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As an iww organizer with friends across the US in Amazon warehouse management and on the ground- no Unions are just bringing democracy into capitalism. How can

As an iww organizer with friends across the US in Amazon warehouse management and on the ground- no Unions are just bringing democracy into capitalism. How can any red blooded American oppose them? Edit: not sure why I'm being down voted, did I say something offensive??

esyir 5y ago
You have democracy in your capitalism already, that's what your elected government and their regulations are.
- gspr 5y ago
  And who's to say that that has to be the only one? (Except that there's not even just one; there's a wide range of elections from the national level, to the local, or even maybe down to your city block in some places).
chrisseaton 5y ago
> Unions are just bringing democracy into capitalism. How can any red blooded American oppose them? Well they had a democratic vote and decided they did not want to be represented by this union. That's democracy working.
- Dobbs 5y ago
  In the article it is made very clear that what is being alleged is that it wasn't a democratic vote. What is being alleged is that Amazon threatened to close the warehouse, and/or fire people based upon how they vote. Something that if I understand correctly is illegal, and even if not illegal is definitely not a democratic vote.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > If you read the article It's against the site rules here to suggest people haven't read the article - please don't do this. I was replying to a parent comment which said 'how can anyone oppose a union'. Some people legitimately don't want to have to deal with a union, for any of many reasons. For example because the union supports political goals they don't agree with, or because the union favours other employees over them, or they just don't want to have to deal with two overlords, neither of which may be working to their benefit. If they're asked and they say 'no thanks' then the union should just say 'ok thanks for letting us know' and leave them alone. There's a weird attitude amongst unions that there is no possible way anyone could not want to be represented by them. That leads them to accuse any vote against them of being illegitimate.
    - Dobbs 5y ago
      Removed the reading the article bit. 1. OP says: unions are good they bring democracy into things. 2. You say: They had a democratic vote 3. I say: The article is alleging that they didn't have a democratic vote. Your comment is clearly stating that the vote was democratic, the unions lost, so we should move on. The entire article that this conversation is about is saying that the vote wasn't democratic and was coerced. My response stands, you can't just say "democratic vote, lets move on", because if the allegations are true then there wasn't a democratic vote.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        The OP is incredulous that anybody could not want to be in a union. My point is that some people legitimately do not want to be in a union, and there's nothing unfathomable about this, because they have many downsides. For example where I'm from if you were a Jewish supporter of the Green Party you may find it extremely offensive to have your union representatives promoting the Labour Party. So you may get a legitimate, democratic, decision to not let the union represent them. That's the point. Forget about tying it to this particular situation if you want to.
    - Kneecaps07 5y ago
      In my state, you can no longer be forced to join a union. At my employer, there are something like 1000 people eligible to join the union. 99% of them are in the union. They often find the people that aren't in the union didn't join simply because they didn't know they could join. Yes, that's anecdotal, but I've been in two unions at two separate jobs and have literally never met anyone who wishes they weren't in it.
nieksand 5y ago
1. At their best unions protect members from managerial malfeasance, but unions also go out of their way to protect incompetents who should be fired. That is soul crushing as a coworker, bad for the company, and possibly harmful to customers. 2. Unions are heavily involved in politics. As a worker, part of your paycheck is being seized to support politicians whom you may vehemently oppose. 3. American unions fixate on seniority and credentials as metrics of merit. This is a poor fit for professions like software engineering and educators, where those only loosely correlate to actual performance. 4. Unions foster adversarial relationships within companies, an us/them mentality against "management". Sometimes the environment is already toxic so nothing is lost, but it can also turn an otherwise reasonable workplace sour.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > American unions fixate on seniority and credentials as metrics of merit. This is a poor fit for professions like software engineering and educators, where those only loosely correlate to actual performance. Feel free to name a profession where seniority and qualifications correlate well with performance.
- modo_mario 5y ago
  Why is this taken as the only way these things can be in the US? My experience in Belgium is very different. >1. At their best unions protect members from managerial malfeasance, but unions also go out of their way to protect incompetents who should be fired. That is soul crushing as a coworker, bad for the company, and possibly harmful to customers. As far as I'm aware there's not much our unions here in Belgium can do about that. If there's a legitimate reason they have no interest in spending their funds fighting a court case going nowhere. They do occasionally take action when it's harmfull to the company when there's legitimate reason for firing but this involves the company laying of lots of people when they are closing down a division or plant or so which generally doesn't stop it but makes the closing more fitting to the workers. >2. Unions are heavily involved in politics. As a worker, part of your paycheck is being seized to support politicians whom you may vehemently oppose. Our largest unions are very plainly politically aligned. We have a leftist union, christian democrat union, liberal union and then a neutral union or 2 , industry specific unions. Either way tho part of my paycheck does not go to politicians and if it did not to politicians i don't align with. In fact what i pay to the union is a tiny sum. They compete among eachother and these big unions operate at scale. >4. Unions foster adversarial relationships within companies, an us/them mentality against "management". Sometimes the environment is already toxic so nothing is lost, but it can also turn an otherwise reasonable workplace sour. I don't think we interact with our unions much on average. My experiences with them were limited to. 1) them blocking entry for trucks ( i could just walk in) when there was a big announced nationwide protest regarding things like wage indexation i believe. 2) Them checking the legality of the contract i was offered and given pointers. 3) Them paying me my unemployment at some point and handling the paperwork.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
barry-cotter 5y ago
You’re attempting to use both red and blue coded language in the same sentence without making it clear that you despise the other one. The kind of college educated people who approve of unions would be appalled to be called a red blooded American. The kind of person who would be happy to identify as a red blooded American was a mainstay of the Democratic Party into the 80s or 90s but much less so now. Party identification is almost done changing from being about how much money you make to whether you went to college or not.
josefx 5y ago
Comrade you are thinking communist thoughts, it hasn't been that long ago that the U.S. army would end any workers rights protest guns blazing. Protecting the FREEDOM(TM) of US companies to exploit anyone and anything all over the world.
bongobingo 5y ago
Does that democracy include the right to not join the union?
- zeckalpha 5y ago
  Yes
zeckalpha 5y ago
I suspect many of the child comments don’t understand how IWW differs from RWDSU.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  Perhaps you could be the one to elucidate the distinction.

