6 ms·

Maybe someone should start a second union without dues? That would leave Amazon with no way to argue.

by dheera 6y ago

sokoloff 6y ago
But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? (Not to mention that unions also have some unavoidable expenses, even if you didn't have a bunch of highly-paid union leader mouths to feed.) Amazon would still find a way to argue. "If you're not a lowest performer, don't let a union negotiate for you and force your wages down to the lowest performing among you." or many other phrases that would appeal to those who think they're above the bottom already and plant fear that bargaining with the collective would lower their outcomes.
- dheera 6y ago
  > But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? An ego boost? I mean this seriously -- people love being moderators of Subreddits and admins of online communities largely deep down for the ego boost. A union really needs not much more than a Discord server and maybe a Zoom membership to organize strikes and whatever else they need to do.
  - flyt 6y ago
    Unions need more than a Discord to organize. They may need to compensate union leadership for time taken to organize away from their work duties, pay for events, pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure, and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers. No union will have much luck performing collective bargaining against Amazon without working alongside experienced lawyers. These costs don't have to be huge, but they aren't zero.
    - dheera 6y ago
      > pay for events What events? If it's to discuss a certain issue, that can be virtual and almost free. If it's a social event, meh, there are enough of those already and people can self-organize them. Hell for $500/month I could organize social events where everyone goes to Michelin 3-star restaurants every month and rants over gourmet dinners about their bosses. > pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure Use e-mail. I don't even check my snail mail box anyway unless someone tells me to expect something by e-mail, and even then when my snail mail box gets too full I usually just dump it all in the recycle bin, so it's not an effective way for a union to communicate with me. > and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers. What if they just split the lawyer fees evenly? Assuming an experienced lawyer charges $1000/hr and spends 100 hours on a case, and there are 1 million people in the union, that amounts to about $0.10/person/case, a far cry from the $500/month they seem to be charging. Even if my numbers are off by a factor of 100 it would be only $10/person/case, and if the union won the case Amazon would probably have to pay the legal fees anyway. Although this may sound a bit naive I feel like $500/person/month sounds like there is some massive inefficiency in use of resources.
      - cool_dude85 6y ago
        >If it's just a town hall to discuss a certain issue, that can be virtual. Virtual isn't the same as free. >Although this may sound a bit naive I feel like $500/person/month sounds like there is some massive inefficiency in use of resources. Nobody knows what the union dues will be if the union wins, but they will not be 500 per month. It might be a fair guess that they're 500 per year. About 20 per check if you get paid biweekly. The dues will be decided on by union members through some kind of democratic process.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Union dues are very typically 1 to 1.5% of pay.
      - estaseuropano 6y ago
        Alright, split the fees! Now you need someone to count the days paid out, calculate how much each member has to pay, send payment requests, follow up, manage the account, ... A professional Union needs funds to do its work. Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues. If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking. The imaginary alternative would be to have somebody do this for free in their evenings and on their weekends. Have you ever tried to manage even a class representative and budget for your kids' school or a little league or any other kind of long-term engagement? Already at that small scale things tend to break down quote easily and few stay involved more than a few years. How can you expect volunteer union reps to work 8h+/day, spend their nights writing legal briefs, researching, organising events, managing members and expenses, etc while being up against an army of professional lawyers? Unions brought the five day work week, end to child labour, 40/38 hour weeks, the right to breaks, vacations, medical leave, ... If you don't have those right now then that's likely because you are in a non-union workplace (and/or country).
        sokoloff 6y ago
        > A professional Union needs funds to do its work. Absolutely true. > Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues. That strikes me as an opinion that could use some supporting facts. It might be the case, but union fees are the same order of magnitude as many workers' savings rate. If the prospective member saved those fees over a lifetime, would they be better off? > If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking. That means that union members are buying insurance against there being a strike declared. Would they be better off to pay smaller dues and bear the risk themselves? If all possible strikes are union-wide, it seems like this insurance can only be a losing gamble for members, all the while creating a fat piggybank for union leaders to raid/drain.
    - ByteJockey 6y ago
      You also need a well funded strike fund so your threat of a strike looks more realistic on paper.
- sodality2 6y ago
  >But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? Altruism maybe? The structure costs would probably be harder to cover than finding mad amazon workers who want to improve working standards
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    That would leave the job either half-complete, done by an overworked person, or available only to independently wealthy people.
    - sodality2 6y ago
      Meh, I don't think so. You probably couldn't pick a random union member but there's gotta be someone smart, driven, and mad enough to do it for free and do a good job at it. Hell, if I had the skills and resources to, I would.
      - simlevesque 6y ago
        You are advocating for slavery, unpaid work. If you willfuly agree to unpaid work, you will be such a bad union leader, don't bother. You missed the entire point.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Doing something that helps you and helps your similarly-situated fellow worker seems like something that would qualify you for a union leadership role. Further: People do all kinds of unpaid work to make their community or shared experiences better without (most of?) us accusing them of advocating for slavery.
        sodality2 6y ago
        Slavery implies force. What I said explicitly required volunteering. That's like calling volunteering slavery. Am I a slave for working at my hospital in the summer?
        6y ago
cool_dude85 6y ago
How will your second union enforce the contract you negotiate without lawyers? When you want to file a grievance, the shop steward walks you down to the nearest free legal aid office?
hakfoo 6y ago
At this point, there are probably at least some firms that fear Amazon more than unions. They could financially bootstrap a union for a few years as a destabilization effort. I'm thinking of the line "the capitalists will sell you the rope you use to hang them."
gremlinsinc 6y ago
Crazy idea: Decentralized DAO platform on blockchain that essentially has an automatic union for all companies and all employees. Pick your company/union join get access to anonymized matrix chat, feeds, emails, meetings, etc... your id and employment status would be validated by verifiers, and you can organize without anybody knowing who you are if you want. There could be optional dues, as well as some built in DeFi applications for investing in blockchain that could pay a dividend to the unions and their leaders.

