3 ms·

Why do I have to assume everyone's a preprogrammed droid in order to want everyone to have a fair choice? Why wouldn't you rather just be presented with a fair

Why do I have to assume everyone's a preprogrammed droid in order to want everyone to have a fair choice? Why wouldn't you rather just be presented with a fair choice to begin with? Should I have to question your motives whenever you offer me a choice between A or B? Your M.O. just seems like it would have you bouncing from job to job forever, until you exhaust the labor market, because, if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that if there's a power imbalance in an economic relationship, it will eventually be exploited for profit. To not exploit it would be economically irrational. And, to be clear, if the workers did freely choose not to unionize, after being presented with all the information on the same terms by both sides, good on them. That's a decision I respect. But, back to the actual point, why would you support the employer's right to de facto coerce employees in any way?

SllX 6y ago
> Why do I have to assume everyone's a preprogrammed droid in order to want everyone to have a fair choice? I have not sighted these ballots, but it’s a yes/no choice isn’t it? Unionize or don’t unionize: that’s a fair choice. You don’t need equal time to have a legitimate election, time can buy you mindshare but you’re not buying an election overseen by the NLRB. > Your M.O. just seems like it would have you bouncing from job to job forever I do just fine. > But, back to the actual point, why would you support the employer's right to de facto coerce employees in any way? Because no one in an employer-employee relationship is entitled to that relationship: not the employer, not the employees. If Amazon really can fire everyone and replace them, then the employees made a bad call going ahead with this. If they can’t, then Amazon is stuck with the outcome and they’re going to have a rough few years, maybe they’ll sit there in the C suite trying to figure out how it was this happened and how they could have prevented it. I also don’t see the government having a compelling interest here, and your proposal is toothless without government enforcement. One of the last things I want is for the government coming down on the side of unions, just as I don’t want them coming down on the side of corporations, therefore it doesn’t have any reason to transfer assets or their use from one private party to another. A union has to be earned on your own time, and your time at your workplace is your employer’s time. Also there is a potential this could backfire on Amazon too. Think of it this way: if Amazon employees have legitimate complaints, I don’t know one way or the other where they do, but let’s say they do, and rather than seeing their complaints serviced, extra bathroom breaks, better health and safety standards and so on, Amazon corporate decided the best use of their time and resources was a load of anti-union propaganda, then why wouldn’t they unionize? In their position, I would do it just to defy my corporate overlords. I don’t think these warehouse employees are lacking in either information or choices here. Amazon holds loads of advantages, that doesn’t mean they can’t lose this fight. If unionization fails here, that doesn’t necessarily mean it necessarily would have succeeded without an anti-union drive. How Amazon spends their money, possibly throws away their money, is ultimately their choice and I’m not looking to empower the government to take that away from them.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  > I have not sighted these ballots, but it’s a yes/no choice isn’t it? Unionize or don’t unionize: that’s a fair choice. You don’t need equal time to have a legitimate election, time can buy you mindshare but you’re not buying an election overseen by the NLRB. Yes, it's a binary yes / no. You're correct, you don't need equal time to have a legitimate election, but you do in order to have a fair election. Do you favor giving one side (Amazon) more power than the other to influence the vote? > Because no one in an employer-employee relationship is entitled to that relationship: not the employer, not the employees. This is irrelevant. There is a relationship. You want it to be an abusive one? I don't get it. > I also don’t see the government having a compelling interest here, and your proposal is toothless without government enforcement. Government has a legitimate interest in serving the people. If it does not do that, there may as well be no government. Notice I said "people," and not "unions." I am not proposing that government come down on the side of unions; rather that government come down on the side of the people, by making the employer / employee relationship as fair as possible in this context. Again, why would you oppose this? What's wrong with restoring fairness to an unbalanced relationship? I truly don't even understand the point you're trying to make here, other than "Amazon should be able to abuse workers because workers don't deserve jobs." If that's literally your point, I'm afraid we're done here.

SllX 6y ago

> Why do I have to assume everyone's a preprogrammed droid in order to want everyone to have a fair choice? I have not sighted these ballots, but it’s a yes/no choice isn’t it? Unionize or don’t unionize: that’s a fair choice. You don’t need equal time to have a legitimate election, time can buy you mindshare but you’re not buying an election overseen by the NLRB. > Your M.O. just seems like it would have you bouncing from job to job forever I do just fine. > But, back to the actual point, why would you support the employer's right to de facto coerce employees in any way? Because no one in an employer-employee relationship is entitled to that relationship: not the employer, not the employees. If Amazon really can fire everyone and replace them, then the employees made a bad call going ahead with this. If they can’t, then Amazon is stuck with the outcome and they’re going to have a rough few years, maybe they’ll sit there in the C suite trying to figure out how it was this happened and how they could have prevented it. I also don’t see the government having a compelling interest here, and your proposal is toothless without government enforcement. One of the last things I want is for the government coming down on the side of unions, just as I don’t want them coming down on the side of corporations, therefore it doesn’t have any reason to transfer assets or their use from one private party to another. A union has to be earned on your own time, and your time at your workplace is your employer’s time. Also there is a potential this could backfire on Amazon too. Think of it this way: if Amazon employees have legitimate complaints, I don’t know one way or the other where they do, but let’s say they do, and rather than seeing their complaints serviced, extra bathroom breaks, better health and safety standards and so on, Amazon corporate decided the best use of their time and resources was a load of anti-union propaganda, then why wouldn’t they unionize? In their position, I would do it just to defy my corporate overlords. I don’t think these warehouse employees are lacking in either information or choices here. Amazon holds loads of advantages, that doesn’t mean they can’t lose this fight. If unionization fails here, that doesn’t necessarily mean it necessarily would have succeeded without an anti-union drive. How Amazon spends their money, possibly throws away their money, is ultimately their choice and I’m not looking to empower the government to take that away from them.

pmiller2 6y ago
> I have not sighted these ballots, but it’s a yes/no choice isn’t it? Unionize or don’t unionize: that’s a fair choice. You don’t need equal time to have a legitimate election, time can buy you mindshare but you’re not buying an election overseen by the NLRB. Yes, it's a binary yes / no. You're correct, you don't need equal time to have a legitimate election, but you do in order to have a fair election. Do you favor giving one side (Amazon) more power than the other to influence the vote? > Because no one in an employer-employee relationship is entitled to that relationship: not the employer, not the employees. This is irrelevant. There is a relationship. You want it to be an abusive one? I don't get it. > I also don’t see the government having a compelling interest here, and your proposal is toothless without government enforcement. Government has a legitimate interest in serving the people. If it does not do that, there may as well be no government. Notice I said "people," and not "unions." I am not proposing that government come down on the side of unions; rather that government come down on the side of the people, by making the employer / employee relationship as fair as possible in this context. Again, why would you oppose this? What's wrong with restoring fairness to an unbalanced relationship? I truly don't even understand the point you're trying to make here, other than "Amazon should be able to abuse workers because workers don't deserve jobs." If that's literally your point, I'm afraid we're done here.