5 ms·

Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been around since what, 94? So 6 years is ov

Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been around since what, 94? So 6 years is over 20% of the time Amazon has existed.

k__ 4y ago
So, if a company exist 1 year and someone worked there for 6 months, they're a veteran?
- zoover2020 4y ago
  Relative to the company, yes
- MobiusHorizons 4y ago
  It’s not a technical term, so it’s always going to be somewhat of a matter of opinion. If I had to guess, you could only really be described as a veteran at some company if you had been there longer than most other employees. It seems like at least 60 or 70% of the employees should be newer.
baitedandrated 4y ago
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
Fair point. I just found it to be an interesting choice of words. Whenever they use the same term, in other industries, they are talking about double-digit tenures. The main point is that this is a fairly unambiguous message to other managers, that allowing unionization to happen under their watch would be a careericidal offense. That means that they can expect the warehouse managers to get pretty desperate, and probably break all kinds of laws and whatnot. It's just that the message is being sent in a way that allows the company to keep their hands clean, from the almost certain results. The managers will certainly get fired, if unionization happens, and might get fired, if they get caught, spiking the trees. Guess which path the managers are likely to take?
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Amazon's done this with most of their functions. Push expectations: claim no responsibility for outcome. Walmart laid out the playbook that profits in a thin margin market require you being an asshole to your counterparties, but blackmailing them into still working with you via scale.
- jachee 4y ago
  > That means that they can expect the warehouse managers to get pretty desperate… It would seem to make sense for all the warehouse managers themselves to form their own union.

Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been around since what, 94? So 6 years is over 20% of the time Amazon has existed.

k__ 4y ago

So, if a company exist 1 year and someone worked there for 6 months, they're a veteran?

zoover2020 4y ago
Relative to the company, yes
MobiusHorizons 4y ago
It’s not a technical term, so it’s always going to be somewhat of a matter of opinion. If I had to guess, you could only really be described as a veteran at some company if you had been there longer than most other employees. It seems like at least 60 or 70% of the employees should be newer.

baitedandrated 4y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

Fair point. I just found it to be an interesting choice of words. Whenever they use the same term, in other industries, they are talking about double-digit tenures. The main point is that this is a fairly unambiguous message to other managers, that allowing unionization to happen under their watch would be a careericidal offense. That means that they can expect the warehouse managers to get pretty desperate, and probably break all kinds of laws and whatnot. It's just that the message is being sent in a way that allows the company to keep their hands clean, from the almost certain results. The managers will certainly get fired, if unionization happens, and might get fired, if they get caught, spiking the trees. Guess which path the managers are likely to take?

ethbr0 4y ago
Amazon's done this with most of their functions. Push expectations: claim no responsibility for outcome. Walmart laid out the playbook that profits in a thin margin market require you being an asshole to your counterparties, but blackmailing them into still working with you via scale.
jachee 4y ago
> That means that they can expect the warehouse managers to get pretty desperate… It would seem to make sense for all the warehouse managers themselves to form their own union.