Maybe someone should start a second union without dues? That would leave Amazon with no way to argue.

by dheera 6y ago

Maybe someone should start a second union without dues? That would leave Amazon with no way to argue.

But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? (Not to mention that unions also have some unavoidable expenses, even if you didn't have a bunch of highly-paid union leader mouths to feed.) Amazon would still find a way to argue. "If you're not a lowest performer, don't let a union negotiate for you and force your wages down to the lowest performing among you." or many other phrases that would appeal to those who think they're above the bottom already and plant fear that bargaining with the collective would lower their outcomes.

dheera 6y ago
> But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? An ego boost? I mean this seriously -- people love being moderators of Subreddits and admins of online communities largely deep down for the ego boost. A union really needs not much more than a Discord server and maybe a Zoom membership to organize strikes and whatever else they need to do.
- flyt 6y ago
  Unions need more than a Discord to organize. They may need to compensate union leadership for time taken to organize away from their work duties, pay for events, pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure, and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers. No union will have much luck performing collective bargaining against Amazon without working alongside experienced lawyers. These costs don't have to be huge, but they aren't zero.
  - dheera 6y ago
    > pay for events What events? If it's to discuss a certain issue, that can be virtual and almost free. If it's a social event, meh, there are enough of those already and people can self-organize them. Hell for $500/month I could organize social events where everyone goes to Michelin 3-star restaurants every month and rants over gourmet dinners about their bosses. > pay for mailers and other communications infrastructure Use e-mail. I don't even check my snail mail box anyway unless someone tells me to expect something by e-mail, and even then when my snail mail box gets too full I usually just dump it all in the recycle bin, so it's not an effective way for a union to communicate with me. > and of course pay for professionals like labor lawyers. What if they just split the lawyer fees evenly? Assuming an experienced lawyer charges $1000/hr and spends 100 hours on a case, and there are 1 million people in the union, that amounts to about $0.10/person/case, a far cry from the $500/month they seem to be charging. Even if my numbers are off by a factor of 100 it would be only $10/person/case, and if the union won the case Amazon would probably have to pay the legal fees anyway. Although this may sound a bit naive I feel like $500/person/month sounds like there is some massive inefficiency in use of resources.
    - cool_dude85 6y ago
      >If it's just a town hall to discuss a certain issue, that can be virtual. Virtual isn't the same as free. >Although this may sound a bit naive I feel like $500/person/month sounds like there is some massive inefficiency in use of resources. Nobody knows what the union dues will be if the union wins, but they will not be 500 per month. It might be a fair guess that they're 500 per year. About 20 per check if you get paid biweekly. The dues will be decided on by union members through some kind of democratic process.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Union dues are very typically 1 to 1.5% of pay.
    - estaseuropano 6y ago
