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Is settlement actually a bad deal for Amazon or similar companies like Google? Sure they have to spend a bit of money on the settlement but they have still succ

• lokar 6y ago
  It could make it hard to recruit new Sr people and leaders in their fields. I would never consider working at Amazon.
  • nerdponx 6y ago
    Maybe some will balk, but not all. There is probably enough overlap between "talented devs and designers" and "people who think unions are bad and/or don't care" that it won't affect their hiring pipeline. That said, I think highly-paid tech contributors do have the most leverage out of any other labor market participant right now. The more of us that don't want to work for anti-union companies, the better.
    • sokoloff 6y ago
      The more leverage you have as an individual, the less relevant a union is for you.
      • tekromancr 6y ago
        If you do have leverage, and you don't use said leverage to help those that don't; then you are a bastard. And having policies ensures that your company, at high levels is ONLY staffed with bastards because people who are not bastards won't want to work there. Granted, that might be exactly what Amazon et al are selecting for; but at some point, a company being anti-union will be a signal to prospective high-level employees that many of your potential co-workers will be entirely self-interested assholes and you will have to decide if such a work environment is for you.
        • peytn 6y ago
          I like to keep business and charity separated. Mixing the two, in my opinion, simply adds a layer of indirection for the bastards to hide behind. Besides, if you’re in a working environment where people throw around terms like “total comp” and have mortgages denominated in millions of dollars, the self-interest ship has kinda sailed.
          • tekromancr 6y ago
            > I like to keep business and charity separated. I don't know if that really tracks, tho. You still have ethical obligations in your day-to-day business. As an extreme example; if your business is "I sell fentinyl laced heroin to elementary school children" isn't really something you can make up with any amount charitable giving. But aside from that, I was making the self-interested argument that even complete sociopaths wouldn't necessarily want to work in an environment where "My coworkers can and will try to fuck me at the first opportunity" is a true statement.
            • nerdponx 6y ago
              I recently saw a post (maybe here on HN?) about a study where participants had the ability to choose between a strict-no-cheating game environment and a mostly-cheating-allowed game environment. Cheaters self-selected into the latter because it allowed them to cheat, even though they knew that others were also trying to cheat. Hopefully I'm paraphrasing/remembering correctly.
              • spamizbad 6y ago
                This perhaps explains the rationale you sometimes hear that more rules/regs will cause people to not even bother trying to start a business. If you set the business climate up in such a way that only permits fair participation and competition you're probably going to alienate a segment that would favor looser rules.
                • LordDragonfang 6y ago
      • frenchy 6y ago
        And that's how you end up with a company full of assholes.
      • duckfang 6y ago
        So, what individual thinks they have more leverage than Amazon? Amazon has a 1.6 trillion $ market cap.
        • sokoloff 6y ago
          Amazon needs a lot of software engineers and needs them more than any individual SWE needs Amazon, no matter what their market cap is.
          • patrickthebold 6y ago
            Amazon needs a lot of software engineers, but they don't need any single engineer. Which is the whole point of unionizing.
            • DickingAround 6y ago
              The software engineers have plenty of leverage over every company without unions. A proof of that is high wages across the industry. And for Amazon in particular, where is that extra money coming from? It's not like they have a dividend to shareholders they could stop paying out. They're not some law firm where the partners are profit sharing. It's a publicly traded company that just constantly reinvests in growth. They're practically famous for that. So really to pay more, they must either get more efficient (probably already trying at that) or raise prices or stop reinvesting. I guess they could pay the higher paid workers less, but isn't that already the software engineers we're talking about? Those are the higher paid workers. As an aside, I sometimes wonder if they could literally have qualified as a not for profit whose sole goal is to grow into new market segments and employ more people. Because if you take a wide angle view of it, that's pretty much all they ever do.
              • kelnos 6y ago
                > A proof of that is high wages across the industry. That's true if you only consider a few carefully-chosen tech corridors like SV and sorta-Seattle. Software developer wages in much of the US, Europe, and most of the rest of the world, are not that great. Usually enough to live off of, yes, but no where near what we in the bay area and a few other select locations are used to.
