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It would sure be something if Amazon went from one of the worst places to work, to one of the best through the creation of unions. If they can do this, then I t

It would sure be something if Amazon went from one of the worst places to work, to one of the best through the creation of unions. If they can do this, then I think it will be held up as an example for other people to unionize. I'm rooting for them

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
I feel the same. Next should be Walmart.
Melatonic 5y ago
I am not as hopeful as you but that would definitely be something Unions do seem to be making a big comeback
- scarab92 5y ago
  I sympathise with the employees, however unions have pratically zero chance of gaining concessions from Amazon. Amazon can give more shifts to non striking workers, train new employees in a matter of hours, leverage labour hire companies, bus in workers from other facilities, lean on FBM and other 3PL providers, increase automation. They also have a massive network of fulfilment centers and can easily just ship in fulfilled orders from elsewhere using non union trucking and last mile. Amazon also has deep pockets and a long time horizon, so worst case they'll just allow the facility to be shut down by strikes and let their customers know it'll take another day to deliver their order from elsewhere.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    Compelling argument for seizing and nationalizing amazon right there. That's power way beyond even monopoly, I can't see how it can be justified.
    - scarab92 5y ago
      What you are referring to is monopsony power, and Amazon isn't even close to having a monospony on warehouse labor. Warehousing is massive industry and even at their size Amazon is less than 10% of it. The most realistic solution is for workers to spend any spare time they have learning new skills to move into better industries. Trying to make pick pack roles not suck is not realistic.
  - derefr 5y ago
    Strong unions can lobby for protections just like Amazon can. Municipalities could be persuaded to e.g. outlaw non-union (err, "non-licensed") logistics providers from delivering within the city limits; where "licensed" logistics companies are required to work with only "licensed" fulfillment centers, and so forth. Suddenly there'd be these centers of demand that could only be met by union shops.
    - scarab92 5y ago
      Local municipalities typically do not have the jurisidiction to regulate last mile delivery, let alone the desire to do so, and Amazon can always use USPS / FedEx / UPS which local municipalities won't be able to restrict.
    - CountSessine 5y ago
      Why would the municipality do that to homeowners, the majority of whom are not logistics warehouse employees but do want products delivered to them quickly and inexpensively? Like, just the game-theoretic analysis here suggests municipalities will want nothing to do with this.
  - Melatonic 5y ago
    If enough warehouses unionize they could have a shot at it. But yeah - it is pretty damn hard at a huge scale to take on a behemoth like Amazon. I can see it happening if there is really a will to do it.
- ngc248 5y ago
  I feel its a cycle ... the absence of unions creates problems, people unionize .... having unions creates problems .... unions are disbanded ... rinse and repeat. On a general note ... life in general seems cyclical.
  - Melatonic 5y ago
    We could solve this by probably just having better federal protection and laws surrounding unions (the EU is better in this regard) but unfortunately those some corporations have huge lobbying arms that make it difficult to get the government to do so
anm89 5y ago
There are many studies showing the workers at unionized employers report lower job satisfaction (there are also many studies showing the opposite conclusion) but it is far from a given that unionizing makes things betters for workers and this at a minimum seems to be a crap shoot based on the quality of the individual union. https://hbr.org/2017/08/research-shows-unionized-workers-are-less-happy-but-why https://hbr.org/2017/08/research-shows-unionized-workers-are...
- twoxproblematic 5y ago
- pyuser583 5y ago
  This is not surprising. Union jobs pay more and have better benefits. That makes them harder to leave when you’re miserable there.
  - SixDouble5321 5y ago
    This, in my opinion, is a salient and hard to solve problem with unions.
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      Yes but it’s still a real problem. My mother resigned from her union-job after a too long career. It paid well, and allowed me to go to college with no debt. But it absolutely drained her. It was terrible toward the end. She was a nurse. Nursing is a profession that can be greatly improved, but the unions don’t seem too interest in that. They are much better at getting better pay and benefits.
photochemsyn 5y ago
I think there's something to be said in favor of company-specific unions vs. industry-wide unions. The optimal situation would be one in which Amazon workers form an Amazon-wide union and end up with voting seats on the corporate board, to which they'd elect representatives. As I understand it, this is a bit how VW works in Germany. The notion that a corporation's employees should have the same 'stakeholder' role as a corporation's shareholders might seem to be a radical notion. It would require re-imagining the corporate board's role: worker value and shareholder value would have to be balanced. This seems like a much fairer system of governance, and also has the benefit of partially democratizing corporations.
- freemint 5y ago
  As far as i know VWs strongest union is the IG Metall which is an industry wide union. However yes they have board representation.
  - nopenopenopeno 5y ago
    Of course, every large corporation in Germany is required to have worker representation on the board.
- pyuser583 5y ago
  An Amazon wide union would include hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, and a much smaller number of tech workers, The Amazon warehouse business and Amazon Web Services having the same union is … odd.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    I think they're just analysing the effect of a company-focused union versus a wide-spectrum union. I don't think they're implying that there should be only a single union per company (it's probably not common in the US but that's common in other countries like Germany and pre-Thatcher UK).
  - CountSessine 5y ago
pyuser583 5y ago
I’ve never seen (or heard of) a toxic workplace becoming less toxic by unionization. Better pay? Yes. Better benefits? Yea. Less chaos? Yes. Less toxicity? Unions give the workers a bigger say. That’s it. How toxic are your coworkers? If they’re toxic … unionizing won’t help. If they’re not toxic … unionizing still probably won’t help. Unions are about pooling together for a better negotiating position. That doesn’t make anything less toxic. For example, will the union support using H1B visa workers? Amazon had a lot of H1B tech workers. That could get very toxic very fast.
- treeman79 5y ago
  My dads experience at Boeing. Unions equal cut brake lines. He was terrified of crossing theme
  - SixDouble5321 5y ago
    Unions can't hope to eliminate thugs.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > How toxic are your coworkers? If they’re toxic … unionizing won’t help. If they’re not toxic … unionizing still probably won’t help. This isn't really true. Unions typically negotiate for baseline working conditions, which can include protection from abuse and such things. "Toxicity" could easily fall under that and does in many (if not most?) workplaces in Sweden.
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    If the person making your work life toxic is also a union member (and denies it), it puts the union in an awkward position. In practice, the union can negotiate disciplinary rules. However they tend to focus on protecting workers from discipline. There are some practices they can’t/won’t give much protection to, like misusing company funds. Some unions have offered less protection when accusations of racism and sexism are involved, but employers have learned to abuse that. Read about the firing of Donald McNeil by the New York Times to get an idea of how cowardly, social-justice focused unions can majorly screw up by not defending their members. So if the person making your life miserable is a coworker who constantly denigrates you, unions might be more focused on helping them than you.