esyir 5y ago

You have democracy in your capitalism already, that's what your elected government and their regulations are.

gspr 5y ago
And who's to say that that has to be the only one? (Except that there's not even just one; there's a wide range of elections from the national level, to the local, or even maybe down to your city block in some places).

chrisseaton 5y ago

> Unions are just bringing democracy into capitalism. How can any red blooded American oppose them? Well they had a democratic vote and decided they did not want to be represented by this union. That's democracy working.

Dobbs 5y ago
In the article it is made very clear that what is being alleged is that it wasn't a democratic vote. What is being alleged is that Amazon threatened to close the warehouse, and/or fire people based upon how they vote. Something that if I understand correctly is illegal, and even if not illegal is definitely not a democratic vote.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > If you read the article It's against the site rules here to suggest people haven't read the article - please don't do this. I was replying to a parent comment which said 'how can anyone oppose a union'. Some people legitimately don't want to have to deal with a union, for any of many reasons. For example because the union supports political goals they don't agree with, or because the union favours other employees over them, or they just don't want to have to deal with two overlords, neither of which may be working to their benefit. If they're asked and they say 'no thanks' then the union should just say 'ok thanks for letting us know' and leave them alone. There's a weird attitude amongst unions that there is no possible way anyone could not want to be represented by them. That leads them to accuse any vote against them of being illegitimate.
  - Dobbs 5y ago
    Removed the reading the article bit. 1. OP says: unions are good they bring democracy into things. 2. You say: They had a democratic vote 3. I say: The article is alleging that they didn't have a democratic vote. Your comment is clearly stating that the vote was democratic, the unions lost, so we should move on. The entire article that this conversation is about is saying that the vote wasn't democratic and was coerced. My response stands, you can't just say "democratic vote, lets move on", because if the allegations are true then there wasn't a democratic vote.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      The OP is incredulous that anybody could not want to be in a union. My point is that some people legitimately do not want to be in a union, and there's nothing unfathomable about this, because they have many downsides. For example where I'm from if you were a Jewish supporter of the Green Party you may find it extremely offensive to have your union representatives promoting the Labour Party. So you may get a legitimate, democratic, decision to not let the union represent them. That's the point. Forget about tying it to this particular situation if you want to.
  - Kneecaps07 5y ago
    In my state, you can no longer be forced to join a union. At my employer, there are something like 1000 people eligible to join the union. 99% of them are in the union. They often find the people that aren't in the union didn't join simply because they didn't know they could join. Yes, that's anecdotal, but I've been in two unions at two separate jobs and have literally never met anyone who wishes they weren't in it.