      Alright, split the fees! Now you need someone to count the days paid out, calculate how much each member has to pay, send payment requests, follow up, manage the account, ... A professional Union needs funds to do its work. Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues. If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking. The imaginary alternative would be to have somebody do this for free in their evenings and on their weekends. Have you ever tried to manage even a class representative and budget for your kids' school or a little league or any other kind of long-term engagement? Already at that small scale things tend to break down quote easily and few stay involved more than a few years. How can you expect volunteer union reps to work 8h+/day, spend their nights writing legal briefs, researching, organising events, managing members and expenses, etc while being up against an army of professional lawyers? Unions brought the five day work week, end to child labour, 40/38 hour weeks, the right to breaks, vacations, medical leave, ... If you don't have those right now then that's likely because you are in a non-union workplace (and/or country).
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        > A professional Union needs funds to do its work. Absolutely true. > Over time the benefits members get more than pay for the union dues. That strikes me as an opinion that could use some supporting facts. It might be the case, but union fees are the same order of magnitude as many workers' savings rate. If the prospective member saved those fees over a lifetime, would they be better off? > If there's a strike at least in Europe the union will also use the dues to cover the salary for the days striking. That means that union members are buying insurance against there being a strike declared. Would they be better off to pay smaller dues and bear the risk themselves? If all possible strikes are union-wide, it seems like this insurance can only be a losing gamble for members, all the while creating a fat piggybank for union leaders to raid/drain.
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    You also need a well funded strike fund so your threat of a strike looks more realistic on paper.
sodality2 6y ago
>But what would be in it for union leadership under such a structure? Altruism maybe? The structure costs would probably be harder to cover than finding mad amazon workers who want to improve working standards
- mywittyname 6y ago
  That would leave the job either half-complete, done by an overworked person, or available only to independently wealthy people.
  - sodality2 6y ago
    Meh, I don't think so. You probably couldn't pick a random union member but there's gotta be someone smart, driven, and mad enough to do it for free and do a good job at it. Hell, if I had the skills and resources to, I would.
    - simlevesque 6y ago
      You are advocating for slavery, unpaid work. If you willfuly agree to unpaid work, you will be such a bad union leader, don't bother. You missed the entire point.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Doing something that helps you and helps your similarly-situated fellow worker seems like something that would qualify you for a union leadership role. Further: People do all kinds of unpaid work to make their community or shared experiences better without (most of?) us accusing them of advocating for slavery.
      - sodality2 6y ago
        Slavery implies force. What I said explicitly required volunteering. That's like calling volunteering slavery. Am I a slave for working at my hospital in the summer?
      - 6y ago

cool_dude85 6y ago

How will your second union enforce the contract you negotiate without lawyers? When you want to file a grievance, the shop steward walks you down to the nearest free legal aid office?

hakfoo 6y ago

At this point, there are probably at least some firms that fear Amazon more than unions. They could financially bootstrap a union for a few years as a destabilization effort. I'm thinking of the line "the capitalists will sell you the rope you use to hang them."

gremlinsinc 6y ago

Crazy idea: Decentralized DAO platform on blockchain that essentially has an automatic union for all companies and all employees. Pick your company/union join get access to anonymized matrix chat, feeds, emails, meetings, etc... your id and employment status would be validated by verifiers, and you can organize without anybody knowing who you are if you want. There could be optional dues, as well as some built in DeFi applications for investing in blockchain that could pay a dividend to the unions and their leaders.