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Amazon is sending employees into trenches on Twitter as it battles union vote

21 points by 1cvmask 6y ago

marshmallow_12 6y ago
several points: 1)this article seems to be a bit low on actual, solid facts. But ok. 2)I wouldn't trust a single word that anyone who is paid by Amazon to tweet, tweets. 3)As long as said employees identify themselves openly, as the article claims, no problem. If they pretend to be separate we have an issue. 3) Will this union really force everyone to pay dues? If it's true, that's a bit strange. I thought that kind of thing was 1970s stuff by now. So interesting article. But as far as Amazon using twitter as a propoganda tool? It sounds pretty benign stuff to my little mind.
ratsmack 6y ago
Does the company have the right to try and convince employees to vote against the union? It seems to me that they are attacked from every direction no matter what they do or say. I am definitely no fan of Amazon, but the process seems to be a bit one sided in favor of the union.
- fortyseven 6y ago
  Corporations lost the benefit of the doubt concerning this topic a long, long time ago. Deservedly so.
- monkeydreams 6y ago
  > Does the company have the right to try and convince employees to vote against the union? It depends upon whether you are interested in equality (no, not that kind), fairness or legality. Legally speaking - I leave this for the lawyers. I don't know that Amazon have done anything illegal, or how closely they have come to the grey side legality. Fairness and equality - well, Bezos has armies of lobbyists who influence politicians. His organisation has made it difficult to enlist employees into unions by such activities as changing traffic light signalling, etc, to prevent people addressing staff as they leave the company. These are options that Bezos has, which minimise the options available to the pro-union groups to recruit or inform employees. I doubt that this is the total extent of their anti-union activities. My personal opinion, and this is largely the ASD aspect of me speaking here, is that I prefer fairness and loathe unfair conduct. Both sides offer their case, the employees decide. I don't think this is happening in this case, and it is the pro-union side who suffer, so it is the pro-union groups on whose side my sympathy lies.
cyanydeez 6y ago
big mistake, everyone knows you create botnets to spam twitter
nanoscopic 6y ago
I tried to start a union for software engineers at Amazon 4 years ago. I created the "union-interest" internal email list. I met with a surprising amount of resistance from Amazon employees themselves. The consistent point everyone complained about was "If we start a union, we will have to pay union dues". Amazon software engineers make a lot of money, so I never quite understood why they were concerned about this specific point, but they were. Personally, it is my belief that the feedback "you have to pay dues omg" was coming from anti-union forces at Amazon, not from honest concern of regular engineers, but I never investigated to have any proof of it. It is my understanding that I am on the Amazon blacklist, in part because of spearheading an attempt to make a union there. I still get contacted endlessly though by Amazon recruiters even though I'm on the blacklist.

21 points by 1cvmask 6y ago

several points: 1)this article seems to be a bit low on actual, solid facts. But ok. 2)I wouldn't trust a single word that anyone who is paid by Amazon to tweet, tweets. 3)As long as said employees identify themselves openly, as the article claims, no problem. If they pretend to be separate we have an issue. 3) Will this union really force everyone to pay dues? If it's true, that's a bit strange. I thought that kind of thing was 1970s stuff by now. So interesting article. But as far as Amazon using twitter as a propoganda tool? It sounds pretty benign stuff to my little mind.

ratsmack 6y ago

Does the company have the right to try and convince employees to vote against the union? It seems to me that they are attacked from every direction no matter what they do or say. I am definitely no fan of Amazon, but the process seems to be a bit one sided in favor of the union.

fortyseven 6y ago
Corporations lost the benefit of the doubt concerning this topic a long, long time ago. Deservedly so.
monkeydreams 6y ago
> Does the company have the right to try and convince employees to vote against the union? It depends upon whether you are interested in equality (no, not that kind), fairness or legality. Legally speaking - I leave this for the lawyers. I don't know that Amazon have done anything illegal, or how closely they have come to the grey side legality. Fairness and equality - well, Bezos has armies of lobbyists who influence politicians. His organisation has made it difficult to enlist employees into unions by such activities as changing traffic light signalling, etc, to prevent people addressing staff as they leave the company. These are options that Bezos has, which minimise the options available to the pro-union groups to recruit or inform employees. I doubt that this is the total extent of their anti-union activities. My personal opinion, and this is largely the ASD aspect of me speaking here, is that I prefer fairness and loathe unfair conduct. Both sides offer their case, the employees decide. I don't think this is happening in this case, and it is the pro-union side who suffer, so it is the pro-union groups on whose side my sympathy lies.

cyanydeez 6y ago

big mistake, everyone knows you create botnets to spam twitter

nanoscopic 6y ago

I tried to start a union for software engineers at Amazon 4 years ago. I created the "union-interest" internal email list. I met with a surprising amount of resistance from Amazon employees themselves. The consistent point everyone complained about was "If we start a union, we will have to pay union dues". Amazon software engineers make a lot of money, so I never quite understood why they were concerned about this specific point, but they were. Personally, it is my belief that the feedback "you have to pay dues omg" was coming from anti-union forces at Amazon, not from honest concern of regular engineers, but I never investigated to have any proof of it. It is my understanding that I am on the Amazon blacklist, in part because of spearheading an attempt to make a union there. I still get contacted endlessly though by Amazon recruiters even though I'm on the blacklist.