      • objclxt 6y ago
        > The more leverage you have as an individual, the less relevant a union is for you. If this was true, why are the highest paid and in-demand stars and directors in Hollywood all still dues paying members of their unions?
        • fmajid 6y ago
          The union helped them on their way up, and they are grateful, even though strictly speaking they no longer need the union.
          • sokoloff 6y ago
            Not to mention that SAG’s dues are quite regressive, only being applied to the first $500K in earnings, so being highly-paid doesn’t cost them anything additional.
          • heavyset_go 6y ago
            Unions still help movie stars negotiate deals.
        • tweetle_beetle 6y ago
          Isn't that slightly different and more because the film industry is unusual in that it has adapted around the unionised environment? Stars would have joined the union early in their career for the protection, but late on its minimal expense for sake of keeping the cogs of production turning. I'm no expert, but I imagine there are various on-set insurances which require actors to be a member of union, etc. It's not quite the same as a VP of a tech company joining a union.
          • nerdponx 6y ago
            Seems pretty much the same to me. Junior devs have to work their way up, senior devs already make big bucks and don't really "need" the union anymore.
            • tweetle_beetle 6y ago
      • UncleMeat 6y ago
        Sure. And the aristocracy is good for aristocrats. I suspect that engineers, in general, vastly overestimate the amount of leverage they actually have as an individual when considering the merits of joining a union.
        • kelnos 6y ago
          Yup, agreed. My experience is that even the "rockstars" get fired or managed out when they become "difficult". The only places where these types of people are tolerated -- but still, not forever -- is very small shops where bus factors are low and firing a key software developer would wipe out a company-killing amount of institutional knowledge. Even then, those people are still replaced, eventually. It's the height of hubris to believe that an individual software engineer has the power to effect much in the way of change when it comes to wages and working conditions. Sure, we have orders of magnitude more power than someone working for pennies in a sweatshop, but we're nowhere near the point of calling the shots, or even bringing a significant amount of leverage to the negotiating table.
    • ncallaway 6y ago
      > Maybe some will balk, but not all Sure, that's fair. I guess it really depends on the proportions. I personally used to work at Amazon a number of years ago. I enjoyed my time there, and if my current work circumstances ever changed would have considered going back there. Based on what I've seen lately from them, though, I would never go back. In fact, as a customer I've discontinued Amazon prime and won't order from their retail site again. AWS has me a little more boxed in, but I'm going to slowly look for more ways to separate from them there, too, over time.
    • plandis 6y ago
      The two unions I’ve worked for before getting a job in tech were terrible. At one I was physically threatened with violence for being too productive and the other allocated work times/roles by seniority instead of ability. If you happened to not be friends with the union president, then you better really enjoy cleaning the bathrooms. You seem to be under the impression that unions are always good and that certainly isn’t the case. I’ve had zero good experiences and I’m not keen to have another bad experience, thanks.
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  • singlow 6y ago
    Then they have probably succeeded. I don't think they want people whom this would deter.
  • amznthrwaway 6y ago
    I interviewed at Amazon largely to see what happened when I challenged them to talk about some negative practices. Their answers impressed me sufficiently that I work here now. I believe (hopefully correctly) that Amazon is a very flawed company which is becoming _less_ flawed over time, and that I can help support those improvements.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • zarkov99 6y ago
    In contrast, I would be very happy too consider a company that is honestly focused on its commercial mission rather than appease the small number of people who believe their employers should give them a platform for their activism.
    • wildrhythms 6y ago
      Expect no one to stand up for you when you, too, are inevitably mistreated.
      • zarkov99 6y ago
        You mean I will not be protected from oppression by the self-sacrificing activist heroes in tech? The same heroes that so righteously punish the thinkers of bad thoughts and so gallantly protect everybody else from the violence of wrong ideas? I guess I'll have to fight my fights alone then.
