same role gets basically the same pay (without any unions). Minimum wage (or even amazons $15 minimum wage) jobs are very difficult to negotiate from a performance perspective given the nature of the job.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > almost everyone with the same role gets basically the same pay > without any unions Good, they don’t need one then? They do the same job at the same performance but they somehow want more money. Good, so does everyone else. > Minimum wage (or even amazons $15 minimum wage) jobs are very difficult to negotiate from a performance perspective given the nature of the job. Yeah, it sounds like the government already mandated that they get paid more than their labor is worth so I’m sure a union would just introduce more parasitic loss without adding anything.
- sgift 6y ago
  False assumption: "Higher performing workers" are good at bargaining.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > False assumption: "Higher performing workers" are good at bargaining. I didn’t assume anything of the sort. Consider bargaining skills to be normally distributed in society.
- pmontra 6y ago
  Different country and different rules but when I was an employee I always earned much more than the basic salary for the industry I was working in. And I always got salary increases, either because I performed well or because the company knew they had to keep up with the competition.
- imtringued 6y ago
  A union in Germany negotiates income in multiple income brackets. People on the same bracket get the same income. As an employee you just negotiate which bracket you are on. You can still get more income from better performance.
- door100 6y ago
  What is even wrong with the world you are describing? I would much rather live in a world of more flat compensation, where I don’t have to worry about negotiating a salary, where there are more rigid worker protections, etc. I don’t see myself as better or more deserving than my coworkers, I see us all as on the same team, with the same basic interests.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > I would much rather live in a world of more flat compensation, where I don’t have to worry about negotiating a salary, where there are more rigid worker protections, etc. Thats fine and all but I don’t share your preference and so I’d appreciate it if you’d understand that I’m free to negotiate and don’t attempt to take that from me. > I don’t see myself as better or more deserving than my coworkers, I do think its better to earn your own wage rather than an average of all wages. After all I contribute my own productivity, I don’t contribute some average negotiated productivity. > I see us all as on the same team, with the same basic interests. Do you share a bank account with them? Why not?
    - d1sxeyes 6y ago
      > I’d appreciate it if you’d understand that I’m free to negotiate and don’t attempt to take that from me No-one is trying to do that (at least, not at this stage, and any attempt to do so would be subject to at least a second vote). You are welcome to simply not join the union if you feel it doesn't represent your interests. > I do think its better to earn your own wage rather than an average of all wages. After all I contribute my own productivity, I don’t contribute some average negotiated productivity. Leaving aside the fact that is perfectly possible for a union to negotiate performance-based pay and/or bonuses, I would be interested to think what you think a fair productivity:pay ratio would be for a worker in an Amazon fulfillment centre. Currently, I understand employees are held to such high productivity targets as a matter of course that many of them are afraid to take bathroom breaks in case their productivity dips and they end up getting fired. This seems to be a valid fear - I couldn't find anything for Alabama, but in Baltimore, Amazon fire around 10% of their workforce annually for failing to meet performance targets. I wasn't able to find any documentation of bonuses or higher pay for higher performance, only the 15.30 USD starting wage, but if anyone has evidence that compensation is higher for high performers, I'd be happy to see that. > Do you share a bank account with them? Why not? This question doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why are you asking this?
d1sxeyes 6y ago
I also laughed at the following: 'Can a union guarantee [...] better wages?' 'No [...] only Amazon can make commitments about [...] your wages.' And then a paragraph later 'You may end up with more, the same, or less'. So, if Amazon are the only people who can make commitments, why would you negotiate for me to earn less... unless it's not really my interests you have at heart in the first place.

conanbatt 6y ago

There is an asymmetry because the union collects a due even if the fail to do the wage negotiation.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago

Q: Will NOT having a union provide better wages and benefits? A: Yes, it could. Unions introduce parasitic loss and collective bargaining. Collective bargaining allows a large part of the workforce to negotiate as one unit and consequently higher performing workers are unable to negotiate a salary commensurate with their performance. In order to retain higher performing workers, corporations end up paying average performing workers more and high performers less under union conditions. The amount of benefit you receive from collective bargaining, and if you receive a benefit at all, are directly related to your productivity relative to the median worker.