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago

I feel the same. Next should be Walmart.

Melatonic 5y ago

I am not as hopeful as you but that would definitely be something Unions do seem to be making a big comeback

scarab92 5y ago
I sympathise with the employees, however unions have pratically zero chance of gaining concessions from Amazon. Amazon can give more shifts to non striking workers, train new employees in a matter of hours, leverage labour hire companies, bus in workers from other facilities, lean on FBM and other 3PL providers, increase automation. They also have a massive network of fulfilment centers and can easily just ship in fulfilled orders from elsewhere using non union trucking and last mile. Amazon also has deep pockets and a long time horizon, so worst case they'll just allow the facility to be shut down by strikes and let their customers know it'll take another day to deliver their order from elsewhere.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  Compelling argument for seizing and nationalizing amazon right there. That's power way beyond even monopoly, I can't see how it can be justified.
  - scarab92 5y ago
    What you are referring to is monopsony power, and Amazon isn't even close to having a monospony on warehouse labor. Warehousing is massive industry and even at their size Amazon is less than 10% of it. The most realistic solution is for workers to spend any spare time they have learning new skills to move into better industries. Trying to make pick pack roles not suck is not realistic.
- derefr 5y ago
  Strong unions can lobby for protections just like Amazon can. Municipalities could be persuaded to e.g. outlaw non-union (err, "non-licensed") logistics providers from delivering within the city limits; where "licensed" logistics companies are required to work with only "licensed" fulfillment centers, and so forth. Suddenly there'd be these centers of demand that could only be met by union shops.
  - scarab92 5y ago
    Local municipalities typically do not have the jurisidiction to regulate last mile delivery, let alone the desire to do so, and Amazon can always use USPS / FedEx / UPS which local municipalities won't be able to restrict.
  - CountSessine 5y ago
    Why would the municipality do that to homeowners, the majority of whom are not logistics warehouse employees but do want products delivered to them quickly and inexpensively? Like, just the game-theoretic analysis here suggests municipalities will want nothing to do with this.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  If enough warehouses unionize they could have a shot at it. But yeah - it is pretty damn hard at a huge scale to take on a behemoth like Amazon. I can see it happening if there is really a will to do it.
ngc248 5y ago
I feel its a cycle ... the absence of unions creates problems, people unionize .... having unions creates problems .... unions are disbanded ... rinse and repeat. On a general note ... life in general seems cyclical.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  We could solve this by probably just having better federal protection and laws surrounding unions (the EU is better in this regard) but unfortunately those some corporations have huge lobbying arms that make it difficult to get the government to do so