nieksand 5y ago

1. At their best unions protect members from managerial malfeasance, but unions also go out of their way to protect incompetents who should be fired. That is soul crushing as a coworker, bad for the company, and possibly harmful to customers. 2. Unions are heavily involved in politics. As a worker, part of your paycheck is being seized to support politicians whom you may vehemently oppose. 3. American unions fixate on seniority and credentials as metrics of merit. This is a poor fit for professions like software engineering and educators, where those only loosely correlate to actual performance. 4. Unions foster adversarial relationships within companies, an us/them mentality against "management". Sometimes the environment is already toxic so nothing is lost, but it can also turn an otherwise reasonable workplace sour.

barry-cotter 5y ago
> American unions fixate on seniority and credentials as metrics of merit. This is a poor fit for professions like software engineering and educators, where those only loosely correlate to actual performance. Feel free to name a profession where seniority and qualifications correlate well with performance.
modo_mario 5y ago
Why is this taken as the only way these things can be in the US? My experience in Belgium is very different. >1. At their best unions protect members from managerial malfeasance, but unions also go out of their way to protect incompetents who should be fired. That is soul crushing as a coworker, bad for the company, and possibly harmful to customers. As far as I'm aware there's not much our unions here in Belgium can do about that. If there's a legitimate reason they have no interest in spending their funds fighting a court case going nowhere. They do occasionally take action when it's harmfull to the company when there's legitimate reason for firing but this involves the company laying of lots of people when they are closing down a division or plant or so which generally doesn't stop it but makes the closing more fitting to the workers. >2. Unions are heavily involved in politics. As a worker, part of your paycheck is being seized to support politicians whom you may vehemently oppose. Our largest unions are very plainly politically aligned. We have a leftist union, christian democrat union, liberal union and then a neutral union or 2 , industry specific unions. Either way tho part of my paycheck does not go to politicians and if it did not to politicians i don't align with. In fact what i pay to the union is a tiny sum. They compete among eachother and these big unions operate at scale. >4. Unions foster adversarial relationships within companies, an us/them mentality against "management". Sometimes the environment is already toxic so nothing is lost, but it can also turn an otherwise reasonable workplace sour. I don't think we interact with our unions much on average. My experiences with them were limited to. 1) them blocking entry for trucks ( i could just walk in) when there was a big announced nationwide protest regarding things like wage indexation i believe. 2) Them checking the legality of the contract i was offered and given pointers. 3) Them paying me my unemployment at some point and handling the paperwork.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

barry-cotter 5y ago

You’re attempting to use both red and blue coded language in the same sentence without making it clear that you despise the other one. The kind of college educated people who approve of unions would be appalled to be called a red blooded American. The kind of person who would be happy to identify as a red blooded American was a mainstay of the Democratic Party into the 80s or 90s but much less so now. Party identification is almost done changing from being about how much money you make to whether you went to college or not.

josefx 5y ago

Comrade you are thinking communist thoughts, it hasn't been that long ago that the U.S. army would end any workers rights protest guns blazing. Protecting the FREEDOM(TM) of US companies to exploit anyone and anything all over the world.

bongobingo 5y ago

Does that democracy include the right to not join the union?

zeckalpha 5y ago
Yes

zeckalpha 5y ago

I suspect many of the child comments don’t understand how IWW differs from RWDSU.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
Perhaps you could be the one to elucidate the distinction.