flower-giraffe 6y ago
> higher performing workers Do you mean the ones that sit at their keyboards earning a multiple of the salaries of those who do the actual physical work necessary to serve customers. I often remind my colleagues that we are very lucky to have such easy and well paid jobs by asking the simple question, “how many bags of sand did you carry yesterday?”
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > Do you mean the ones that sit at their keyboards earning a multiple of the salaries of those who do the actual physical work necessary to serve customers. I mean “higher performing” according to the people who pay them. > I often remind my colleagues that we are very lucky to have such easy and well paid jobs by asking the simple question, “how many bags of sand did you carry yesterday?” I’ve been a welder/fabricator, machine operator, and forklift driver. Programming and web development isn’t easy although it isn’t physically arduous. Whats more relevant to our discussion is that a high performer is not as easily replaced. Physical work is honorable and demanding. Its also something a lot of people can do.
  - flower-giraffe 6y ago
    > Whats more relevant to our discussion is that a high performer is not as easily replaced. I agree that a high performing developer is hard to find, but so is a high performing manual worker. Conversely in my experience retaining a high performing developer at market rates is easier, because the job is more rewarding (that’s what I think makes the job easier to do). I think what you are talking about is scarcity driving the market salary rates for developers, not performance. Personally I think a union with members including the scarce developers and the abundant manual workers would be a good thing for all the employees. I expect 20 years from now there will be no scarcity of developers, and the vast majority of them will not be paid nearly as much as US manual workers - primarily because they will be working in poorer countries with labour laws that favour the employer.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      > I agree that a high performing developer is hard to find, but so is a high performing manual worker. high performing manual workers negotiate superior wages unless they are restrained by a union > I think what you are talking about is scarcity driving the market salary rates for developers, not performance. So they are related but the key concept here is that a low performer is more easily replaced, and so does not have the negotiation power to negotiate a higher wage. So these workers benefit from a union. > Personally I think a union with members including the scarce developers and the abundant manual workers would be a good thing for all the employees. It would be a good thing for the replaceable workers and a bad thing for the less replaceable workers.
upbeat_general 6y ago
...except for Amazon warehouses where to my knowledge almost everyone with the same role gets basically the same pay (without any unions). Minimum wage (or even amazons $15 minimum wage) jobs are very difficult to negotiate from a performance perspective given the nature of the job.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > almost everyone with the same role gets basically the same pay > without any unions Good, they don’t need one then? They do the same job at the same performance but they somehow want more money. Good, so does everyone else. > Minimum wage (or even amazons $15 minimum wage) jobs are very difficult to negotiate from a performance perspective given the nature of the job. Yeah, it sounds like the government already mandated that they get paid more than their labor is worth so I’m sure a union would just introduce more parasitic loss without adding anything.
sgift 6y ago
False assumption: "Higher performing workers" are good at bargaining.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > False assumption: "Higher performing workers" are good at bargaining. I didn’t assume anything of the sort. Consider bargaining skills to be normally distributed in society.
pmontra 6y ago
Different country and different rules but when I was an employee I always earned much more than the basic salary for the industry I was working in. And I always got salary increases, either because I performed well or because the company knew they had to keep up with the competition.
imtringued 6y ago
A union in Germany negotiates income in multiple income brackets. People on the same bracket get the same income. As an employee you just negotiate which bracket you are on. You can still get more income from better performance.
door100 6y ago
What is even wrong with the world you are describing? I would much rather live in a world of more flat compensation, where I don’t have to worry about negotiating a salary, where there are more rigid worker protections, etc. I don’t see myself as better or more deserving than my coworkers, I see us all as on the same team, with the same basic interests.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > I would much rather live in a world of more flat compensation, where I don’t have to worry about negotiating a salary, where there are more rigid worker protections, etc. Thats fine and all but I don’t share your preference and so I’d appreciate it if you’d understand that I’m free to negotiate and don’t attempt to take that from me. > I don’t see myself as better or more deserving than my coworkers, I do think its better to earn your own wage rather than an average of all wages. After all I contribute my own productivity, I don’t contribute some average negotiated productivity. > I see us all as on the same team, with the same basic interests. Do you share a bank account with them? Why not?
  - d1sxeyes 6y ago
    > I’d appreciate it if you’d understand that I’m free to negotiate and don’t attempt to take that from me No-one is trying to do that (at least, not at this stage, and any attempt to do so would be subject to at least a second vote). You are welcome to simply not join the union if you feel it doesn't represent your interests. > I do think its better to earn your own wage rather than an average of all wages. After all I contribute my own productivity, I don’t contribute some average negotiated productivity. Leaving aside the fact that is perfectly possible for a union to negotiate performance-based pay and/or bonuses, I would be interested to think what you think a fair productivity:pay ratio would be for a worker in an Amazon fulfillment centre. Currently, I understand employees are held to such high productivity targets as a matter of course that many of them are afraid to take bathroom breaks in case their productivity dips and they end up getting fired. This seems to be a valid fear - I couldn't find anything for Alabama, but in Baltimore, Amazon fire around 10% of their workforce annually for failing to meet performance targets. I wasn't able to find any documentation of bonuses or higher pay for higher performance, only the 15.30 USD starting wage, but if anyone has evidence that compensation is higher for high performers, I'd be happy to see that. > Do you share a bank account with them? Why not? This question doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why are you asking this?

d1sxeyes 6y ago

I also laughed at the following: 'Can a union guarantee [...] better wages?' 'No [...] only Amazon can make commitments about [...] your wages.' And then a paragraph later 'You may end up with more, the same, or less'. So, if Amazon are the only people who can make commitments, why would you negotiate for me to earn less... unless it's not really my interests you have at heart in the first place.