anm89 5y ago

There are many studies showing the workers at unionized employers report lower job satisfaction (there are also many studies showing the opposite conclusion) but it is far from a given that unionizing makes things betters for workers and this at a minimum seems to be a crap shoot based on the quality of the individual union. https://hbr.org/2017/08/research-shows-unionized-workers-are-less-happy-but-why https://hbr.org/2017/08/research-shows-unionized-workers-are...

twoxproblematic 5y ago
pyuser583 5y ago
This is not surprising. Union jobs pay more and have better benefits. That makes them harder to leave when you’re miserable there.
- SixDouble5321 5y ago
  This, in my opinion, is a salient and hard to solve problem with unions.
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    Yes but it’s still a real problem. My mother resigned from her union-job after a too long career. It paid well, and allowed me to go to college with no debt. But it absolutely drained her. It was terrible toward the end. She was a nurse. Nursing is a profession that can be greatly improved, but the unions don’t seem too interest in that. They are much better at getting better pay and benefits.

photochemsyn 5y ago

I think there's something to be said in favor of company-specific unions vs. industry-wide unions. The optimal situation would be one in which Amazon workers form an Amazon-wide union and end up with voting seats on the corporate board, to which they'd elect representatives. As I understand it, this is a bit how VW works in Germany. The notion that a corporation's employees should have the same 'stakeholder' role as a corporation's shareholders might seem to be a radical notion. It would require re-imagining the corporate board's role: worker value and shareholder value would have to be balanced. This seems like a much fairer system of governance, and also has the benefit of partially democratizing corporations.

freemint 5y ago
As far as i know VWs strongest union is the IG Metall which is an industry wide union. However yes they have board representation.
- nopenopenopeno 5y ago
  Of course, every large corporation in Germany is required to have worker representation on the board.
pyuser583 5y ago
An Amazon wide union would include hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, and a much smaller number of tech workers, The Amazon warehouse business and Amazon Web Services having the same union is … odd.
- zinekeller 5y ago
  I think they're just analysing the effect of a company-focused union versus a wide-spectrum union. I don't think they're implying that there should be only a single union per company (it's probably not common in the US but that's common in other countries like Germany and pre-Thatcher UK).
- CountSessine 5y ago

pyuser583 5y ago

I’ve never seen (or heard of) a toxic workplace becoming less toxic by unionization. Better pay? Yes. Better benefits? Yea. Less chaos? Yes. Less toxicity? Unions give the workers a bigger say. That’s it. How toxic are your coworkers? If they’re toxic … unionizing won’t help. If they’re not toxic … unionizing still probably won’t help. Unions are about pooling together for a better negotiating position. That doesn’t make anything less toxic. For example, will the union support using H1B visa workers? Amazon had a lot of H1B tech workers. That could get very toxic very fast.

treeman79 5y ago
My dads experience at Boeing. Unions equal cut brake lines. He was terrified of crossing theme
- SixDouble5321 5y ago
  Unions can't hope to eliminate thugs.
guerrilla 5y ago
> How toxic are your coworkers? If they’re toxic … unionizing won’t help. If they’re not toxic … unionizing still probably won’t help. This isn't really true. Unions typically negotiate for baseline working conditions, which can include protection from abuse and such things. "Toxicity" could easily fall under that and does in many (if not most?) workplaces in Sweden.
- pyuser583 5y ago
  If the person making your work life toxic is also a union member (and denies it), it puts the union in an awkward position. In practice, the union can negotiate disciplinary rules. However they tend to focus on protecting workers from discipline. There are some practices they can’t/won’t give much protection to, like misusing company funds. Some unions have offered less protection when accusations of racism and sexism are involved, but employers have learned to abuse that. Read about the firing of Donald McNeil by the New York Times to get an idea of how cowardly, social-justice focused unions can majorly screw up by not defending their members. So if the person making your life miserable is a coworker who constantly denigrates you, unions might be more focused on helping them than you.