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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 f

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
  Amazon Web Services won't have a union because support for unionization among Amazon's developers is low. Amazon will split itself in two before this happens. My prediction - warehouses that unionize will get split off into separate companies and be contracted out to by Amazon.com, the store. But they rely on Amazon.com for so much of their tech that they'll be beholden to them and have no leverage in negotiations. Warehouse workers will be even worse off than they are today.

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
Amazon Web Services won't have a union because support for unionization among Amazon's developers is low. Amazon will split itself in two before this happens. My prediction - warehouses that unionize will get split off into separate companies and be contracted out to by Amazon.com, the store. But they rely on Amazon.com for so much of their tech that they'll be beholden to them and have no leverage in negotiations. Warehouse workers will be even worse off than they are today.