• stcredzero 6y ago
  they have still succeeded at their actual objective of getting rid of the activist employees. Activists often get a free pass. So long as they're saying the "right thing," the press covers for them. Since anyone can just put out their slate and become an "activist," this creates a situation where random people people are given enough power to abuse and basically no oversight. What if we had a society where Doctors got a free pass? What if there were no qualifications, and random people could call themselves doctors? So long as they're saying the "right thing," the press covers for them. Since anyone can just put out their slate and become a "Doctor," this creates a situation where random people people are given enough power to abuse and basically no oversight. We have historical precedents for this. What you get are the moral equivalents of wild west medicine shows. Further symptoms: When you start giving [X] a free pass, you'd start to see a degradation in the follower's understanding of morality, ethics, and fundamental principles which have far-reaching game theoretic consequences. These consequences aren't that easy to understand, so we'd expect to see people do shortsighted things which bring about those consequences. One would expect to see an ethos of totalitarian obeisance in [X] groups replace an ethos of free inquiry. One would expect to see forms of bigotry and the shallow judging of people by surface characteristics, sneaking in while disguised as other names. One would expect to see some scummy people who latched onto the moniker of [X] for a variety of reasons, who later on show their true colors. One would expect to see the behavior of the mob. Presumably the companies think they’re getting a reasonably good deal out of firing the organisers. Some activists are genuinely speaking truth to power. Some are exploiters. Some are somewhere in between. There need to be checks and balances. The fundamental right of free association isn't so bad a place to start.
  • nemo44x 6y ago
    I fully expect it. With “other ways of knowing” becoming not only a slogan but effectively being applied to our learning institutions, it is only a matter of time for restricting medical practice to credentialed medical doctors to be labeled as “white supremacy”. The exam isn’t fair so we should believe someone who has a lived experience that makes them a doctor (with a claim to insurance/government payments to their practice) or something like that. Meanwhile, kids in China are learning the skills to invent the actual, real future.
• ineedasername 6y ago
  They've not only rid themselves of the activists, they've made it clear that you lose your job if you publicly disagree with them. You'll lose your job and if you try to fight it you'll spend years just to get a settlement. From here on out everyone will be thinking "is this worth losing my job over, especially when I may have similarly serious concers about any employer I work for?"
  • rantwasp 6y ago
    nah. a wrongful termination lawsuit is expensive (think 7 figures). what i think amazon is going to do is put the workers that try this stunt into positions that are so crappy or the demands are so unrealistic that they’re gonna quit.
    • jwineinger 6y ago
      Wouldn't that be considered constructive dismissal, and still subject to this sort of action?
      • londons_explore 6y ago
        Yes, but awfully hard to prove.
        • eropple 6y ago
          Constructive dismissal is difficult to prove, but generally less so in the context of sabotage of labor activism.
    • LordDragonfang 6y ago
      >a wrongful termination lawsuit is expensive (think 7 figures) When you're a company that makes 11 figures, spending 7 figures for a 1% increase in profits is a hundredfold ROI. They're not expensive, they're a bargain.
      • 6y ago
• TheBobinator 6y ago
  FAANG hasn't been innovators for a long time now, closing in on almost half a decade. They started out that way but have moved full bore into politics. Politics is what happens when the rest of society tries to figure out what to do with the innovators inventions, an when orgs don't innovate, they die, usually a pretty violent and shitty death over time.
• numbsafari 6y ago
  It likely depends on the /terms/ of the settlement more than the /cost/ of the settlement in this case. As activists, they may be balking at NDA or non-disparagement language, rather than at price. From Amazon's perspective, the NDA/non-disparagement part is probably incredibly valuable.
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• Haga 6y ago
  It's a nice way for anyone to get fired with cash to go
• regextegrity 6y ago
  Sounds good for shareholders, but bad for the workers that make up Amazon.
• N00bN00b 6y ago
  Wouldn't that go both ways and encourage more activism? I wouldn't mind being an activist employee if I know that not only do I stand up for what I believe in, but there's a reasonable chance it will result in enough compensation for an early retirement. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I wouldn't do it without caution and it does require funds on my end, but I'd still do it. That said, Amazon will likely engage in prolonged litigation, to minimize the benefits.
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• heavyset_go 6y ago
  IMO, settlements are a win for Amazon because no precedent gets set with a ruling.